Robin and Wilson Groves Article

All of us have been lucky to run across Robin and Wilson Grove.
Most of us have competed with Robin and Wilson. 
Many of us have taken lessons with Robin and Wilson.
Some of us have even had horses trained by them. 
I believe the term is " my horse has been Groverized " !
Here is a great article about the great duo.

Enjoy
Douglas Bejarano

http://www.drivingdigest.com/articles/149-going-the-distance

Who is looking at our web site ?

Good afternoon! I wanted to send VERDA some positive feedback- I was teaching an environmental science lesson to some elementary students this past weekend, and when they were doing a natural resource webquest they ended up on your webpage (this page here http://www.verda.org/html/links.html) They thought I should tell you we were using the land conservation links there and found some great information so thanks :) we enjoyed learning about horse riding as well!

The kids also decided it would be nice of us to return the favor, so I had them pick out a good conservation page for us to share with you!

"Home Science: Backyard Conservation" - https://www.homeadvisor.com/r/home-science-backyard-conservation/
It has lots of great information for kids on conservation so they thought it'd be a helpful link for you to add to the land conservation sites on that page they found... would you be able to? They'd be so proud and I'd love to show them their suggestion :) Thanks so much and have a wonderful day!!

Sincerely,
Miss Ainsworth and Lauren, Ashlee, Jordan, and Lane

Year End Awards for 2017

High Point VERDA Rider attending Vermont rides

January Thaw 25 CTR  Ride       Jenny Kimberly 

                       25 CTR Drive       Robin Groves

Brown Bag    15 CTR                  Sara Lareau 

                       25 CTR                 Rhonda Batchelder

Bare Bones   30 Endurance         Cynthia Seames

                      50 Endurance         Steve Rojek

GMHA Spring 25 CTR               Rhonda Batchelder

GMHA Spring Endurance 

                          25 Mile             Susan Boyer 

                          50 Mile             Dedra Fisk

Moonlight Endurance
                         50 Mile             Haley Abbott

                         75 Mile             Heather Hoyns

                        100 Mile            N A 

GMHA August CTR

                         50 mile            Cathrine Demick

                         day 1 25          Kathy Callen-Rondeau

                         day 2 25          Nancy Gaynor

                         drive 25          Robin Groves

GMHA Distance Days

                        3 day 100       Steve Rojek

                        3 day 75         Sarah MacDonald

                        2 day 60         Nancy Gaynor

                        1 day 40         N A 

                        1 day 35         Haley Abbott

                        1 day 25         Chelsea Bouchard

VERDA Silver Hill CTR 25 Susan Boyer 

Warren Tessier 30 CTR        Debra Fisk

GMHA fall Endurance 

                         30 Mile        Kat Waters

                         50 Mile        Debra Fisk 

Kedron Fall Foliage 30

                        Ride             Rhonda Batchelder 

                        Drive           Wilson Grove 

VERDA YEAR END AWARDS 

High Score Rider               Debra Fisk 

             2nd                        Rhonda Batchelder 

             3rd                        Susan Boyer 

             4th                        Steven Rojek 

             5th                        Kat Waters 

             6th                        Catherine Demick

             7th tie                   Susan Boyer 

             7th tie                   Suzette Fagan

             9th                        Nancy Barci

High Mileage Rider           Debra Fisk 

             2nd                        Rhonda Batchelder 

             3rd                        Steven Rojek 

             4th                        Kat Waters 

             5th                        Catherine Demick

             6th tie                   Susan Boyer 

             6th tie                   Suzette Fagan

             8th                        Marlene Bottesi

             9th tie                  Anne Marie Savino

             9th  tie                 Sarah MacDonald

High point Horse               DB Prophet

             2nd                        Steelpiece One Night only 

             3rd                        Texas Sonset

             4th                        High Brook Quintessential

             5th                        SB Socrates

             6th                        Psynammon's Reilly 

             7th                        Tupelo Ace

             8th                        Dioner 

             9th                        Daystar Bentley

High Point Driver             Robin Groves 

           2nd                         Wilson Groves 

           3rd                          Jenny Kimberly 

High Point Junior             Haley Abbott 

         2nd                          Olivia Turney 

BREED AWARDS 

High Point Arab              DB Prophet owner Deb Fisk 

High Point 1/2 Arab        Texas Sonset  owner Catherine Demick 

High Point Morgan          Steelpeice One Night Only owner Rhonda Batchelder 

High Point Grade             Dioner owner Sarah MacDonald 

 

New Changes for 2014

Juniors ride for $10.00 per day!

 This ride special for 2014 means any junior can enter out 15 mile or 25 mile CTR rides or a 30 or 50 mile endurance for only $10 bucks. Do a two day ride for $20.00 and the 3 day 100 for $30.00 !!!

