Pam, Yes believe me, I’ve read all the previous pages. But still haven’t found all the answers on Melissa Cardinas Johnson. What happened, was she a rider for the USET? That’s the biggie! Did she represent our team?
MOBut does it have red lining? Remember, it seemed like a lot of navy coats with velvet collars had red linings! So, with the standard white shirt you look… oh, so patriotic! 
AAjumper do you free lance? Hopefully I will need your assistance. Not because of too much rain but because the property deall came through.
This is just amazing. I rode with Mr. Harris and Katrina (she used to scare the living daylights out of me!), then Don Swan, Leslie Oertly and then Kenny Nordstom (when he was dating Leslie.) I understand Katrina is living near Joan Irvine Smith.
Interesting enough, I went back to riding at the OC Fairgrounds about a year ago. I guess if horses are in your blood they always will stay there.
Regarding the OC Fairgrounds, there’s some talk that all the horses and trainers will be relocated to the El Toro Marine base equestrian center after they completing refurbish it into (alledgely)a world class equestrian facility. The time frame for this to happen is between 3 to 5 years.
Are any of you still riding??? Here’s a pic of me at Indio this year.
Thanks Coreen for the offer to borrow your other Jilly Cooper books. The video sounds perfect too. Rainey Friday nite slumber party with popcorn.
Some of the Horsey Moms (who also ride) out at the barn have thought that it might be a good idea to ressurect the slumber party for those of us older who still feel 15 
We could watch all the horsey movies we loved as kids… 
Do any of you remember the movie Gallant Bess about a horse during WWII? It was a real tear-jerker but what a great film. i have been tryingto locate it and haven’t been successful.
Also many thanks for adding to the hack & chat list I have been chuckling while at work!!!
Speaking of which…I should probably get back to doing. Got these horses to support…
Beezer wins a round!
Okay, Dublin, yes, Pedde Happe is still alive, alive! I saw him in a baby green hunter class at Ride America late this past summer. Boy, did he look old… but then again, despite the Oil of Olay, I ain’t no spring chicken either!
Anyway, he was on a striking bay WB cross-type mare that jumped cute but ICK 
on the flat work between the jumps. Looked very unbroke, as in “I wouldn’t jump that thing around for a million bucks”. So I’m gathering he’s training/riding somewhere in the San Diego area.
As for my long-lost love Kenny Nordstrom… sigh. Wow, how many of us just got all googly-eyed over him? I remember one show he judged until late at night, and all us kids were piled into the van to go home. As we drove out in the dark, the dust in the headlights, we rolled down the window and in teeny-bopper hysteria screamed, “Bye Kenny!” He looked up at us. He did! Honestly! I think he looked right at ME!!
Debbie Sands was Debbie Nordstrom. I believe she is training in No. L.A. area. She is an “R” judge. The long-time and current Mrs. N. does have the Escondido (San Diego) horse facility. She does mostly sales. She and Kenny travel/judge a lot. They own a private fishing boat. They also bought a TB stallion, named Habenero, that they stand pretty cheaply out in Hemet. I heard they bought him kind of on impulse, but he’s good looking and his first crop is nice. (Do I sound like I have too much info, like a stalker or something?)
Geez, all this has caused me to think I could’ve done something foolish and ended up hooked to a horse trainer! Yee-ick! But Kenny was cute. Until Kosti Karazissis caught my eye. Now there are a few stories THERE… but again, I digress…
The Woodbrook here I think is/was owned by the Baldwin’s.
And the name is now also Brookwood!
So perhaps she still has some share in it?
Nice to know she is still showing. 
Remember the olde days when one would do Indio then travel to Arizona for the Aid to Zoo, (A to Z,) show?
I also happen to work on Michelson so the Irvine crew needs to “do lunch” sometime soon.
Julie Smith does train in Palos Verdes at the public stable (where I began riding lessons and boarded my first pony.) She mostly goes to the local shows and some LA County stuff.
Wasn’t John working in Washington at the time of his death? I remember a girl who trained with us had just moved from WA and trained with him there. She was pretty upset about it.
The coat, shirt, collar, and stock pin combination that I’ll never forget is the one that Diane Baker wore in the big final Grand Prix in “The Horse In the Gray Flannel Suit.” That movie will preserve forever the velvet collar jacket, contrasting collar shirt look. Which I too admit, I kind of liked.
