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It's been a while since I've posted a personal update on the blog, whether it's been baby horse adventures, show updates and results or really anything for that matter. Read more for why the last year has been anything but normal for me and there's even a surprise at the end! The last time you heard anything about my time with Zellie was last August after we won the Marshall & Sterling League Bit O'Straw Hunter Classic at HITS Commonwealth Park in Culpeper, Virginia. It was a great show for us as we had secured a class win in the Low Adult Hunters – our first blue ribbon over fences together – and they moved the Bit O'Straw Hunter Classic to the main hunter ring which I thought was AWESOME! An opportunity to ride in the main ring AND in a shadbelly? I'll take it! We had a lovely first round of the classic. The second round was listed as a handy so I tried to be as smooth and handy as possible. I was impressed with Zellie on how rideable and soft she was. Apparently the judge was too giving us our highest ever score of an 85 and held the lead throughout the second round, securing the overall win! I was on such a high after this show! Even more so a few weeks later in a Bernie Traurig. He loved Zellie and even rode her in a demo on the second day. She was FABULOUS and I was such a proud adult ammy owner of a young horse! Fast forward another month and here's where the major adulting comes into play which would screw up the next year of my life. Don't worry, it was nothing horse related, thank goodness. My husband noticed some soft spots in our master bathroom wall and called someone out to take a look at it. The culprit? The pipe/drain from our master shower had come completely detached from the house and was dumping all the water into our crawlspace. Great. We made an insurance claim and had the pipe fixed. FYI if you don't know, homeowners insurance, at least our policy, does not cover the pipes, we had to come out of pocket for that fix. Anyway. Insurance scheduled a remediation company (name withheld for reason) to come out to deal with the standing water in the crawlspace and take a look at how extensive the damage was. Luckily we have a second bedroom we could sleep in as they demoed the bathroom and into the master bedroom. A tarp door was put up to help mitigate the noise from the dehumidifiers that were running nonstop. About a month into this, the damage was found to be so extensive that we had to get a field insurance adjuster to come out to evaluate. Turns out our ENITRE subfloor and about 2 ft of the bottom of the drywall throughout the house was compromised. We had to schedule moving out ALL of our household goods and find a place to live in the interim while remediation, demo and reconstruction was done. Insurance wanted to put us in a hotel and we said absolutely not with our three dogs. Especially not knowing how long we'd be there. We ended up in an Airbnb with a backyard for the dogs. We had issue after issue with both the insurance company – our first agent was terrible at her job and I ended up screaming at her, not my finest moment, but it got the point across to her and her supervisors so much so that they assigned us a new agent – and the remediation/reconstruction company. Without getting into too much detail, they walked off the job then slammed us with a bill of "work" that was "completed." The work they claimed was complete was done so in a half-ass manner and in no way acceptable to how the home was pre-loss. It took MONTHS of negotiations before we settled with them for an amount a fraction of the initial bill all while the house sat empty and in complete disarray. Then, it took about a month to find another contractor willing to complete the work. All this time, Zellie had been listed for sale so I was dealing with those emotions. All in all we spent SEVEN MONTHS IN THE AIRBNB from November 2023-May 2024. The house is still a little bit of a work in progress, but at least we're back in our own home. Shortly after moving back into our house, Zellie found an amazing new home local to us so we will still see her at the Virginia/North Carolina/Maryland shows.  Zellie continuing her winning ways with her new owner! NOW FOR SOME GOOD – NO, GREAT – NEWS! I have a new horse! I imported him from Poland through RJT Horses. Introducing On Brand, he is a 5-year-old, 17.2h KWPN gelding who we'll call Ollie in the barn.  What a handsome boy! Equijet handled the transport logistics and they were wonderful. From right after purchase and his journey to Liege, Belgium to board his flight to JFK, through the quarantine process and shipping him to Steadfast Farm , my Equijet agent Neva was very communicative and answered all my questions. He was supposed to fly on Sunday, July 28. That flight was delayed to late Monday and that flight was delayed to Tuesday evening. Each update from Neva about the travel delays, while unfortunate, was timely and descriptive. Ollie finally boarded the plane around 11 p.m. local time in Liege on Tuesday July 30 and made it to JFK and into USDA quarantine early morning EST Wednesday, July 31.  
Do you have any questions about the import process? Send them my way and I'll do an FAQ blog post about importing a horse as an adult amateur!
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