I was so thankful to be selected as one of the recipients of the CDCTA event scholarship for 2026. The timing was perfect to apply it to my trip to Aiken in March & April.
First a little background on me and my current ride, Divi. I have been riding, training and teaching for about 40 years now but most of it was in the hunter, jumper, and equitation rings. However, I should have known I was an eventer at heart when I used to get in trouble for sneaking my hunter horses out in the woods to jump natural obstacles. I finally mostly made the switch in 2009 ish and have been lucky enough to have a series of horses loaned to me for most of that time. In the last 7 years or so, I spent a lot of time trying to train my homebred mare to event (she didn’t want to), and trying to keep other horses, including my gelding Max, sound (he isn’t).
So last fall, I was happy to take on a care lease in the form of Dividend, a 12 yo TB who was originally pulled from the track at 4 by my sometimes trainer Kiki Osborne, but now belongs to Jordan Henderson, a young adult headed out on a gap year and then off to college. He’s a very good boy who tries to do the right things but hasn’t had a lot of exposure to proper eventing work and is cautious by nature.
We planned our trip to Aiken before we even knew how terrible the winter weather would be but we were very glad to get down there onto good footing with so many opportunities around. We trained with my friend and used to be sometimes trainer, Andrea Waldo. She really helped us make a big change from very basic footwork into actually jumping around Beginner Novice in the ring and out on XC. We did lessons and schooled at Full Gallop, Dara Knot, Stable View and Bruce’s Field as well as having a great ride in Hitchcock woods. Divi gained so much experience and confidence from this whole experience that I have some hope that we will be out eventing this year and have a half an eye on qualifying for the long format 3 day at Waradaca this fall. We will see you out there.