Blogs - Jennifer Berol Bliss

Now that indoors are over, I’ve been enjoying some relatively quiet downtime at home and starting to regroup for the new show season. I've also been competing vicariously through a different discipline’s version of indoors—the NRHA Futurity in Oklahoma City.

I was always fascinated by reining and western horses in general, even before I actually gave it a try about 2½ years ago. It was total role reversal for me at first—I felt like a beginner rider who could mentally process what my trainer was telling me but couldn't seem to physically coordinate my aids and timing correctly.

Continuing along the indoor tour, I just wrapped up showing at Harrisburg and Washington. I was very pleased with the mileage and confidence that my first year horse Elitere was able to gain from the experience of indoors as a whole.

He started out at Capital Challenge with limited exposure to those types of venues, and while he tried really hard, he made some small, green mistakes. Harrisburg was a little easier, and by the time we got to Washington he was going around smooth enough to earn ribbons or jogs in every class.

About a month ago, I officially joined Sleepy Hollow Stables as a rider and trainer. The layout there is a bit unusual, as the barn is set within the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. The club is a place of such beauty and history, from the grand clubhouse that was originally a private Rockefeller residence to the two-story stable that was built in the early 1920s and at one point served as a base for Bert de Nemethy.