I had a long talk with a probable new 2002 student's family on the phone tonight. Sounds like we are going to have several people ready to sign up when we open registration for 2002 in a few weeks. Keep watching the website for our announcement that registration is open for next season (it's not yet!)

Meghan and I visited the Allen Farm where Missy and Merlin will be spending the winter this evening. The Allens have a beautiful farm with the best of everything - the best fencing, the best stalls in a brand new barn, a modern round-pen for riding, and much more. Acres and acres of manicured lawns, two ponds, and the list goes on. The Allens can borrow any horse they like from Longacres in the future. We are lucky to have them caring for two of our favorite horses.

We will not be accepting 2002 applications for a couple of weeks, until I finish reviewing and thinking about this just completed season. Last year we were 2/3rds full by the end of September!

Tentatively, we plan a very similar program for 2002. We will have a Longacres/High Time Pre-season Clinic, Pre-camp limited enrollment week for independent riding, and sessions scheduled much the same as this year. The tuition for the two week sessions in not likely to change much, if any. The longer sessions were quite a bit cheaper per week this year - they will increase some, but still be less expensive than two week sessions. We had several cancellations last spring near our opening date that were hard to fill. Enrollment deposits will probably be larger next year as a consequence.

During the next few weeks, I welcome comments and suggestions from this year's students on improvements we might make to the horsecare plans; on things you liked and things you did not like. I may send a formal questionaire to parents asking your advice on things like "How much spending money is appropriate for a mall/dinner trip?" I am a little old fashioned and "cheap" about this, I am told!

More comments in the coming weeks. Registrations for regular students and new "rider-leader" positions will go out in late September. We hope many of you will join us again in 2002.

- Tom Kranz

Rest! Gosh, I had forgotten how to pronounce the word until today. Everyone is gone :( and almost all the horses are out at winter homes that will give them much less work than they do here at Longacres during the summer. Only Patti and Stoney are left behind. Patti has no home yet because of her arthritus, but Stoney will certainly find a good place to stay in a few days. He was one of the first horses chosen and is available now only because the family we chose for him backed out at the last minute.

I will be taking a rest for the balance of this week. I will be checking my messages here in case of an emergency involving one of the horses, but will not be doing any WORK! I will go back to work Monday and finish up tabulating all the horse show expenses and spending money balances for the second session students. You can expect a refund of any left-over money or a bill by the middle of next week. If you left boxes to be shipped home to you, they should go out tomorrow morning. If you forgot something of value, call and leave a message and we will try to find it and send it to you. Other clothing or supplies left here are thrown away or donated to Good Will if we hear nothing from you.

I can't think of anything else that can't wait until next week, so enjoy your long showers and cozy bedrooms at home and your school year friends! We hope to keep hearing from many of you during the coming months, and we will help you girls put together a reunion at the National Horse Show in November. There is usually a get together at Joetta's place in New York after the show.

Bye - Tom

- Tom

Last Camper!

Hey everyone!!! Yup its me Erika. I’m the last camper left here of the 2001 session. Its very lonely here. All the horses look sad that everyone is gone too. I just want to say that I will miss everyone A LOT!!!! The camp seems so empty with everyone gone. Its too quiet! The cabins are soooo messy! But thats ok. I had so much fun this year and I can’t wait till next summer. Next summer I get to be Meghan’s personal assistant again and I’m staying for the whole summer! So I will get to see everyone from this year again and meet new campers! For anyone considering coming here as a camper you definitely should come cause its the best horse back riding camp in the world! And I’m not just saying that cause Tom is going to read this later I really think it is. This summer has been the best summer of my life and I can’t wait to come back and see all the horses and my chickie and my friends again. I really hope to see you guys at the reunion. For anyone who doesn’t have my e-mail its HorseGirl8955@aol.com. Anyone who is considering coming to Longacres can e-mail me with questions too. Hope to talk to some of my buddies later! I miss you guys sooo much!!!

~Erika(#1 chickie!!!!=) )

P.S. I feel so special to have something I wrote on a website!! Thanks Tom!

LONGACRES WHAT TIME IS IT???

ITS TIME TO GET LOUD ITS TIME TO REPRESENT!!!!

LONGACRES 2001 RULES!!!!!!! Oh yea Jess we have to buy that boat/barge so don’t forget to e-mail me!! Meghan Marie and Meg Duthie are really cool!!! Be blazin Meg!

PS: From Tom - When I got back from the airport this morning it had just rained hard (for the first time all summer) and the horses were feeling GOOD. I think they also sensed that something was wrong - no campers anyplace. They were all galloping around the pasture at full speed jumping and bucking and snorting. Even Patti got into it a little. Lucky was going about 100 MPH, and bucking 8 feet in the air! Merlin was wild, and so was Stoney. Ty and Reggie were really getting into it. They would chase each other, then stop and snort with their ears straight forward. It was very pretty, but I was worried that they were going to get hurt. They somehow knew that you all weren't there to look after them.

Only Erika and Christina are still here, and they both leave within the hour (at least if Lady decides to get on the trailer!). I'll probably have one more update to the website tonight or tomorrow, and then I will sleep for three weeks.

The closing day at Longacres is always a very mixed bag of emotions for me, and especially so this year. I truly enjoy the best parts of Longacres, the horses, watching young women mature and improve their horse sense, and knowing that we do a good job with our riding and showing program. But it is exhausting, and especially so this summer. I welcome the chance to have no responsibility (at least in THIS business) after today. The chance to sleep late and perhaps just sleep all day long!

At the same time, I have a very empty feeling knowing that the best students (not just the best riders, but the best students) are home with their friends and getting ready for school, and not waiting for me at 11AM or after dinner to do something new and exciting with their horses. I have some serious withdrawal symptoms during the week or two after we close up the barn.

Goodbye to all.

More comments tonight or tomorrow.

PS: Special thanks to Erika Attoma who was such a huge help to us at the fair last night.!!!!!

Below - 2001 Erie Co Fair Team & Ribbons! - Not including Meg's final blue & champ!

As with most years, it took a day or two for all the Longacres riders to get used to such a big horse show and let their nerves calm down at Erie County Fair this week. But on the third day of the show today, they went to the fair to RIDE! I just got in from the fair after the problem of the day: (due to a misunderstanding I was stranded there and had to hitch a ride home), so you will have to log on several times tonight and tomorrow morning to get the full story, but we won a championship, reserve championships, trophies, blue ribbons, more ribbons from unexpected stars, and more. Joetta got her act together with Missy in the low jumper division, Erica Attoma and Brownie were stars, and Meg Duthie positively OWNED the jumper ring at today's show!!!!!

Details in a couple of hours with a pic of all the "loot"! Sign on again.