Horse mileage program ends! 

 Our Data base for horse mileage has disappeared in to cyber space. We have had many discussions trying to see if we can bring it back but technology wise and personnel to do it is just an impossible task for our club. If you have signed up this year for mileage you will be refunded. As a consolation any horse a member rides will automatically gain points for the year for the year end high point breed award. You no longer have to registrar the horses you plan to ride. VERDA will be giving awards for Arab, Half Arab, Morgan and Grade.

2013 thaw Ride Results

We had a Real Thaw this year and on the scheduled date The cold weather early in the week broke the night before the ride and and the temps came up to a manageable 30. This years surprise was we
3 times more people in the 15 miler than the 25 mile ride.

January Thaw Ride/Drive Results

Drive

Champion:               Robin Groves & UVM Worthy

Reserve Champion: Wilson Groves & Marty

Ride

Champion:               Wendy Bejarano & Ziggy

Reserve Champion: Jenny Kimberly & Marshal

1^st:                           Erin Lowe & Callie

15 Mile CDR

Jr: Gail Morse & TD Shadow Dancer

Ruth Ferland & Bie-Kin

Christina Phillips & SHG Jonas

Jennifer Ehler & RG Black Fletcher

Chip Kendall & Burt

Anne Marie Savino & Annie

Marlene Bottesi & Dixie Dee

Roxanne Winslow & Ali Kazem

Liz Tallberg

 

2012 Year End Awards

2012 VERDA members

top VERDA finisher(s) in each ride

January Thaw                      Courtney Walker

                                            Connie Walker

January Thaw Drive            Robin Groves

GMHA Mud Ride               Alice Bradeen

GMA Mud Drive                Connie Walker

Brown Bag                          Deb Fisk

Bare Bones                          Courtney Walker

GMHA June 25 Ride          Deb Fisk

GMHA June 25 Drive       Jenny Kimberly

GMHA July 25 Sat. Ride   Ray Johnson

GMHA July 25 Sat Drive  Wilson Groves

GMHA July 25 Sun Ride   Nancy Okun

GMHA July 25 Sun Drive Wilson Groves

GMHA 2 day 50 Ride        Gene Limlaw

GMHA 2 day 50 Drive      Jenny Kimberly

VT 100 Endurance            Christina Phillips

Moonlight in VT 50          Gene Limlaw

VERDA 100 Drive           Robin Groves

VERDA 40 Drive            Wilson Groves

VERDA 40 Ride              Deb Fisk

VERDA 35 Drive            Wilson Groves

VERDA 35 Ride              Carrie Tenney

VERDA 25 Drive            Larry Smith

VERDA 25 Ride              Deb Fisk

GMHA 3 day 100            Marlene Bottesi

GMHA 2 day 60              Rhonda Batchelder

GMHA 40                       Anne Marie Savino

Warren Tessier                Carol Metayer

GMHA 50                       Deb Fisk

GMHA LD                     Wendy Bejarano

VERDA 30 Ride            Christina Phillips

VERDA 30 Drive          Robin Groves

2012 VERDA YEAR END AWARDS

DRIVERS

Champion Wilson Groves

Reserve Champion Robin Groves

1^st Doug Bejarano

2^nd Clark Tharrett

3^rd Jenny Kimberly

4^th Lorraine Thurber

5^th Larry Smith

6^th Scott Monahan

RIDERS

Champion Deb Fisk

Reserve Champion Anne Marie Savino

1^st Christina Phillips

2^nd Steve Rojek

3^rd Rhonda Batchelder

4^th Gene Limlaw

5^th Courtney Walker

6^th Carrie Tenney

7^th Carol Metayer

8^th Heather Hoyns

9^th Suzette Fegan

10^th Ray Johnson

JUNIORS

Champion                        Leah Titus

Reserve Champion          Olivia Turney

High Mileage Rider        Christina Phillips

High Mileage Drive        Wilson Groves

High Point Morgan         Little Acre Prince Andrew

High Point Arab              DB Prophet

High Point ½ Arab         Zainal

High Point Grade           Dixie Dee

Help Wanted for 2013

VERDA needs more volenteers!
We need managers for the VERDA 30 and the 100-15 Drive and Ride Along

Meeting secretary to take notes

VERDA news post person!

Always can use P & R people, water crew and scribes at rides!

