Nat Varcoe-Cocks' OCD Comes In Handy On Packing Day!

Nat Varcoe-Cocks

Natalie Varcoe-Cocks' years of
experience come in handy when 

packing for four horses' transatlantic
adventures!

Natalie Varcoe-Cocks, known as “just Nat V-C,” is an eventing groom extraordinaire. She's headed to Germany and England with Will Faudree and his horses. Nat is one of the best-known eventing grooms, having worked for David Green in England, Jan Byyny, and now Faudree since last year. Faudree’s Gavilan Farm is in Hoffman, N.C., just south of Southern Pines.

Originally from Australia, Nat has lived in the United States since 2004 and not only runs Faudree’s barn, but also does the basic training on a few CANTER sales prospects, and competes at the beginner novice level with them.

Faudree is headed to the Luhmuhlen CCI**** (Germany) with Pawlow, and the CIC*** with Andromaque. After that competition, June 15-19, Faudree, Pawlow, Andromaque and two younger horses will move on to England, where they’ll be based for the summer. Pawlow’s goal for the fall is the Burghley CCI**** (England).

"I can’t believe it’s the day we leave! Will and I left for JFK airport on Monday, as we have a 10-hour drive, and although we don’t have to be there until Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., we feel it's better not to interrupt our or the horses’ sleeping patterns too much by leaving at 2 a.m., or risk any problems, i.e the token tire blow-out you get when you’re on a strict time schedule! Will and I will stay in a hotel for the night, and the ponies, although it isn't the Ritz, will stay in their own hotel for the night.


On Sunday, I had to do the inevitable: PACK!!! I seem to always leave it to the day before. Some may call it procrastinating—I like to call it efficient! In the last week I have made sure that I had all the supplies and did a Walmart run and a tack store run just to get the essentials: peppermints for Ernie (Pawlow), special baby powder for Missie (Andromaque) and her lovely scratches that seem to always crop up at the wrong time.

Nat and Pawlow

Nat Varcoe-Cocks will be taking care of Pawlow (pictured) and
Andromaque at the Luhmuhlen three-day in Germany.

I like to collect everything in one area of our fabulously huge tack room (the show area). In all, it took me about four hours to gather it all together. Of course, my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder kicks in when I start, and everything has to be folded evenly and has to fit just so. But at about hour three, it all just fits whether it wants to or not!

In between packing, I was also setting jumps for Will and the working students, Jaz Hobart and Kaitlyn Mosing, with last-minute lessons for them and a final jump for Will. All went really well, with not a miss in sight. I always enjoy setting rails because I get to see how the young horses and students are progressing and when I'm in the warm-up arena at a show, it’s nice to know what to expect.

The tricky thing about Sunday’s packing was the fact that we’re not just going to Luhmuhlen and coming home—we head from there to the England, where we will be based for three months at Maizey Manor, Jackie Green’s property in Marlborough and my old barn. I worked there for David Green for four years. Will is flying home from Luhmuhlen to pick up another two horse, Peanut (Reisling du Bussey) and Andy (DHI Color Candy) to bring over for the summer, so I had to pack for them also.

Well, when I say pack, I mean put all the stuff I want to come over with them in one large trunk, hope that the other two trunks on order arrive, and leave it for my two fantastic girls we’re leaving at home—Jaz and Kaitlyn—to organize and pack!

 Before Packing

To begin packing, Nat Varcoe-Cocks
makes a huge pile of everything that
needs to go.

After Packing

And after she's done, it's all neat
and tidy.

After completing my packing and proudly showing it to everyone and anyone who walked near it (positive affirmation is a great thing), I knew that going home meant only more packing so off I went! By about 9:30 Sunday night, I was all packed (kind of), and my pups, Millie and Thumper, aren’t too distressed by the sight of the suitcases. Jaz will be looking after them and living in my house while I'm gone. I am so lucky to have two girls that love my dogs and that Will and I can leave behind; it's a lot of responsibility, and they take it all in their stride.

