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by Sandy White Lee Ann and I had a blast the week of March 5th participating in the Ian Stark Clinic and private lessons at Pine Top Farms near Thomson GA. We loaded Bugsy and Shadow in my trailer and headed south for the 13 hr trek to one of the eventing world's US meccas. We arrived around 7:30 PM to meet our gracious host, Glenn Wilson, and settle the horses in for the night. The farm's layout is dedicated to eventing. The area has gentle rolling hills, pastures and woods with 2 lakes, and novice and advanced water complexes. The pastures are subdivided with jumps in each area and numerous fence line jumps to pass from pasture to pasture (there are automated gates for those not mounted). The soil is perfect for the sport. It had rained 4" the Saturday before we arrived. They had run Intermediate and Advanced cross country that Sunday, and we could hardly tell that 200 horses had recently galloped around the course. They have 3 sand dressage rings which are located in a paddock in which a horse or two regularly grazed around the periphery. Horses were also grazing in and around the grass stadium course. Our first private lessons and our first opportunity to meet Ian Stark were on Wednesday. Mr. Stark is a 5-time Olympian for Great Britain, most recently finishing on the silver medal team at Sydney. His illustrious career includes a win at Badminton. Never having met him or known anyone who has taken a lesson from him, we weren't sure what to expect. It didn't take long into that first lesson for both Lee Ann and I to know we had come to the right place and definitely had the right clinician. It was easy to see that Ian's successes had come, in part, from a keen ability to judge horses and riders and quickly identify 'areas for improvement'. He has a marvelous (sometimes devious) sense of humor as well. One trait we witnessed over and over again, was his 'growling' at horses (& riders!) to get them to do his bidding. The growling was imitated by most of the participants over the course of the clinic to the amusement of all. Another trait we much admired was his ability to maintain the same level of enthusiasm for the last rider of the day as he had for the first. Dressage:
Stadium:
Cross Country:
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