8:30 PM - I just got back from the barn where everyone is unwinding and relaxing after "show week". It is drizzling lightly so we all rode bareback. Almost everyone swapped several times so they got to try different kinds of horses bareback. Everyone jumped some low crossrails. It was a cheerful good time. Tovah became "Meg" for the night and assigned horses!

More news of the show. Erika Attoma rode Brownie to two 4th place ribbons out of more than 25 thoroughbreds in the flat hack classes, Bridle Path Hack and Pleasure horse. Great job, Erika!

Joetta won second place out of 18 horses in the Hopeful Jumper division with a very careful but speedy ride with a great final roll-back turn to a "skinny" jump.

Meg Duthie rode our horse Quantum to a 1st place and the reserve championship in the training jumper division, saving her best rides of the fair until the last day. Then she got on her own horse, "Billy Holliday", and rode to a 4th place in the bigger schooling jumper class. She wasn't done; she had entered "Billy Holliday" in the Children's - Adult Jumper Classic for big prize money. She went second, was clean in the first round, and then laid down a blistering jump-off ride that pretty much took the starch out of all the other riders. Mark Fromm, a very well known jumper trainer standing next to me turned to his best rider and said, "That was fast!" Too fast for everyone else, as eg and "Hollie" won the class and tied for the Championship of the division. A good ending to her summer, winning two out of the three classes she entered on two different horses

- Tom Kranz

None of our other hunter riders won ribbons, but they all did a little better than yesterday and were less nervous. All got at least most of their lead changes correctly.

In the jumpers, we fared well! Tovah Abrams rode Brownie to 3rd place out of EIGHTEEN horses, most of them big thoroughbreds!!!!!! The crowd was really behind Tovah and her jumper pony!

Meg Duthie put in what I think was her very best ride of the summer, riding hard and fast when she had to and softly and carefully when that was required on Quantum in the Training Jumper class. Quantum was superb - no one would believe that we have trained him to jump from nothing in ten weeks this summer! They finished in third place right behind Jaime Bates, a professional rider, on her two horses. And I mean "right behind" - - Jaime's times for the jump-off were 33.605 on her 1st place horse, and 34.450 seconds on her second place horse. Meg's time on Quantum was 34.502 seconds. All the other horses that even made the jump-off had times up around 40 seconds, so you see how good Meg and Jaime were!!

Meg's highest hopes were pinned on her own jumper, "Billy Holliday". The horse practiced very well, and started of smoothly in the class, but pulled a rail down over the 6th fence. Of the 12 horses entered in the class, 8 knocked this rail down. It was a tight turn to the jump, and the rail was on flat cups. Tough break for Meg. She ended up tied for 4th.

Problem of the day was pretty minor today - Lauren, Connie, and Sara broke my rule about at least three always sticking together and Sara got separated for a little while. Naughty, naughty. Sara was found and all were admonished that tomorrow the rules for exploring will be tighter.

One more day of showing, and then a quiet Friday at camp saying goodbye to the horses followed by a last day at the fair on Saturday just plain having FUN and going on rides and seeing the sights!

- Tom

We had a good first day at the three day Erie County Fair show. Our only ribbons were won by Meghan Duthie on her new jumper, "Billy Holliday", and more about that in a minute. But the real star of day one was our least experienced rider, Sara Barmherzig. Sara came to us just three and a half weeks ago as a near beginner, with arms and legs flying everyway trying to keep her balance when she trotted and first tried to canter. Sara rode Treek in this "A"-rated show in an equitation class against some 30 other riders. Did she get a ribbon? No. Did she look like she was one of the top ten? No. But she didn't look like she had no business being there, and what an accomplishment that was for her in this short month! Sara rode her very best of the summer this morning, with her legs tight against the horse, her hands quietly together, and moving smoothly with Treek. It was a fine performance and we are proud!

We had six riders in the ECF Special Hunter over fences classes, and we had our own private award for the Longacres riders who did best in this class. We will be presenting special Longacres trophies to both Danielle Napoli and Tovah Abram, who in my opinion tied for the best rounds. None of our girls won ribbons in this event with 28 horses, many regulars on the big show circuit. But all got around the course without refusals or falls, or horrible jumps. Most had some trouble getting the correct lead on every corner, and we will try to improve tomorrow. But a good, solid first day of the show. If experience from past summers is any guide, some will win ribbons by the end of the week.

The jumper division was also very competitive, and in this division, Longacres always does well. Meghan Duthie bought a new horse through one of our contacts this summer, and she is just getting to know her new mare, "Billy Holliday". Meghan is taking her time, and she and I talked strategy, and agreed not to go flat out for the gold everytime, since she doesn't yet know just how the horse will act in each new situation. Even so, Meghan took third place out of 18 in her first class of the day and third place out of 12 in her second class over bigger jumps. (Second would have been nice!) She also overheard many wonderful comments from horse people around the ring. During the first class, Meghan was in the lead for a long time and only beaten on time by the final couple of horses. After Meghan's round which was very fast, a girl on a horse next to me said to her trainer, "Wow! That was fast."

Her trainer answered, "Yes, you aren't going to beat 'Billy Holliday!" Nice compliment! Billy is a pretty famous horse in this part of the country.

Meghan also showed our new jumper, "Quantum Leap", in three classes. He made it to the jump-off in the first class, and had a few rails down in the bigger classes, but jumped carefully and well over most of the fences. Extremely good for a horse that we have trained to jump just this summer!

Joetta rode Missy, and had a knock-down in the jump-off, taking her out of the ribbons, but she is likely to do very well tomorrow. Tovah had a double clear round on "Pony Express" in jumpers!!!!!!!!! Not fast enough to be in the ribbons, but she finished about 8th out of 18. The crowd loved her on the pony!!!!

Last night's "problem of the day" was terminated this morning. I don't dismiss people in the heat of anger, but the problem yesterday was compounded by some conduct this morning. I always hate to dismiss a staff person with only a few days to go in the summer because it is usually not worth the hassle. The behavior in this situation was so egregious that not acting decisively would have set a precedent that would be unhealthy for the camp. I think all the students here understand that. Supervision is being provided by Meghan, Christina, Meghan, Joetta, and Sabrina, our very nice adult former student spending the week with us.

A good day of practice and the "problem of the day"!

First the good news. Many in this session's group have less riding experience than our riders earlier in the season. I was afraid that the first day of practice over at the fairgrounds would show a lot of frayed nerves and problems with the jumping. Instead, everyone rose to the occasion, and the practice session went off nearly flawlessly. Our first classes at the Erie County Fair are in just a few hours as I write this, and I am expecting a decent performance. Everyone was in a good mood after practicing last night, and they all pitched in to get the horses trimmed and braided to look their best. We took a dinner over to the fair for everyone so they could eat right their after their practice.

Sabrina Marcus, our adult former student who is here as a volunteer "camper" this week, will be riding here at camp this morning with the two students who chose not to show at the fair, and then driving them over to be with the group when they jump this afternoon in the show. We're grateful to Sabrina for her help this week.