Monday is going to be a long day of show tunes and songs that “Will loves;” I can’t complain too much because half the time I sing along, and I am a terrible singer. Hopefully it will go without a hitch and without too much traffic..."

Fitness and the Short-Format

By Will Faudree

“Asleep, no one is a hypocrite” – William Hazlett

There is always a great quote that can be found to sum up any situation. William Hazlett’s quote is the first to come to my mind when I hear people talk about the lack of fitness and “time in the saddle” needed for the modern short format. Those of you who have competed in both the long and the short formats understand the lack of sleep we all get in preparing our horses for their major competitions. I have been very lucky in my short time in this fantastic sport and have had the opportunity to compete the same horse in both long and short format four-stars.

The first year that this reality really hit me was in 2005. I was just starting out in a barn on my own without the day-by-day guidance of Phillip Dutton and my aim was Badminton in May. I looked through my notes of the years before and planned my daily schedule. Badminton came and I had a very fit Antigua ready for the long format challenge. I was number 17 and despite throwing a shoe on steeplechase and the same one again on cross-country we finished the day fault-free. I remember galloping up the hill towards the Badminton house after fence 4AB (minute 1), and Antigua taking his deep breath.

Five months later, I was on my way to Fair Hill, a short format three-star. I did not change much about my galloping but did not go the length of my walking and trot sets. By minute 8 on the cross-country I had an exhausted horse; this was a completely foreign feeling for me… Antigua didn’t “hit the wall.” Like the true champion he was and still is, he buckled down and found another gear to carry on. I was so mad at myself while I was going around that I had abandoned what I knew worked.
 

It was after Fair Hill that year, while I was reflecting on why he got so tired and why he didn’t start to really take a deep breath until I was halfway around, that I would look out in the paddock and see Antigua doing his own trot sets. The value of feeling when your horse takes a deep breath teaches people how to ride around a course, long or short format. When the horse takes a deep breath, when you feel their lungs expand on your legs, it supplies oxygen that is needed for the horse/athlete to continue. By knowing your horse and understanding the course it is always good to recognize places where you as a rider can “throttle back” and allow the horse to breathe. (eg: bottom of a hill, in between fly type fences). Horses have to be taught how to take a deep breath while at speed through the gallop sets that we do at speed. 2006 came and I had the hopes of making the WEG squad but knew that if that was going to come true I was going to need a very strong and fit horse for Rolex. I went back to my notes and pulled my prep work out from the year before and mimicked my Badminton lead-up with a few changes in the galloping. I needed a gallop where I knew he was going to breathe and get the oxygen that he needed (including a bit more sprint work). I had a fit horse at Rolex and by minute 8 all we needed for the next gear was a deep breath.

Every horse is different and is going to handle fitness in their own way. Is the sport different? Yes. Does it take less fitness and horsemanship? NO. The best advice I can give is listen to you horse, tand ake note when they take a deep breath. The jumps come up quick and you can’t commit to them until you have the tools you need to answer the questions.

 

Above photo – Will Faudree and Antigua at the 2008 Olympic Games mandatory training session. Josh Walker photo.
Right photo – Faudree and Antigua at the 2008 final mandatory outing at The Fork. Mike McNally photo.

Team USA Finishes Second At Bokelo

U.S. Effort at Boekelo CCI3*

Updated: 2010-10-18

From the USEF, by Joanie Morris
The United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) sent four Eventing riders to Holland for the Boekelo CCI3*this weekend and produced a second place team result behind the Germans after a hard fought competition. Tiana Coudray (Ojai, CA) led the U.S. effort with Ringwood Magister. The nine-year-old Irish Sport Horse set the standard with Coudray in the pair's first overseas competition. They were sixth after the dressage on a score of 46.2, added 7.6 time faults on the challenging cross country course and then jumped a beautiful clear show jumping round to maintain their sixth place position.