2012-2013 winter meetings

Join us while we plan the upcoming years events. Meetings start with a pot luck at 6:30

November 13th    GMHA
December 11th    Polly Smiths
January 8th          Evergreen Equine clinic Dr Hoyns
February 16th      Brownsville Historical soc. Awards Banquet
March 11th          Polly Smiths
April 9th              Polly Smiths

2012 Thaw Ride Results

Riders

Place score Riders Horse

1 100 Courtney Walker Picaboo Street
1 100 Connie Walker Hermoiner Granger
1 100 Erin Lowe Callista Rain
4 99 Christina Phillips Sir Douglas
5 96.75 Heather Hoyns Zainal
6 94.5 Jenny Kimberly Shyrocco Lyric

Juniors
1 98.5 Leah Titus Dixie Dee

Drivers

1 99.5 Robin Groves Derwanda Ricardo
2 97.5 Wilson Groves RG Black Fletcher

New Beginners Clinic

Date : May 11^th 2012 Location : Cornish Town Hall

From 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Cornish NH (RT

Come learn about the exiting sports of Competitive Trail Riding and Endurance riding. This clinic

will provide information about the care, fitness and preparation of your horse for these sports. With hands on experience you can learn about pacing, the vetting process, taking your horses pulse and what can and can not be used. You will observe the actual vetting in process for the following days Brown Bag 25 CTR with the instructor. Then we will finish with a questions and answer panel with judges, managers and competitors.

Contact Douglas Bejarano 802 484 3406 or Doug@SethWarren.com

GMHA Winter Seminar

March 1, 2012 Ellen Tully 802 457 1509

GREEN MOUNTAIN HORSE ASSOCIATION HOSTS WINTER EDUCATIONAL SEMINAR

South Woodstock, VT: In keeping with their mission to provide education, GMHA will be hosting a full day of equine related seminars starting with “Aiding Vermont’s Horses” presented by Gina Brown, Director of Spring Hill Horse Rescue. Topics of “Colic: How to Make Life-saving Decisions” and “Is it Just a Cough” will be presented by Dr. Daniela Bedenice of Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Seminar is geared toward horse owners and horse enthusiasts, but all are welcomed.

Saturday March 17^th

Tickets are $20/GMHA Members; $30/Non-GMHA Members, lunch is included.

RSVPs are required by March 12th. Full details can be viewed at www.gmhainc.org or by calling: 802-457-1509

New Meeting location

Polly Smith has opened her home up for the rest of the winter meetings.
January, March and Aprils meeting will be held at her home on Hammond Hill Rd
in West Windsor VT.
Directions:
From RT 44 in Brownsville turn north on to the Hartland Brownsville RD
drive a couple of miles to the third road on the right. Polly's is the first house on
the right. Note don't take the second road on the right that is the wrong end of Hammond hill!

VERDA MEETINGS 2011-12

Its time for our winter meetings to start.
Meetings will be held on the second Tuesday of the month from November to April. The meetings will be at the GMHA members room with food being served at 6:30 and the meeting starting at 7:00. The November meeting we will supply Pizza and the other meetings will be pot luck. The Febuary meeting will be replaced by the awards banquet. If you around we would love to see you there!

First meeting Tuesday November 8th 2011

Leland passes on

Anne Marie Savino had to put Leland down after the GMHA 50. She assisted in the AERC mandatory necropsy and they found he suffered from a partial twist in his small intestine. It shows you can do everything right and still suffer a loss. If you would like to send Anne Marie a donation to help with these expenses please make out a check to VERDA and send them to 374 Coon Club Rd W. Windsor Vt 05089. You can also bring a donation to the Eatathon .

Our hearts also go out the Boyers who had to put Sparker down just before the weekend.

Eatathon in on the 29th

The eatathon will be in Cornish NH and will be on Saturday the 29th with a rain date of the 30th.
Contact Ruth Ferland ruthfrlnd@aol.com or Joy Axten ( Secretary ) axten@yahoo.com

recommendations from Agency of Ag

The Agency of Agriculture has received inquiries from veterinarians and livestock owners regarding feeding livestock feed that has been contaminated by flood waters. Please see below the Agency of Agriculture's current recommendation regarding feeding livestock flooded feed or allowing them to graze on flooded pasture. Hopefully, this information will be helpful to you when communicating with your clients.