Problem of the day?

Well, I have tried to be very open with you website readers this summer when I had staff problems or other glitches in the operation. I had another fun example of the all too common work ethic amoung young people in today's workforce. Our current college age counselor told me yesterday morning that there was a family emergency and she had to leave for the rest of the day to be with her family because of an accident. It was a tough time for us to be short handed as we were getting everything ready to move over to the fair, but what can you say if there is an emergency? Of course, go and be with your family.

About 4 in the afternoon while all the riders were organizing the barn at the fair, I walked over to the midway to grab a bite to eat. Who should I run into strolling the fairgrounds, but our young counselor on emergency leave! I'm sure my readers who own businesses will enjoy this little story.

Although I have had a tough summer with my college age counselors staying on the job, we have had a good summer at Longacres because of the very outstanding contributions of my older students who have pretty much run the barn themselves most of the season. Many of them will be old enough to be counselors next year, and have expressed interest in returning. I plan to modify my staffing plan for next year and rely much more on "working students" who regularly ride and show themselves, while sharing verious responsibilities for teaching and running the barn. It is much easier to work with girls who are earning their chance to ride and show than it is to motivate girls who are working only for "money".

The "problem of the day"? I resisted my instinct to take draconian action on the spot. We will see how today unfolds.

- Your "ready for the post-season rest" camp owner, Tom

We had a good show today, with many other stables taking part. Longacres cleaned up in the jumper division, with Joetta showing her old friend, Peppermint Patti, for the first time this year. Patti has had arthritis all summer and just recently has been getting a little work. Well, she looked almost like her old self in the ring tonight, winning the trophy and Blue ribbon in the first jumper class. Meg Duthie and "Billy Holliday" won the second jumper class against 8 of the best the other stables had to offer. Meg's jump-off ride for time was excellent!

Meg Duthie also won the high height of the Bold Jumper Derby on Quantum, and was second on Billy Holliday. Joetta won the low height of the Derby on Missy. A clean sweep for Longacres in this big event!

Corrine Fee won a blue ribbon and trophy in one of the cross-rails jumping events, Sara won a blue in the walk-trot equitation, Tovah won two thirds in classes with 14 and 16 horses. Nearly everyone from Longacres earned one or more ribbons. Danielle won a 2nd in the big equitation over fences class with many other riders! Erica Hankins won 3rd in the hunter class on the outside course.

We were up late taking care of the horses after the show and then had Pizza at the dining hall. Only two of the most dedicated came up to watch video with me right after the show, but everyone else will be watching themselves tomorrow afternoon. All went to bed tired and happy, especially knowing that they will be sleeping in until noon tomorrow!!!!!!!!!

One of the nice little touches at the show today was that one of the judges, "Smokey" Thornbury, stayed for more than half an hour after the show was all over talking with a group of the girls about all the little things that influenced her judging. She took a lot of time to show them the judge's cards and exactly how she scored each class. I was pleased with how closely the girls paid attention to this discussion.

- Tom

PS: Lauren JUST MISSED being reserve champion of the ring one classes for the season by three points. Good job, Lauren!

The heat wave is supposed to break in about 8 more hours and we expect pleasant weather for our show tomorrow afternoon and all next week for the Erie County Fair show. It's about time! We spent several hours during the hottest part of the day walking up and down the barn aisle with a hose spraying down the stall fronts, the floor, and all the horses. Ty loved it! He pulled back his lips and stuck his head right into the stream of water coming out of the hose!

We had one lesson early this morning for the most dedicated riders, and then chilled out all day. Danielle's mom visited and took all the girls to dinner at the mall. Thank you, Roxanne!

We had two guest instructors this evening when it cooled off. We did some good, hard riding with these clinic instructors in preparation for the show tomorrow. Erika Attoma is doing G-R-E-A-T with the training on her young horse, Lady. Lady is jumping well now, especially in the past two days.

We'll report more news after the show tomorrow - we are in the running for several season championships on the South Towns Summer Show Series.

- Tom

Sorry I haven't updated the website for a couple of days. We've been pretty busy beating the heat wave, but all is well. Until the heat wave breaks on Friday morning (forcast, at least!), we have modified our schedule and are getting up early in the morning and riding when it is cool. Then siesta during the heat of the day. We went to a movie this afternoon. Then we have an early dinner and ride two lessons after dinner. Everyone was dragging in the early lesson this morning, so we are starting a little later tomorrow morning, and will ride three scheduled lessons plus some optional trail rides.

Everyone is practicing on the horses they will show this week and at the Fair next week. Meg Duthie has been jumping some "big timber" the past two nights on Quantum and Billy Holliday. Pretty exciting! It is the last event of each night's training, and everyone has been staying up to watch and cheer her on.

We figured out all the entries for Hamburg Fair tonight. Tomorrow we have to catch up everyone's spending money accounts and make sure everyone who is planning on the fair can afford to do what they want. (Parents, don't be surprised if you get a call to see if budgets can be stretched tomorrow - several are ok, and several are going to go over if they enter what they would like.)

We'll try to post a couple of new pics tomorrow.

HORSE SHOW will be postponed from Thursday to Friday, when the temperature is expected to drop 12 or 14 degrees!! Three PM Friday is the new time.

- Tom

Until further notice, use the following link to reach us or your student here at Longacres.

We had a relaxed Sunday today with everyone taking town time, doing laundry, and I took all but the tired ones out for ice cream an hour ago. We are doing a moon light trail ride in half an hour tonight, and a riding lesson early in the morning to beat tomorrow's forcast of very hot weather. Then a LONG siesta!!!! Riding a formal training session again tomorrow night.

More later - Tom

Meg cleverly volunteered after her ride to be Joe's assistant, and got to stand in the ring next to him and listen to him teach all afternoon!

Danielle was "Rider of the Day", for her outstanding work training Joey to do flying lead changes this morning. She did the best set of changes in the advanced class. I also had a very good lesson with Corrine, Connie, Olivia, Sara, and Lauren, teaching some of the same things that we saw Joe Fargis teach earlier in the morning.

- Tom

- Tom

Everyone had a good time at the Long Snap show today. Many riders were ribbon winners, with Joetta winning the Jumper Championship, and Tovah winning the Jumper Reserve Championship on Brownie! Tovah's very first ever jumper ride in a show! Jessica Chen also won a first place blue in a big class on Stoney. We'll try to get a full list of ribbon winners for the website over the weekend. Below is a picture of many of the ribbons. Lauren, Tovah, Olivia, and Corrine were loading horses and missed the picture :( - - Christina with the purple hair and everyone's ribbons; Sara with the icepack on her ankle :(

Left to right - Danielle, Erica, Sara, Erika, Jessica, Christina, Meg, Joetta, Tom, Connie

We'll have news about the horse show tonight. A quick reminder here that e-mails sent to students at Longacres are NOT PRIVATE or confidential. We pass e-mails along to students as a convenient, quick way for parents to send greetings to students and ask questions, and for former students to send light hearted "positive" messages to friends at camp. Messages with very personal comments or references to other students that are in any way not positive are not appropriate for this service and will not be delivered. Thank you for your understanding.

