May Dressage Letters

May 2021 ~ Dressage Letters ~ Page 4 Carmel Valley Chapter Report 2020 Jennifer Nuckton, Susan Baxter ~ Co-Chairs What a year 2020 was! Carmel Valley CDS had lots of plans and just like almost everything else, they were cancelled due to COVID-19. It’s interesting as I review the calendar for 2020, what starts as a jam packed January and February becomes a quite unscheduled March and from then on every event has “CA” next to it. I left all my plans in the calendar to reflect on when the pandemic passes and we can go back to normal. In January, the Annual Meeting in Sacramento was attended by Jennifer Nuckton who was also receiving her Horse-Performance awards at four levels for Bonno. The CV Chapter created three baskets for the silent auction accumulating $525 for the CDS Scholarship. The symposium with Janet Foy and Terry Gallo on Freestyles was educational and fun. The first planned event of the year was scheduled for March 15. It was our annual tack swap in conjunction with the Equine Educational Alliance schooling show at the Carmel Valley Trail and Saddle Club (CVT&SC). This spring event normally brings the whole horse community together to socialize, sell and shop for horsey bargains. The clubhouse room is normally bursting and bustling with tack and riders. Of course we couldn’t go forward with this and I still have trunks and bins full of fun treasures in my storage till the time comes we feel safe to swap again! Many of our board members splurged for the VIP tickets and made a plan to attend the World Cup Dressage and Jumping finals in Las Vegas Nevada in April. We held out hope till the very end, but of course that will have to wait for another time. Horse shows were cancelled. Zoom became the regular meeting format and Face Time was used more and more to try to stay connected with friends and family. Those of us lucky enough to have horses to care for were lucky enough to be allowed to ride and most of us were allowed to continue training as well. In May slowly and carefully, things started to open up and show protocols were created. The chapter jumped to sponsor local shows. Of course our bank was a bit fuller than usual, as we hadn’t used anything on parties! We were able to send Gretta Williams and Lilli Anne Price to the Amateur clinic with Kathleen Raine in October. Debbie Fosmark and Gretta Williams went to RAAC in Paso Robles and both had great success with Debbie winning Training and second at First level and Gretta in first place at Intermediaire 1. On our agenda for years has been to create a disaster plan. We have had multiple meetings and worked to coordinate with the SPCA to create a workable disaster plan. Of course fires were at the top of the list. After the Santa Barbara fires and hearing first hand reports from that chapter, we continued to pursue a plan. There are so many horses spread throughout the Peninsula; the task of organizing a unified plan was overwhelming. In the end we determined it should be up to each facility to create a plan and hoped that all would pitch in to help. On August 16th, we got a chance to see if our plans were sufficient. The River Fire followed closely by the Carmel Fire and then the Dolan Fire had our entire community on fire. What I saw happen was incredible. The horse community jumped in to help and keep animals safe as we tried to keep them out of harms way. Ironically, many of the horses were taken to the Marina Equestrian Center. The stables in Marina have recently been in the news as the plan is to shut it down and evict all boarders in the next 60 days. It was a huge blessing that the center was still available as one of the main large animal evacuation sites for both the River and the Carmel Fires. I believe this directly impacted the decision to keep this self-care facility open. Horses were also provided refuge at Pebble Beach Equestrian Center, The Monterey Fairgrounds and the Salinas Rodeo Grounds. Many of us moved our horses more than once as safe havens became warning sites and then moved to mandatory evacuation. The community did a wonderful job pulling together and it was a huge relief when our horses were safely back at home. September 14th was our one and only meeting this year! It was of course a Zoom meeting and the topic was the fires and each of our experiences and how to improve our disaster plan. We decided to create a “Disaster Phone Tree.” We have designated several “central hubs” who have access to the list of barns with contact information, number of horses to be moved or accepted and how much transportation help each facility can provide. The central hubs will act as coordinators and make sure all our horses have places to go and a way to get there for future disasters. November 15th we managed to help put on a super fun social distanced schooling show in coordination with the EEA. And in December, Paula Langan helped us all learn by judging in our much delayed (was scheduled for May) “Ride it Again” Clinic. For a “cancel everything year” this letter is pretty jam-packed. I’m happy to announce our Board will remain in place for 2021 and we hope to have a fun, productive and educational year. Delta Sierra Chapter Report 2020 Cassey Mello ~ Chapter Chair For a small chapter covering the central valley as well as the Sierra foothills, Delta Sierra had a good year in 2020. We were able to nominate riders for the Adult Amateur Clinic as well as the JR/YR clinic. Our Adult Amateur rider was very happy to have the opportunity and had a huge learning experience. Our JR/YR unfortunately was not able to attend with Covid in full swing. A number of our members attended CDS rated shows throughoutthe year as well as the CDS Championships held at Del Mar. We also had JR members volunteer for the Championship show who were glad to help and enjoyed the experience. We continue to move the chapter forward with the belief that dressage and classical training are beneficial to all riders and we will continue to create opportunities to share that as much as possible East Bay Chapter Report 2020 Amanda Mcdonell ~ Chapter Chair 2020 was an uneventful year for the East Bay Chapter between the pandemic and only two members on the board. We had plans of running several events through the year, such as a seat/biomechanics clinic, western saddlery sale, social events, and a clinic and was looking into a Pleasanton venue for future club events. These plans came to a halt when shelter in place hit and we never got a chance to revisit those ideas until 2021. However, we now finally have a new board in place after several past board members stepped up to revive the chapter. Our next meeting is the beginning of May and we are looking forward to getting the ball rolling again!