Introduction

Hi, my name is Sophia Zeier, I'm 18 years old and I LOVE eventing. I'm headed out to the east coast for approximately 3 months to be a working student for Lainey Ashker. I will be shipping my lovely horse, Sunny, out east, and then flying out myself. Sunny is a Chesnut mare, Thoroughbred off the track (OTTB), she is 7 years old and she has competed to Novice level.

I'm in the United States Pony Club and one of the previous DCs of my El Dorado Pony Club was talking about her good friend, Valerie Ashker, and her daughter, Lainey. I ended up going to watch Kentucky Rolex 3 Day Event CCI 4*in 2008. They have all sorts of talks and activities, and we were at a pony club talk and I recognized Lainey so my dad went up to her an introduced us, we talked to her for hours about eventing. She came out to Caifornia and my family invited her over for lunch and that's when I had my first little lesson from Lainey. It was about 20 minutes long and she set up this grid. I remember I learned a lot from that short little lesson, "THIS is what 4* rider's lessons are like!" Soon, Lainey would fly out here for clinics and I would ride in pretty much every single one of them. But now, 4 years later I am going to her for the ultimate working student experience!

Let me say a little bit about my horse now... Val Ashker has this brilliant eye for horses so we started having her help us look for my next horse. She found Global Children, and when we went to go look at her Val patted her on the butt and said "This is your horse!" I rode her and loved her. When i got her she had raced 3 times and won a whopping $1,200, and she had had a foal too. She was all fat and cute, the first thing I did when I got her home was take her on a trail ride and she was so good! I love the way Val starts all her horses off the track, she trail rides them for months before they ever see an arena. It helps them learn to have fun and be a horse, it gets them in shape, racehorses are flat landers so the hills, rocks and ruts teach them where their hooves are, and it also establishes trust between horse and rider, and it's a FAST way to get to know what kind of horse you just bought.

 I call her "Sunny" or "Sun Buns" now. But I trail rode her for a while and then I started having weekly lesson with Val. Then Lainey came out and we started working on flat work and grid work (jumps set at different distances appart, to teach the horse how to jump correctly). After lots of Lainey lessons and Val lesson we did our first event in July. I got her in October of 2010, and 8 months later she did her first event, just Summer Moon at our favorite, Eventful Acres. She completed her first recognized in August at Woodside.

I love my little Sunny Bunny, and we both love this eventing thing! Especially Cross Country (xc)! We are going to compete in VA and work very hard. I plan to absorb everything Lainey can possibly teach me , from horse management on the ground, to riding in the saddle.  I'm so excited! I have already entered my first event, Surefire HT June 22-24.

Thank you Lainey, Val, mom, and dad for giving me the chance to go out to VA and do what I love!

That's all for now!
~S.