Hey, it was one of those really good nights at Longacres! It's been very hot and humid the past few days and still is. But we took it easy today with many riders skipping one or more rides to stay cool and healthy. We all rode and all jumped with me in the cool of the evening tonight, and everyone was in a good mood. There was lots of laughing, joking, teasing, and "dancing on horse back". We stayed on the riding field as the nearly full moon came up. Everyone is showing at the nearby Long Snap horse show tomorrow afternoon. We took quite a few new pics - I may post a few tonight. If not, look in again tomorrow after the show.

- Tom

This morning was good for half our group and less good for the other half. Half were on time for my morning lesson and we did a difficult long course in the field. Everyone had some good rides.

The other group was late getting tacked up and ready for my lesson after being warned yesterday that I would insist on their being on time. I followed through and did not teach their group today. Some of this session's riders have been slow to fully embrace the structured portion of our riding time. Part of the problem today was caused by imperfect planning by assistant instructors. I will address that if it is not solved by tomorrow's lesson, but I prefer that the students and assistant instructors work out the details themselves.

This was not a major problem - everyone got a lesson - just not everyone with me. Life goes on. Tomorrow we have an exciting guest instructor (Leigh Clark, Florida circuit rider, etc), and everyone will be trying their best, I am sure. Thursday is a nice informal show at the nearby Long Snap farms.

PS: Quantum did a nearly perfect jump course today on the outside field with Meg. Meg and Tovah plan to ride in Olympic Gold Medalist, Joe Fargis's clinic this weekend. Lots of good stuff happening!

- Tom Kranz

We had a full day of tough lessons, and most were a little sore by the end of the afternoon. We have split our group in half now that Kelly is back from vacation, so that everyone gets more attention. More hard work, too!

This evening was Joyce's night off, so we went out to dinner at the mall. Everyone came home with colored hair extensions. Pretty scary for an old gray haired guy like me! Maybe I should try it? Nawwww.

We are very pleased to have Erika Attoma return. Erika was an extremely helpful student during her two week stay here earlier in the summer, and we invited her back to join the staff as a special assistant to Meghan M. Arika adds great spirit to the group, and we are grateful for her contribution.

- Tom

On the fourth day of the second session, we're starting to put some good riding together. The new group that came in on Wednesday mostly have some good basic training and position on a horse. But as a group, due to lack of frequent riding opportunities, or not having ridden much recently, or personal aptitude, it has been a group of fairly passive riders. Riders who look pretty good on the horse, but have trouble making the horse perform at its best.

Tonight we did an exercise on the big field that challenged everyone, no matter what their experience, to take charge of their horse. We set two jumps a long distance apart and had everyone jump them in one direction, and then jump them in the opposite direction trying to get exactly the same number of strides between. It is difficult and demands good control of the horse. After a couple of practice runs we then tried to find out who could do the MOST number of small strides between the two jumps.

For the first time this week, I started to hear numerous voices saying, "I want to try again!" That is the attitude I am looking for at Longacres, and it was nice to see everyone really testing themselves. When the attempts were all complete, we had a three way tie for most strides, at 19 canter strides. The riders with the most were Olivia on Joey, Meghan D. on Charlie, and Danielle on Merlin. Many more had 17 or 18 strides. I liked this exercise.

- Tom

Longacres hosted a great horse show today, with many good riders from four other stables attending, along with some good independent riders. Tough competition, but many of our girls won ribbons. Our only blue and trophy were won by Meg Duthie and her great new jumper, "Billy Holliday". They had the only clean round out of seven entries in the medium height jumper class. "Billy" was on the way to a possible second win in the high jumper class, when there was a combination of small errors by Meghan and her trainer (me!). We neglected to let the horse practice the difficult ditch jump before the class, both of us being a little over-confidant of this fine horse's capability. Any horse will stop at a strange jump, and Billy almost did at the ditch, and then Meghan missed the last jump during her recovery. Next time.

We'll have full details tomorrow on all the ribbons won by our students. Pretty good performance by our new riders on their third day at Longacres!!!!!! Tomorrow we review the video tapes, slow motion and all, and find out where we can do better next time. Next time is next Thursday, August 2nd at Long Snap Farms in Orchard Park, NY.

More tomorrow - Tom Kranz

Second Session is under way. Everyone has arrived safely as scheduled, including Olivia Gast all the way from Paris, France. Check tonight's pic on the new pics page, for a good one of Connie Feng taken a couple of hours ago during after dinner ride! We will all be getting ready for the Longacres home horse show this Friday during tomorrow's lessons. More news tomorrow night.

- Tom

Hello July 25th arrivals! We will be trying to contact you all by phone tonight to reconfirm your exact arrival times. Please call us (716-652-9495) if you read this web message and leave word on the details of your arrival plans if we have not already reached you. Thanks!

There is a horse show here at Longacres this Friday at 4PM, so you will have something to work towards right away when you arrive.

NOTE: All first session students who have gone home, we finished processing all your horse show and spending money accounts yesterday, and we will send out detailed accountings with refunds or bills if you went over by the end of the week. If you were here the first two weeks, thank you for your patience!

Read below for video ordering info, if you are interested.

Well. At least the kids are - they had a short ride this morning to keep in shape on some of the horses who need work instead of rest. They are now off at Six Flags theme park, then to a civilized hotel with pool to get CLEAN tomorrow! Me? I had the luck to have our main water pump supplying the horses break down last night, so I was hip deep in the pond this morning replumbing so the horses would have plenty of water on this 90 degree day! James and Brandon were a big help. When we got the water fixed we went out in the pasture and threw buckets of water on all the horses to help cool them down. They seemed to like it.

Hopefully there will be no more crisis during the next two days so I can get chilled out and rested for second session on Wednesday. I look forward to seeing all of you then.

- Tom

The van leaves for the airport at 9:30 tomorrow morning - is everyone all packed? Are you kidding? It is going to be a late night.

Junior Counselor Christina's dad volunteered to be chef for tonight's dinner while the cook was off, and came over with a great lasagna and blueberry cheesecake desert. Thanks Paul, for the generous donation of your time and effort!

We are semi-closed for three days beginning tomorrow noon. Our students staying over for second session and here for the inter-cession break will be going to Six Flags Darien Lakes theme park on Monday, and to the Buffalo Sheraton with an indoor pool next to the mall on Tuesday. Hope they don't forget how to ride during the three day break!

We look forward to meeting all the second session riders, including some returning from last summer and a few new faces on Wednesday.