At this time, the Agency of Agriculture is recommending that people not feed livestock (horses included) feed stuffs that have been inundated by flood waters. Additionally, allowing livestock to graze on pastures that have been flooded is not recommended. The Agency of Agriculture has received inquiries from livestock owners who have historically allowed their animals to graze on pastures that flood seasonally. People should remember that this flooding is different than seasonal flooding that has happened in the past because Irene flood waters are potentially contaminated with pesticides, hydrocarbons, pathogens (E. Coli, salmonella, etc), heavy metals, etc due to the involvement of waste water treatment plants and other facilities that may contain these substances under normal circumstances. Certainly, consumption of these materials by horses does not represent a potential (although as of yet, poorly defined) human health concern the way that consumption by food producing livestock does, but it certainly represents a potential threat to the health of that individual animal. We have heard recommendations like letting the pastures sit through several rain events to help "wash off" contaminants and mowing pastures and removing the cut grass to help minimize contamination. Unfortunately, we know from experiences in midwestern states that even after allowing soybean crops to undergo several rain washings, the obvious and micro-contamination is not fully removed. So, based on all of this info, the Agency of Agriculture is advising against feeding any flood-affected forage and feedstuffs. The Agency of Agriculture has submitted to FDA a proposal for mitigation of contaminants in feedstuffs including mycotoxins (aflatoxin, vomitoxin,zearalonone, ochratoxin), heavy metals (cadmium, mercury, lead), pathogenic bacteria and associated toxins (Salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7, Clostridium perfringens, botulinum), pesticides (organophosphates, chlorinated hydrocarbons), and PCBs. Once we receive feedback from FDA, additional recommendations from the Agency of Agriculture pertaining to the management of feed materials such as haylage, corn silage and pasture will be forthcoming. Please contact the Agency animal health office at (802)828-2421 if you have any questions on this update.

Please see the following recommendations for livestock owners that have been generated by the Livestock Care Standards Advisory Council (veterinary members on that Council include Dr. Kent Henderson, Dr. Ruth Blauwiekel, and Dr. Haas). Please feel free to forward this information as you see fit.

* All farmers, regardless of size or classification, are advised to contact their Farm Service Agency county office ASAP in order to gain time sensitive information on financial loan and grant programs, as well as information on USDA’s Livestock Indemnity Program.

* All livestock owners should be reviewing their herd health and vaccination protocols in consultation with their herd health or large animal veterinarian as these recommendations may have changed in light of the significant flooding seen with Hurricane Irene.

*All livestock farmers should be reviewing their business plans and identifying potential risks. If feed shortage is identified as a risk, then consider culling marginally productive animals or other outliers while beef prices are strong.

*All livestock owners should assess feed inventory and plan now for alternative feed supplies for the upcoming fall and winter.

* All farmers should communicate with their feed representatives regarding proper harvest and storage protocols to minimize losses between harvest and storage and to maximize feed productivity.

* All farmers should communicate with their financial lenders in order to investigate potential financial opportunities that may exist.

* Please visit the Vermont Agency of Agriculture’s website at www.vermontagriculture.com> to review other resources that would be helpful during the Irene-recovery period.

After Irene

Windsor County took a bad hit from Irene. Many roads and bridges in the area were washed out. GMHA's C & D barn were undermined and the cross country is covered in mud. They hope to open back up mid September. I haven't heard of any members with any great losses so I hope you are all OK. Ed Renolds did loose his well and told me he saw someones barn float by his kitchen window. Shirley Ouelette's pasture had a lot of mud added to it. Ruth Ferland's horse's made it in to the paper with an aerial shot of them stuck on an island in the middle of her pasture.

Most important is that the VERDA 30 trails are in good shape and will be held on the scheduled date of Sept. 17th. It is easy to get there from I-91. You may need to check on road closing if you are taking back roads to get there.

March Madness

We held the March Madness ride and drive to make up for the canceled January Thaw. It still looked like a January thaw with 4 foot snow banks, 2 feet of snow in the fields, but boy did we have mud! Many sections of road were almost impassible. Doug and Allen came close to sinking the water while Judges Dr Lisa Hanelt and Linda Glock looked for solid ground to observe the horses. Greenalls found us a great almost dry spot for the halfway hold. We had 10 horses start and 9 finish. 4 from Wendy Bejarano's barn plus Jeff Gardner stayed at Wendy's too!
Results

G.C. Wendy Bejarano on Biekin
Res. Connie Walker on VSC Otis
1 Gene Limlaw on Toby Bartlet's Windrush First Call
2 Ruth Ferland on Wendy's Zambisy's Red Comet
3 Jenny Kimberly on Dixie Dee
4 Joy Axten on Wendy's Jake
5 Yarrow Farnsworth on Wendy's Mecca Bey
6 Jeff Gardner on Gazelle

Thank You Thank You Thank You

At the last members meeting we presented the VERDA wish list and 3 members stepped right up and filled the list. So at the Brown Bag and Bare Bones rides VERDA will be using these great new toys.
A Big Thanks goes out to :
Lee Alexander who donated 4 new walky talkies
Linda Glock who donated a new ez up shelter
Jenny Kimberly who donated her 250 Gal. sap tank and a 300 gal water trough.
What a great bunch of members we have!

2010-2011 Winter Meetings

The winter meetings for VERDA

Date Location Food
October 5th GMHA Pizza

November 9th GMHA Pot Luck

December 14th GMHA Pot luck Christmas Party

January 11th GMHA Pot Luck

AWARDS Banquet
Febuary TBA West Windsor Historical Soc. Catered by Yates

March 8th GMHA Pot Luck

April 12th GMHA Pizza (last meeting )