Why is it that everyone screams about how the styles of shirts and jackets and breeches worn today are so “traditional” so we can’t change anything? It sure isn’t the same as the look from the 60’s and 70’s!
But, then, maybe that’s a good thing!
Merry is doing the Slightly Inland lakes, I’m doing the beach version. The weather - so that all you East Coast luvvies can laugh - is quite rude and it’s so muddy it will suck the shoes right off the feet. And the horseshoes, too. If this weather keeps up, I will sail over to Chino Hills soon to giggle more about Kentucky Woman in person.
Merry, do you think her hair grows like that or did she buy it in a can?
Archie is doing quite well in Indio now that he’s branched out on his own after some very successful years working for Karen Healy. Or is that Healey? Well, you get the drift.
Wendy Carter’s new outfit is doing very well, too.
Let the thread die? No, it must live on! It’s the never ending CA clique thread, named after our fearless leader!
Two weeks ago I had to print out pages 1-16 of this thread for a friend from the barn who is Of Our Ilk but computerless. Tonight I shall print 17-29.
There goes Brazil.
How about a little Italian Grey Hound?
I must rise up to defend myself, Merry! I have long said that you are far more of the, ahem, “social butterfly” of the family. You know everyone and everything. This is NOT a bad thing. My main job at shows is to get slobbered on by the babies, keep our nervous horse show mom away from the food stands and “deal with” your mare in the jumper ring. Who the heck has time to remember whom she’s riding against??
There. The defense rests and feels sooooo much better. 
Anyone here going to the big trade show/seminar thingie next weekend at the Pomona fairgrounds? Maybe we could all wear ID tags so we can recognize each other … maybe Merry’s Brigade??
Finally, a few more horse names to rattle the memory banks: Let’s Pretend. Child’s Play. High Fashion. Best Bet. The Plainsman. Poetry Man. Zippity Do Dah (I loved that horse). I think we need to start a trivia game. 
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding! Go to the head of the class!
I was trying to think… was it Hourglass? No, that was Christy Fletcher’s horse that originally came from Lakeside Ranch. Caron’s horse was Looking Glass, a red bay with a blaze. Then she had Petrocelli and Off Broadway, both dark horses. She was in all my classes, all the time. I remember she had a red Porsche with the plates, “Caron G”. Is she still around? I swear I saw her at Indio 2 years ago with… Ronnie Freeman!
Mo:Hmmm…There was a Seabreeze Farm outside of Del Mar, on the coast near San Diego. The guy who ran it was breeding his own crop of “sporthorses” with registered but unapproved warmblood stallions, so their offspring couldn’t be branded/registered, a point he often neglected to tell buyers! He personally told me he was going to create his own brand, and inspect his own horses, and people would know if a horse had his Seabreeze brand it was of quality! Does this sound like the same outfit? It would’ve been about 12-15 yrs. ago when I dealt with him.
I didn’t know that the real Chef had passed on and just noticed it in the most recent Show Circuit (which will be sent up to my buds who can’t get it, along with another). I was so sorry to see that and thought that your ad was a fitting tribute to a wonderful horse.
Thanks! I’d be on the north end of OC, by the 405. Where is Chef? (I thought, when you first mentioned “Chef”, you were referring to a spouse or significant other. Now I realize she is another poster - right?)
I’ll try to find Chef. PV would be PERFECT!!
Thanks!!
Seatac came from less than two miles from where I am sitting right now!
The old Sterling Stables, now known as Woodinville Riding Club.
Diane and Johnny Johnson.
Of course he may have been sold south pre moving into the Woodinville facility and was sold from the long gone Seattle stable.
Named for Seattle - Tacoma airport I heard.
Now I am off to Canada for the day to help run a Jack Russell Terrier Rescue booth.
I shall have to cope computer withdrawal haha.
but I must make a wee adjustment … the Hack and Jack MUST be for the hacks with Jack Russell accompaniment, says Beezer, already thinking she has a lock on this with her two ADORABLE and PERFECT (QUIET, Merry!) JRTs … in fact, they frequently go for horseback rides anyway, so they might as well have their own class!
As for our job paths crossing … am thinking the small blonde must have been either Ginny or Betsy. Do you remember Penny? Linda? Oh … the dregs of my past you are forcing me to remember!