- Tom Kranz

PS - Video Tapes:

We have many very high quality video tapes of both practice riding and shows. They are all taken on top of the line digital video camcorders. Because it is very time consuming to make copies, we have always charged $40 for each tape when someone makes a special request to get a copy. We have had several requests this year - we will offer tapes at $30 each to anyone who orders before August 5th, so we can do the copying while camp is still in session. This does not include any editing or special copying. Each tape is between 40 and 60 minutes of riding. $30 for VHS tape - for $5 more we can give you a direct digital copy on DV tape or Digital 8 tape. (NOTE - I have no desire to sell very many tapes and am not pushing these - it is only a convenience service to those of you who really want a tape from the summer!!!)

Tape #0 - Pre-camp practice through 6-20-01

Tape #1 - Pre-camp through June 27th practice and Clinic

Tape #2 - Longacres show and riding 6-29-01

Tape #3 - Practice riding 7-4-01 to 7-8-01 (Hasty Hills)

Tape #4 - Practice riding 7-8-01 to 7-10-01

Tape #5 - High Times show 7-14-01

Tape #6 - High Times Show 7-14-01 #2

Tape #7 - water fight and LA show on 7-18-01

Tape #8 - practice riding 7-6-01 and Hasty Hills show 7-7-01

Tape #9 - Hasty Hills show part #2 and practice riding 7-8-01

What "campers" we are! We had an old fashioned camp fire tonight with smores and stories. Thanks to James Carlson for a great fire.

We also did some "big jumping" today. Erika joined the 3' club, and Tovah set her personal best at 3'3". Many others got to do some higher than usual fences. After much coaxing, we got merlin to jump his first vertical panels. More special rides tomorrow on the last day of the first session. Maybe pond jumping, and definitely some more special rides on difficult horses. Tovah did very well riding Quantum today - jumped, too!

Great show at Longacres today! We had a three way tie for jumper Champion between Joetta, Meghan, and Melanie! A total of more than 42 ribbons won by Longacres riders, with some good horses from other stables competing against us. Lauren got reserve Champion ring I. Longacres riders won five trophies, and many high ribbons. Everyone got at least one ribbon.

AND - - - AT THE GYMKHANA yesterday - ta da - - - roll of drums - - - Erika Attoma was the first place trophy winner!!!!! We are watching video of the show right now.

More tomorrow - Tom

Horse Show today! Our first three hrose shows of the season were very big. Tomorrow we expect a light turnout and a relaxed atmosphere.

We set an all time record number of hits on our website this past week, with 16954 total hits from 910 different users. That's a lot of interest in Longacres related programs!

- Tom

- Tom

I am very pleased with the way things are going at Longacres. For the second year in a row, we have been lucky enough to have very enthusiastic likable girls as students (at least so far!). Losing two staff early in the season was a bummer and made us all work pretty hard for a week and a half, but we now have plenty of help again. Everyone is riding lots and improving by the day. Very few have had to "sit out" a lesson so far (two of our best horses did pull up lame yesterday, so I HOPE that this good record continues. We need rain - the ground is getting harder and that leads to sore horses.)

In addition to the practice riding, the lessons with me, the lessons in the afternoon with Katie, advice from meg and Ashley and Kelly, we have much more going on at Longacres. Every few days we are bringing in new horses from friends of the farm for training here. Many of our riders are helping with this training of new horses, which gives them valuable experience.

Another ongoing project is the training of a new show jumper prospect, "Quantum". As with Merlin, only a few students are taking part in the hands on training, mostly Meghan Duthie. But Joetta and Sara have both also ridden this exciting horse and it is very educational for all our students to have an advanced training project like this going on while they are here.

Today will mark the second mounted drill team performance of the summer, with this session's new riders all taking part. Tomorrow is our third show of the season, and it will be a tough one - but that is what I said before last week's show, and we won many blues and champion and reserve ribbons there.

We have filmed and analyzed more than five hours of video already. Much of it has been played back in slow motion. This is one of Longacres great strengths.

Things are going well. The farm is being kept looking GREAT by my support staff. I would be proud to have any parents visit anytime.

- Tom

Check out the new pics page for a nice pic of Merlin going over his very first jump with a rider on his back. He is going to be a really great pony for us, and pretty soon! There is also a picture of our newest horse, "Majic" aka (JB). Majic has been loaned to us for the summer by a good friend of the camp, and we look forward to working with this beautiful black horse. Shown riding Majic is our new instructor, Kelly. I will give you a little warning that Kelly was kind of "posing" for this picture!

We had a good run-through of the new session drill team tonight, with lots of laughing and joking. We also took a lot of video today including many close-ups of everyone's form both on the flat and over fences. We all went to the house and watched video in slow motion tonight.

My personal excitement for today was seeing our new jumper prospect, Quantum, jump a combination of fences including a 3'9" final oxer. Not bad for his third week of jumping training!

- Tom

We had a GREAT show at Hasty Hills yesterday! Many ribbons and numerous championships and reserves for Longacres riders! Full details tomorrow! WELCOME second session riders - we will see you during the day tomorrow as you arrive.

Among many awards, Joetta was Champion low jumpers, Emma and Tovah were Champion and Reserve in X-rails jumping, and Lizzie and Kim were Champion and Reserve in Low Hunters! NUMEROUS other wins!

Hard to believe that our first session is almost over! Everyone was up here at the house early in the evening to watch final videos before our show tomorrow. I sent everyone to bed very EARLY so we'll be ready for the dawn trip to the Hasty Hills Farm show.

Everyone is showing, and we hope to have good news in tomorrow night's report in this space! We'll be spending the evening reliving the day on video as we get ready to bid goodbye to six great first session students. We look forward to getting to know six newcomers joining us for the next two weeks.

I think we have spoken with everyone about their travel plans for Sunday. You can reach me here tomorrow night if you have any last minute questions. Families driving in for the next session should plan to arrive between 11 and noon or after 2PM. I will be at the airport between noon and two, and I would not want to miss you when you arrive.

Welcome to Kelly Therre who will be joining our staff as an additional riding instructor on Sunday night. Kelly has had her own horse and done quite a bit of showing in the past. She is a college student now and looks forward to working with all of us at Longacres.

We'll report on the show tomorrow night.

- Tom

I'll give you a rundown on my day to give you a feel for how things are going here. I got up about the time the kids do for breakfast, stopped to say good morning and give them the day's lesson plan and check on everyone. Then every morning I run into town for a bite to eat and my 40 minutes of quiet time reading my paper. That's my personal time. After my morning paper I stopped at the hardware store for paint supplies for several projects around the farm, and drove back to Longacres to teach my morning lesson. Had time to check my messages in the office and make a couple of calls before teaching. We had one of our more exciting lessons today, with everyone trying the bank jump "up hill", and about half of the more secure riders going "down" the bank. I had the whole group then ride out on our trail system and meet me at one of our cross-country jumps where we worked on doing it technically correctly.