Will Faudree (Hoffman, NC)  was the next highest placed American, a veteran U.S. Team member, Faudree is producing a new international star in Andromaque, a nine-year-old Thoroughbred cross mare owned by Jennifer Mosing. Andromaque was contesting her first CCI3*. They made up some serious ground after the dressage with the fastest cross country round of the day on Saturday and had the very last fence down in the show jumping to move up from 51st after the dressage to 12th in the final standings.

The third score to count in the U.S. Team effort was Sinead Halpin (Gladstone, NJ) on Carriag LLC's Manior de Carneville. The 10-year-old Selle Francais gelding was contesting his second CCI3* and the pair put in a solid effort to finish 21st out of more than 100 starters. Doug Payne (Gladstone, NJ) and Stone Hill Farm's Running Order had their learning curve increased as they contested their first CCI3* together. Two refusals at the first water on the cross country course kept them out of the placings, but the eight-year-old Thoroughbred gelding showed plenty of promise for the future.

USEF Sends Four Eventing Riders to Boekelo CCI3*

USEF Eventing Department - October 9, 2010
Lexington, KY - The following four rider/horse combinations have been selected to receive USEF grants to compete at the Boekelo CCI3*, October 14-17, 2010 in The Netherlands.

Rider/Age/Hometown/Horse/Sex/Breed/Age/Owner

Rider	Hometown	Horse	Breed	Owner
Tiana Coudray (22)	Ojai, CA	Ringwood Magister	Irish Sport Horse (9yo, Gelding)	Tiana Coudray
Will Faudree (29)	Hoffman, NC	Andromaque	Irish Thoroughbred (9yo, Mare)	Jennifer Mosing
Sinead Halpin(29)	Oldwick, NJ	Manior de Carneville	Selle Francais (10yr, Gelding)	Carraig LLC
Doug Payne (28)	Pottersville, NJ	Running Order	Irish Thoroughbred (8yo, Gelding)	Stone Hill Farm

2010 Richland Park HT CIC Three Star

Pawlow, "Ernie," and Andromaque, "Missie," and I competed this past weekend in the CIC Three Star division. Both horses were excellent and were double clear cross country. Ernie had one rail down in stadium and finished in good position at fifth place. Missie was amazing. This was her first CIC Three Star and finished 11th in excellent company.

Cross-country day at Richland Park saw 240 riders galloping through sun soaked fields, picturesque woods, and over pristine fences. The Adequan USEA Gold Cup Division was the highlight of the day, and there were very few problems on course. Check out the photo gallery by clicking here.

It was great to have my friend and Ernie and Missie's owner, Jennifer Mosing, with us at the event. It always makes campaigning a better experience. Next stop the AEC.

What a tribute to my sister, Kristen, and my friend, Jennifer Mosing.

Riding Double: Will Faudree’s Sister Continues to Inspire

The Pilot, Southern Pines, North Carolina
By Stephanie Diaz - Sunday, August 22, 2010

It may be lonely at the top, but any upper-level event rider will admit they had company on their ascent to the sport’s pinnacle.

Will Faudree will shout it.

At 28, Faudree is already a veteran of two U.S. eventing squads (with his longtime partner Antigua, better known as “Brad”) and is poised to be named to another with Pawlow, an 11-year-old Irish thoroughbred owned by Jennifer Mosing of Youngsville, La.

A stellar effort from Pawlow in the advanced division at the American Eventing Championships, which run from Sep. 9-12 at Chattahoochee Hills in Fairburn, Ga., could send Faudree to his second World Equestrian Games.

The AECs will serve as the final U.S. team selection for the Games, which open Sept. 25 and continue through Oct. 10 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

Faudree, a native of Midland, Texas, whose Gavilan Farms sits on 45 acres in Hoffman, also plans to ride Andromaque, a 9-year-old Irish thoroughbred mare owned by Mosing, in advanced at the AECs.
Earlier this month, “Missie” finished second in her first advanced outing with Faudree at the Millbrook Horse Trials, and will try to secure her AEC qualifications next week in the CIC* division at the Richland Park Horse Trials.

