Year End Review at ACTC 2003:
Another eventful year at Aspen Creek Training Center has almost come and gone. We have improved the facility and fields continually over the year. To meet one of our goals – keeping our horses in the most natural environment possible – we have added another 30 acres of grassland, for a total of 60 acres. Now most of the horses are living in herds and it’s just a pleasure to watch these horses running around with their buddies.
Lots of our riders are enjoying the new race track we put in
around one of our fields, which even includes a few jumps to prepare for
eventing.
Early in the summer, two wonderful fillies were born here, one sired by Arius
and the other by Sir Erik – both are doing very well. We sold a number of
horses, but brought a few new ones in too.
There are some new faces at ACTC from across Alberta – we have riders coming to train with us from Edmonton, Rocky Mountain House and Red Deer.
The ultimate goal of ACTC is to provide excellent service delivered by highly certified and educated people. ACTC strives to provide the best all-round training for horse and rider as well as independency for the rider. It’s a case of quality – not quantity! The training service is covering dressage, jumping, eventing and Vaulting. We are giving more longing lessons than ever – because the positive results are so obvious! Cavaletti or poles are always on the ground for the purpose of gymnastic training for the horse. Grid and course jumping, as well as training possibilities for eventing in different locations such as Millarville or Cochrane is still a big part of our training program.
We are happy to say that ACTC had another successful show season at recognized shows. The outcome has been quite a few Champions this year. In fact, Courtney Davis and her pony Callie won the 2003 Hunter Champion. The Alberta Provincial Championship in Amberlea, Edmonton was another great success.
Ø Patty Hambling and Titan won the 2003 First Level Championship.
Ø Claudia von dem Bussche and her stallion Picasso won the 2003 Level 3 Champion ship.
Ø Loni Ferschweiler on Missy won the 2003 Training Level Reserve Champion.
Ø Allegra Hohm on Bullwinkle placed third the 2003 Training Level
Ø
Claudia and Picasso were also Reserve Champions for the
Province of British Columbia
and Reserve Champions for
the Pacific Region, a National Canadian Title.
ACTC is very proud to announce that Pia (the daughter of Dagmar Fortmuller) has
received in February 2003 the GILLIAN WILSON AWARD – and was therefore
the CEF JUNIOR OF THE YEAR 2002.
Pia went again this year with Alascan to represent the young rider of Canada at
the Coupe des Ameriques in Bromont. It was the first year for her competing for
the Young Riders. Although she didn’t win a medal, as last year for the junior
riders, she did very well. Pia say’s that she gained a lot of new experience
competing against the best young riders from all over South, Central, North
America and the Caribbean’s.
Since September 2003 Pia went together with her horse “Donagna” to
Germany and will work and train for the next year at ‘Stall Tasdorf” (near
Hamburg) to further her training.
"Tasdorf Stable" is a successful Trakehner breeding and
training facility, has jumper and dressage trainers who are coaching at
different levels. The owner is “Petra Wilms”. She is riding Dressage at
the international level in Germany. Pia’s head coach for the
Dressage Training is "Rudolf Brumme" who twice won the German championship.
She rides a range of horses from unbroken to Grand Prix level. Next season, Pia
will travel with Petra and ride at the bigger dressage shows. We look forward to
her coming home after the great experience that she will go through.
We are continuing to support our riders with clinics
and educational events. Many ACTC riders took advantage of
the clinics offered this year.
Ø
First, we hosted again twice this
year the Albrecht Heidemann Clinic.. Mr. Heidemann teaches junior and
young riders in Canada.
The first clinic was a big success
because two of our ACTC students, Mileah
Bodde and Allegra Hohm, were successfully evaluated for the FEI Junior /Young
Riders Program. We’re excited to watch their riding careers.
Ø
In
order to give all ACTC students
(young and oldJ),
a chance to see how far they have come in their training and to enjoy a
different high level dressage trainer, ACTC
offered another clinic.
This
clinic
was held by
top clinician
Jan Treptow from
Germany. Mr. Treptow is a professional Trainer (Pferdewirtschaftsmeister) in
Germany, riding at the Grand Prix level. He has been trained by ‘Rudolf
Zeilinger’ and others. After the clinic Mr. Treptow said, that he was happy to
see that all of the riders seem to have a great understanding of the classical
training.
Here are a few
comments from ACTC riders:
“He was really good at working through problems, rather than expecting the rider
to already be there.”
“Jan was calm and had a good way of getting the point across to younger
riders.”
Ø
Romany Pinto from Surrey, an
international vaulter who represents Canada, held two
vaulting clinics this year at ACTC. Our vaulting program also continues and is
going very well. The Big Rock Vaulters have been performing at demonstrations
and competing. We now have a wonderful new vaulting horse, Cheeco, who will
allow the children to develop to the next step –vaulting in canter.
For the first time this year, ACTC hosted summer camps, one for the
intermediate and young riders, and the other for vaulters. Both camps
were lots of learning and fun, including a sleepover and a night walk to see
and listen to the horses at night..
We held our first schooling show in dressage, jumping and included our first vaulting competition. It was a good learning experience for the future because we are hoping to host recognized shows for all three disciplines. There were as many as 20 competitors in various classes and some great prizes that were won.
The Vaulting Part: Groups from Olds (Meadow Creek Vaulting Club) and Rocky Mtn. House joined our first vaulting competition, in fact the first one in Alberta . There might have been one where Jo Selinger, from JES Equestrian Center. had a group once, but we are not sure.
However, the vaulting was judged by Susan Barron from B.C.
She is training on an international level and was very excited to see how
much vaulting in Alberta is growing. Susan was especially thrilled to see how
many boys are vaulting here - something what they say is not that usual in the
Sport of Vaulting – although the leading Canadian vaulter is a male (Colin
Schmidt)! He will come out in January to hold the next Coaching Clinic for
Vaulting.
In order to promote the sport of Equestrian
Vaulting in Alberta even further, the process of starting a Provincial
Association is in progress.
It is a fantastic Sport and one that is growing in
popularity all the time. Next year there will be a Provincial Competition in Red
Deer - the AEF (Alberta Equestrian Federation) are organizing the Alberta
Equestrian Games and Vaulting will be a part of it.
Our clinics, camps and shows will continue in 2004!
Everyone is very excited about it and offered their help!
Looking back… it was again a year with tons of new things and excitement! We have fantastic horses and clients, the atmosphere is great and the students are eager and motivated to learn even more about classical training. The students and horses have improved a lot. It is now becoming so much easier to get across the basic understanding of the important points of classical training. It’s such a delight to see and watch the students in between the lessons since almost everyone is more and more able to work their horses independently.
We are celebrating the end of this exciting year with the upcoming Christmas Team Fun Festival on Dec.14th, which will bring all riders together. Offered is the team quadrille, team jumping (relay race), Equitation Team and a fun part – Teams are running unmounted through the length of the arena. The intention is to cheer each other on and have a lot of fun riding together
Ø Happy New Year and Happy Riding from everyone at ACTC !