After my lesson I raced back to the office and put a new chain on my chainsaw, then down to the dining hall where I had time to cut down a big tree before the kids got to lunch. I had lunch with the kids, then took Meghan M to the office for bookkeeping, and Meghan D into town to let her spend some of our money on horse supplies, extra rakes and a new wheelbarrow, and various other "presents" for the horses. Back at the farm I monitored Katie's lesson for a little while - she does a great job with the girls! I had a few extra moments, so I walked down the trail and did a surprise bunk inspection of the girls sleeping cabins - bad news for them! They were about what most of you parents probably expect. They will be better tomorrow, but it will not last long - life is imperfect :(

I chatted on the way back with the girls in the barn and at Katie's lesson, then went up to the office and spent 40 minutes paying bills (yuch!) Answered a few e-mails from parents and returned a couple of phone calls. Then down to dinner with everyone. Was pleasantly surprised at how well our new substitute cook did preparing dinner - Joyce will have a couple of short vacation trips during the next month, and Dawn will be filling in a few days twice.

A few minutes at the house after dinner where I finished up the bills and answered a few more phone calls, then down to the barn to teach an evening lesson and videotape everyone. It was a relaxed jumping session; only a few important pointers while we did the videotaping - we will analyze it later in detail. After the informal jumping session with everyone, I worked with Meg and Quantum putting him through a quadruple combination gymnastic exercise. This advanced jumper training is a fun part of my day! It was a LOVELY evening, and I knew that tonight was the official full moon. So I offered the girls a moonlight ride which they jumped at. I came back up to the house and actually had 35 minutes to RELAX - - -then back down to the barn at 10PM to supervise the moonlight ride. The girls had a good time while I acted as traffic cop to keep everyone slow and mellow in the semi-darkness. After I led them back to the barn to put the horses away, I drove back up to the main house where I am now, returning some phone calls, e-mails, and writing this website update and posting pics to the website. I'll be done soon (midnight) - then tomorrow is another day!

Running a camp requires a long day's work - lots of it is very rewarding, and I don't have to hold this schedule for more than about ten weeks - which is a fortunate thing!

- Tom Kranz

It's been a busy and rewarding day! We had a great lesson this morning working up and down hills with a steady pace up and down, then all tried the Pulverman ditch jumps. Everyone did it, even Katherine who has only been jumping for this week. Tom was leading Merlin around during the lesson playing with him and leading him over jumps. When he was standing next to the bank, Tom put some weight on him and all the girls dared him to climb on, so he did for just a second!

Tom also drove Meg over to look at a horse for sale during lunch and she did a great job riding the mare. Some of you have heard of this horse - it is "Billy Holiday", quite a famous jumper in the area. It has been another good day.

- Tom

I had to be out of camp much of today running one of my truck races. Everyone was in great spirits late last night, so I felt good leaving the camp on the horses' day of rest with Meg, James Carlson and his children, Brandon and Mallory in charge. (Meg Duthie has done a great job taking over the barn during this weekend while Katie Fitzgerald is off!)

Still, I always worry a little how everyone is doing when I am away for much of a day. No need. When I drove into the barn drive this evening, everyone was running around the show ring and pretending to be horses going over the jumps. Great spirits after their town day doing their laundry and some shopping! I was pretty beat from running our horse show the other day and my truck race today, but I loaded our cheerful group up and we went to "Scoonies" for ice cream as a bedtime treat. Meg and the campers had done a fine job of barn care during the day, so we are all ready for a new week.

We rode some light days skipping a few lessons here and there this past week because it was so very hot. No problem like that this week! We are expecting a record cold tonight, and everyone was going to bed when I left them half an hour ago bundled up in multiple layers and all their blankets. We will be riding a full schedule the next few days while we have wonderful, cool riding weather!!

Most of you have read the story below about two of our staff leaving unhappy two days ago. Certainly it leaves those of us still on the staff here with more work to do. But over the years I have found that almost always, the spirit of the group is much better a day or two after a discontent staff person leaves us. All of us here now like each other and are on the same page working to help each other. The kids sense it and are full of good spirit. I'm tired but pleased with the situation now.

- Tom

Our unpleasant hot spell is supposed to end with a few overnight thunderstorms followed by a great week of riding weather with temperatures in the mid 70's! We took "advantage" of the last steamy day to get in this session's "Pond ride". Picture below -

Below: Katherine Lubarski jumping Brownie into the pond; "Don't worry, Mom!", she said; "It would have been a soft landing if I came off!"

Below - Our first session crew after a GREAT horse show day!!!!! June 29th

The above picture was taken at about 10PM while we were watching the video's of today's show. It was a big show with riders from five or six other show stables from all over western New York. It was tough competition, but Longacres won the training jumper championship (Joetta on Missy), reserve Championship ("Galloping Lizzie" on Brownie), two other 1st's - Lauren on Dipper and Kane on Ali; and many more ribbons. Meg Duthie rode our promising new jumper, Quantum, to a third place in his very first show!! Everyone felt very "up" tonight. The above picture was rigged only slightly when someone said the name of a currently popular young male movie star (who an old guy like me had never heard of!), and it got the above reaction!!

I was very pleased by everyone's riding today, as well as how hard they all worked getting ready. Thanks also to Mallory and Brandon who were such a big help filling in helping with both the show and morning horsecare today!! We're doing fine!

- Tom

A Difficult Day - - - Two of our staff who have expressed some discontent over the past few days have decided not to continue at Longacres for the summer. Priya and Rebecca were popular with the girls in the cabins, so there was a tearful departure. But camp goes on. Meghan McGuire has moved from her cozy apartment into the cabins with the girls so there will be no break in adult supervision at night. Meghan Duthie has been outstanding in her teaching and barn supervision, as has our six year veteran camper and CIT, Joetta. I will be doubling my teaching schedule and I am hoping our excellent part time instructor, Katie, can give us more time. I've had two responses to the help wanted ad I posted in the above paragraph last night in anticipation of this eventuality. Our grounds manager, James Carlson, has his two teenage children visiting for the summer and they have wanted jobs at the barn - this is their good fortune - they go to work tomorrow morning!

Things are under control and will work out. The primary responsibilities of the two girls who left were in caring for the horses, shopping, and part time cooking help. Our actual riding instruction schedule has been impacted very little.

I'm sure most parents will want to call and speak with me to be reassured about our staffing. I will be hard to reach during the day Friday because we are running a big horse show in the afternoon, but I will be available all night tomorrow night. Probably best to try me between 9:30 and midnight. I will return your call if you leave a message, or you can email me. Many of you spoke with your kids today by phone when they went to movies and the mall. They will all have a chance to phone again on Sunday afternoon between 2 and 5 PM during town day.

