Monday, April 15, 2013

ride baby ride

Have you ever heard the saying that says your life is like a train and every person in your life represents a passenger? Those passengers get on your train and off again at any station along the track. Some may ride with you till the end of the track, others will only join you for a couple stops. Well, I always really agreed with this point of view and today even more. Lauren's winter here is over and yesterday I said goodbye to my lovely ponies and off course to 2 of my new friends My and Denise. They left with 8 horses, en route to Miami-Amsterdam-UK. Since I'm only 19 (u gotta be 21) I couldn't fly with the horses so I helped packing, cleaned up the last things once they were gone and I fly home tomorrow. Ok, enough with the plans, back to my train story. The reason I can relate to it so much here is because you meet the greatest variety of people during WEF. People with all sorts of backgrounds, nationalities etc. and they all have a different story. The people here who are my age or a bit older have already been to so many different places all over the world, it's amazing. And not just on holiday, they actually lived and worked there. We all come together here for 12 weeks and we are a bit sad when we then all spread out again. But it leaves you with friends in the most amazing places. (Ecuador, Sweden, France, Argentina etc etc). I learned so much this winter, about myself not the least, thanks to them. It makes my life feel so much richer! I know I could never give up on traveling. Even tho I hate the sight of an empty, packed up barn or house. It means another chapter is over, my train passed another station. Some of my passengers got off (for good or temporarily, only the future knows) and some just got on. I for sure am sad to leave this station since it was a big one and it taught me so much, but I'm also super excited for the next piece of my track and the next station!! I hope you join me for the ride!

Let's ride baby! Adios!












Friday, April 12, 2013

the marvelous story of Maggie magpie

Lets start from the beginning. For quite some years now, Lauren shares a barn down here in wellyworld with fellow GP rider Jeffery Welles. Each winter, Lauren flies her horses in from Europe and Jeffery's horses come down from New York. All the same this year except for an additional little princes who came down with Jeffery's horses this year; Maggie. A tiny, round, adorable miniature horse with an attitude at least twice her size. (Gareth and Jeffery rescued her) I say round because Maggie megpie was not particularly skinny. So the little one got put on a suiting little diet and all was good. Except for the fact that she just wouldn't loose that roundness. I mean, she got in shape and everything just that belly..! A few weeks ago, the breaking news came thru.. Poor little Maggie wasn't round from grass & grain; she was carrying a baby!!! Excitement filled the barn as everyone pictured a baby Maggie. That would for sure be he cutest thing ever. But along came the worries.. Miniature horses are famous for having lots of issues giving birth, it's not uncommon for the mum or the foal to not make it thru. Besides, nobody had (and still hasn't!) a clue who, or rather what, got her pregnant! Specialists were contacted and plans were made. Things got a little more relaxed when (last week) they said it would be at least 3 to 4 more weeks. Phew, enough time to set up a baby camera in the stall etc etc. s
So, Thursday morning started just like any other day. It was still early, around 8.30, and we were all finishing up the stalls and Jeffery and some others just got on their first horses of the day. Now, before I continue I should mention the following in case you don't know Jeffery.. Sometimes, when something goes wrong, Jeffery can get a little.. worried. This usually happens when their lovely English bull is about to eat someone or so and in that occasional event, he will yell. Mostly for Gareth or Patrice to come to the rescue but that's not the point. The point is the yelling. Jeffery manages to scream in a way you think someone is getting seriously hurt. (Or that Mavis is already halfway thru someone's leg.) well, this Thursday morning I was listening to my iPod inside the barn and suddenly I heard Jeffery scream. I automatically dropped everything I was holding (in this case a pitchfork and the bars of the wheelbarrow) and ran outside the stall pulling out my earplugs. Jeffery was screaming even harder now, for Gareth, Patrice and even just 'somebody' to get out there. The scary part was that he was also screaming for someone to call the vet. Well, I, together with everybody else in the barn, ran outside fearing the worst. Who knew we would find right about the cutest sight ever out there in the paddock?! Right there in the paddock stood little Maggie.. With a little foal coming out..!! We were all watching in complete awe. She knew exactly what to do and everything was going so perfect! To hell with problematic births and possible casualties, Magpie was doing great!! A little bit later we could welcome the newest addiction to the triton family! Beautiful TINY Nutmeg, welcome to the world! I'm sure Gareth, auntie Patrice and obviously Jeffery will take care of you in the very best way they can :)











Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Winter circuit is officially a wrap and that means we can say RIP WEF'13 (and bye to Magdalena's Mexican food, fresh French crêpes etc etc :( ) As I expected, the plans have changed. Again. I am now flying straight home and back to Sloane in Virginia ASAP. I hate packing especially when it's packing to leave a nice place. The sight of all our things stuffed together in trunks and suitcases waiting to be put on the truck to the airport.. It just always makes me sad. But obviously the end of WEF does mean a few less stressful days at the barn and those are very very welcome. So here are some pics of the last days in beautiful Florida! (Beautiful morning..beach day..riding quick study..)





Saturday, April 6, 2013

My name is Liza, I'm 19 years old and I was born in a little land by the sea called the Netherlands. Even tho this makes me Dutch by passport, I don't have very strong ties with my home country; I love traveling the world and being a true world citizen. (If I do have to pick a home country, it would probably be the US of A. I love America and feel most at home here.)

This is not my first blog post.. I had blogs before but due to lack of time I did not really keep them up to date.. Now I just wanted to change the entire set up and start over. If you are interested in the few older posts (about my first few weeks here in Wellington, Florida working for Lauren Hough. Pics included, worth a peek!) the link is in the menu on the right of this post. :)

So, I'm Dutch, I work for American show jumper Lauren Hough and I currently live in Wellington, Florida. (For the winter  circuit. Which ended last week. Which means a big move is coming soon. RIP WEF'13)

This was my first full WEF, (I've been here 3 times before for a couple weeks; holiday, with Laura Kraut and with Lauren last year) and I loved it. It was definitely better than jumping in middle of it all around week 8, only to leave again week 11. But.. I'm also glad it's over. 12 weeks is pretty.. intense. To be honest, I can't wait to fly back to Europe and go to some of the 'home shows' again. Good old European style CSIs & CSIOs ;-) My schedule at the moment looks like this: Lauren's base for the summer will be England and the horses will fly around April 14. I will go with them to England and probably to the first two shows (Jumping Antwerp & CSI Lummen, both in Belgium) and then finally....home!!! I'll go back to Holland for about 2 weeks and thoroughly enjoy living a normal life for a bit. (shopping.. not getting up at 6 or earlier.. hmmm) But. I have a J1 visa for 12 months that started last October so it would be kind of a waste to only 'use' 5 months of those 12.. which is why I have decided to come back to the States after my little home-holiday and work for Sloane Coles! (--> en route to Middleburg, Virginia!) She's currently working with/for Lauren here in Florida so we got to know each other quite a bit during WEF and I think my summer there will be great fun.

That is about as far ahead as I can see so I guess that's it for this first post. Plans here tend to change every lets say.. 2 days.. so I will for sure come with updates soon ;-)

Thanks for checking in!

xoxo Liza

PS. That's me on Cicero aka Sir aka Barbie horse! So gorgeous. (Eirin Bruheim lucky owner)