Our first show is tomorrow afternoon, and everyone here is scheduled to show. It looks like a very competitive day, with many outside stables planning to attend. We will be running two rings at once with two judges. We'll try to catch all our students on video between taking care of all the show coordination!!!!!!!! I'll try to remember all the horse - rider combinations scheduled: Kane on Ali; Tovah on Kitty and Bobert; Meg on Quantum (first show ever!!); Lauren on the beloved Dipper!; Emma on Treek; Kathryn on Brownie and Reggie; Joetta on Missy and Wizard; Emilie on "Who Else? But JOEY!!!!"; Lizzie on Brownie, and Kim on Stoney. Does that add up to ten? I think I got it right!

We had a busy first two days, and we're all bonding with different horse and rider combinations! Everyone had video taken of their riding on Sunday and have already had a chance to see it in slow motion. We had our barn procedure orientation Monday morning, so we got in only one lesson then, but we got in two in the afternoon plus a trail and a short drill team Monday night.

Today (Tuesday) we have had a full schedule so far. Things are so organized that I sent Meghan, and some of the staff out to a nice lunch in town as a reward for the great work they have done opening Longacres this year! Meg and Katie are holding down the fort for the three o'clock lesson. Merlin is getting his training with Joetta and Tovah in charge of his two daily work-outs. We had an exciting session last night with Meg Duthie trying our new "jumper prospect", Quantum", over a combination - first time in his life, and he learned fast!

We'll post some more pics during the next two days as we prepare for our first show here at Longacres in just three days!

- Tom

Everyone has arrived safely except for Emilie and Emma who are driving here and due in about an hour. Katherine Lubarsky came to us a good flat rider who had never jumped before coming to Longacres. Now she has! She will be jumping courses by the end of her two week stay - good basic form. In fact, Meg and I taught her first jumping lesson an hour ago and she did jump a little course of foure x-rail fences.

All the other girls are getting mounted now for their first ride. We'll ride again after dinner. Longacres 2001 is under way!

More than a dozen calls and e-mails have come in during the past week asking. "Practical Horse" magazine publishes a couple of pictures sent in by readers every month of horses jumping. Former USET rider George Morris critiques them.

One of the pictures this month is of our own Miscellaneous at a show with former Longacres student Ann Benjaminson. The picture must be almost ten years old and I have no idea who sent it in. I only found out about it three days ago. It is a GREAT jumping picture! Grab a copy of the magazine if it is on your news stand, and check Missy out.

First Competition Winners - Tie Between Kane and Marce!

Leigh Clark's last clinic lesson featured a least strides on a course contest, and it was a tie for first between Kane Ramsey and Marce Evans. (Can you hear Meg going gr-r-r-r-rr?)

Quantum continues to amaze me with his potential. The farm is looking beautiful. More news coming tomorrow!

- Tom Kranz

Only a couple of you are driving into town on Sunday. Most are flying. I'm sorry more of your parents won't get to see how much work our staff has done around the farm to make things look fresh and professional. I am very proud of everyone here! Good job all around.

Above - "Wizzard"

Kane Ramsey arrived safe and sound today - I have been told that Kane's family have had a message that she is here and safe, but I haven't personally been in touch, so this is verification!

We have heard from several friends of the camp today about other possible new horses to bring in for the summer, so we should have good variety during the season. More notes coming tomorrow night, and then YOU WILL ALL BE HERE!!!!

- Tom

Update from this morning - I'm excited! Meg and I worked with the new horse, "Quantum", twice today. He is a handful! I hope he will be ready for many of you to ride in a few weeks, but right now he is full of beans and doesn't have much experience jumping. We bought him from a family that had him most of his life and used him on trails. They always thought he would make a good eventing horse, but never had time to try to train him. Well, we think he has some real aptitude to perhaps be our next great jumper. No way to be sure - we have only put him over X-rails and some tiny verticles. But he loves to move forward (and sideways sometimes!). He is explosive over little jumps, and very alert and interested in what's going on around him. Since Patti and Missy, our two great older jumpers are near the end of their careers, it would be especially exciting if Quantum proved to be a jumper talent!

Patti and Missy Report:

Missy is old. No two ways about it. So when she returned from a winter of easy trail riding, I have taken it very slow and easy getting her into condition. We have done no more than jump her over little two foot fences during the three weeks she has been at Longacres this spring. Tonight I felt we were ready to try her and see if she has any gas left in her tank. She does!!! We trotted her first over bigger and bigger verticle fences up to about 2'9". She rapped that twice with her hind legs and I wondered if that is her limit now. Missy has never liked trotting fences - she has a huge canter stride and likes to come in that way. So I let Meg canter her over the jump and she soared over it the way she has for the past ten years - and I raised it - and again. Missy still has an easy 3'9" jump. Probably more, but I did not want to press her. We are going to take it very easy on her this summer during the week, so she has plenty of energy for shows and to occasionally give some of you a chance to jump bigger than you have before.

Patti returned from her winter home a little thin. We have been feeding her a heavy ration, and she has been gaining weight, but she has also been quite lame several times. We finally had a thorough vet work-up with several X-rays and some blood tests, all of which indicate some arthritis in her hind legs. That is often a quite treatable condition in middle aged horses, and Patti is on a drug therapy to reduce the irritation in her hocks. At the moment she is better. We will see in time whether she can show this summer. If not, she has had a great career, and we are grateful. But the vet tests and her therapy and conditioning are somewhat promising. I would bet she will win one or two more blue ribbons before she is finally retired.

BULLITEN: Big packages in the front hallway here for Kane, Joetta, Tovah, and Lauren!

We're in the midst of the Clinic Week, and the instruction has been pretty intense. Leigh Clark from High Time Stables taught the girls six hours from Monday night through last night. We're doing several discussion groups and lessons today here at Longacres preparing for the WRITTEN TEST at the end of the week! I will print the test below, to give you an idea of what we are working on here intensively this week, and what you can all expect to be offered while you are here. I was going to say what you will learn while you are here, but I can only offer it to you. It is hard work to learn these details and fine points of horsemanship, and not everyone needs to know all the stuff on our clinic test. But if you want to, the opportunity is available at Longacres.

Well, this is the kind of damp, dreary day that you'd as soon just stay in bed. Especially around a horse farm! Fortunately, we don't get too many of these during the summer, but it does happen. Sometimes we just do a thorough horse care and head out for a movie / mall trip on a day like today. I'm happily warm in front of my computer and I'll take this chance to catch you up on a little Longacres daily news. Maybe I'll get around to the next installment in "Tom's Articles" later this afternoon.

We have a new little boy in the barn; our boarders, Glen and his family who own "Big Red", just bought a yearling gelding large pony. Looks a lot like our new Merlin - VERY cute. We'll put up a pic in a day or so. He is not my responsibility, belonging to a boarder, but it will be interesting for you all to learn the differences this summer between what you can do with a green three year old like Merlin and what you can and cannot do with a yearling like the new little guy.

Icky as today's weather is for humans, our horses seem to be loving the fresh clean grass out in pasture. You former Longacres students would not recognize our turn out pasture in the early spring. During the summer, the horses have it all eaten down and it is mostly dirt and a few weeds. Not now! All fresh green grass VERY well fertilized from years of being a horse pasture. It is heaven for a horse at this time of year.

Open House, Noon Saturday, June 9th:

We have a family definitely visiting Longacres on June 9th to meet us and see the camp, so we will advertise that time as an official pre-season Open House if any of you would like to come up for a look around that day. We are pleased with our progress in getting all the weather damage from the winter cleaned up. We have repainted the upper show ring completely, and completely revarnished all the inside of the barn and the stall fronts. It looks very shiny in there now! The dining hall is open and we are well along with cleaning up and refurbishing inside. We still have to repaint the inside of the shower house, and refurbish the sleeping cabins a bit, but that is work for later this week. Most trails have had the big winter tree and branch falls chain sawed up. We have to go out on the trails again with tree trimmers to cut the little branches that might get in your way on a trail ride.

Tom has been busy with his tractor mowing all the out-of-the-way trails around the farm and through the woods. We are just starting to scrub and paint all the jumps this week. Things should look pretty good by June 9th! (Go read our article on facilities, found in the table of contents on the main Longacres page - remember that this is Longacres 63rd season, and no matter how much we do, there is always something else that is about to wear out or break!)

New Pic, Saturday May 26th: Bobert in rear, Lucky in the middle, "Red" - a border's horse in foreground.

Below: Fifel, Meghan's house mouse! We ah , er - - saved a wild mouse that was drowning in our jacuzzi last week. Once we saved his life, it somehow seemed right to Meghan that we house and care for him. Meghan has been pampering him ever since - it is hilarious the lengths she goes to for that mouse! This pic was taken today with one of Fifel's many toys. I just hope that Meghan takes such good care of all you campers this summer! PS - I have been severely reprimanded for misspelling "Feivel" - his Mistress is very particular about that! Sorry Feivel!

BULLITEN - May 26th:

We confirmed this morning that we are buying three year old Merlin for sure. He is being delivered along with Quantum to Longacres next Saturday. Only rarely do we buy and train a completely green horse at Longacres. We prefer to have all horses that you can ride right away and the process of "making" a horse from an unbroken "greenie" takes two full summers. We undertake such a project only when we think we have found an unusually nice horse, and Merlin appears to be that. We think he will be a truly outstanding addition to the Longacres string of horses when he is fully trained. It will be a very interesting project for some of you this summer. We will be looking for volunteers willing to put in a lot of time with his training. E-mail me if you are interested. Even if you are just coming for two weeks, we could put you on the training team.

- Tom

BULLITEN!!!!! More New Horses!

Meghan and Priya have been looking through newspaper ads and phoning all over western New York and PA looking for new Longacres horses. Boy, did they have a profitable trip today! Priya drove and Meghan was the video operator as they went to Albion to look at a big bay thoroughbred gelding named Quantum. Turned out that the owners and their kids have entered Longacres horse shows in the past and know us pretty well. So they gave Priya and Meghan all the details on Quantum's life history. Meghan and Priya decided to buy him on the spot! AND, just as they were leaving, they met a very cute pony / horse which ALSO turned out to be for sale.! So-o-o-o-o ; it looks like we will probably buy him also - Merlin is just a three year old and still growing. They say his mom looks a lot like Treek (a pony) but his sire is a 17 hand thoroughbred that looks a lot like Stoney. What a combo! Merlin is completely green - never been ridden, so it will be a whole project breaking and training him at Longacres this summer. Priya and Meghan say that Merlin has a great personality - very, very, very sweet and friendly. The girls met him and the owner's family showed Merlin off. Meghan and Priya turned and started walking to their car, and Merlin just followed along, as though he wanted to ride home with them right then and there!. (NOTE: It is 90% sure we are buying Merlin. The family who owns him is thinking overnight whether they can bear to part with him for sure.)

Below: Quantum:

Below: Merlin

Below: Tom mowing acres and acres of grass (over again every four days this month!)

UPDATE, May 22nd:

There is another installment in the pre-camp article series posted. We hired more maintenance help today and began sanding and preparing the inside of the barn for fresh varnish. Should be SHARP when you get here!

PS - I am having fun doing horsecare with Bobert in the barn, but will be glad to turn that over to Priya when she arrives for the summer tomorrow!

Over the next ten days or so, I will be publishing in this space a series of short messages to my 2001 students giving an idea of what you can expect from our riding program this year. Some of this repeats info printed in other parts of the website. All of it will be interesting to first time Longacres students, and much of it also to returning students.

I will talk about how many hours of riding you will be getting here, about the kind of horses you will ride and how they will be assigned for you. I will talk about the kind of lessons you'll get from myself and from my assistant instructors. I'll talk about what we will expect of YOU when you are in our lessons - how I am usually quite demanding in my classes, but how you will get many chances to ride in less formal situations. I will talk about this summer's show schedule, and how we will choose events for you in shows. And I will write a special article about how we balance our twin goals of giving you all a fair chance to ride in appropriate show events, while also Winning - Kicking some Butt - for the honor of Longacres. About how we are both a riding school committed to teaching everyone, AND a very competitive show stable, and how the second part of this combination can lead to some "favoritism", and how I try to handle that in a reasonable way.

These are all important topics, and if you read about them during the coming days, you will be in a better position to enjoy Longacres when you arrive and to understand what we are trying to do for you all. Keep checking in every day!

- Tom Kranz, Tuesday, May 15th

Today's Workers: Meghan, Tom, and James taking the picture:

Tuesday, May 15th: We had a busy crew of workers down around the dining hall today. Meghan spent the day cleaning up in and around the dining hall and kitchen, scrubbing tables and refrigerators, sweeping and weeding the patio, and much more. James Carlson, who lives year round at the camp, worked on fixing water pipes that had frozen over the winter. We had a hard winter in western New York, so there were more of them than usual!

Tom ran the weed-wacker to trim the grass, worked with James on plumbing, and went out and spent some of your tuition $$$$$ on maintenance supplies and paint.

Want to Visit?

We still have five weeks of hard work to get the camp and stable ready for the season, but at least it is starting to look like we care about our appearance now that we have been working for a couple of weeks. Anybody is welcome to come visit the farm now if you want a pre-season visit. We are always away on Sundays, but you are welcome most Saturdays, and anytime during the week, with a couple of days advance notice. No visits on yucky rain days!

Above, left to right: "Missy", Kirstie, Julie, Uncle Billy, Meghan, Lauren, "Patti", "WarGodess"