Pawlow will also make his final start before the AECs in the Richland CIC*.

But make no mistake. Brad, now 21 and retired from competition, is still J.R. Ewing at this native Texan’s Southfork. The Australian thoroughbred gelding, who won a team gold with Faudree at the 2003 Pan Am Games and was a traveling reserve on both the 2000 and 2004 Olympic teams, has taken part in bareback puissance exhibitions since his retirement in 2008, but his chief duty at Gavilan Farm is to impart wisdom (and good manners) to younger horses.

Since moving up to advanced in early 2009, Pawlow (pronounced “Paul-oh”) has done little to suggest he wouldn’t be a valuable player on any team. The gelding began the season with an intermediate win at the Rocking Horse Winter Horse Trials, and a month later, he won an advanced division at the Southern Pines Horse Trials.

In April, he finished 15th of 53 starters at the Rolex Three-Day Event, his first four-star competition.
Faudree has done just enough with Pawlow (barn name: “Ernie”) since Rolex to keep him fit and happy. Faudree bought Ernie from California event rider Robyn Fisher in 2007, and soon realized the gelding was a horse with his own agenda.

“When I got him, he was this wild, spooky, malicious horse,” said Faudree. “He was very quirky. He had no trust in anybody. Now, he has total trust in us. He’s a total goofball but still extremely quirky. You don’t turn on clippers next to him. You don’t pull his feet out in front of him. That’s a pact I have with that horse. I’m not going to try to change him.”

Faudree laughed. “I meet him on the 50-yard line,” he said.

If Faudree could change anything, it might be the entire year of 2008.

The year began with Ernie still recovering from a Dec. 2007 colic surgery. In February of that year, his grandmother, Harriet Dublin, the anchor of his ­support system, died from cancer in his hometown of Midland.

“My family is very close, and my grandmother supported all of her grandkids in whatever they wanted to do,” Faudree said. “She was hugely influential in my career.”

In April, Faudree took Brad back to Kentucky for his third and final Rolex (the gelding finished sixth in 2006, and was in third place after cross-country in 2007, but withdrew before stadium because of a hoof injury caused by a twisted shoe).

Unfortunately, they would fare no better in 2008. Soon after arriving at the Kentucky Horse Park, Brad suffered a foot abscess, and had to withdraw from the event.

A month after Rolex came the worst news: Faudree’s sister, Kristen, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which rarely strikes young women.

“There was no explanation for it,” Faudree said. “She was young, she was fit … she didn’t smoke.”
A year older than Faudree, Kristen was an extraordinary young woman by any standard. She had spent time in Africa, where she taught HIV education to Zimbabwean families and started a reading program for children. She had returned to Texas in late 2007 to help care for her ailing grandmother, and fell ill shortly thereafter.

Despite being unable to contest Rolex, Faudree and Brad were still invited to the final selection trials for the 2008 Olympic Team, which were to take place in July at The Fork in Norwood. They participated, but Faudree was distracted by Kristen’s illness — she was undergoing radiation treatments but was given a poor prognosis — and he knew chances were slim that he and Brad would be named to the Olympic team.

“I knew I wasn’t going to the Olympics with that horse,” Faudree said. “He was almost 20; he didn’t owe me an Olympic Games. He had done his job with amazing grace, and never had a cross-country jump penalty. It was very emotional for me, because of what my sister was going through, and because I knew it was going to be my last event on that horse.”

Faudree’s partnership with Brad began in 2001. On the recommendation of his boss, three-time Australian Olympian Phillip Dutton, Faudree traveled to Australia to look for an upper level horse. Driving into the farm to look at the first prospect, Faudree glimpsed a smallish, sun-bleached bay tied to a lorry.

“It was Brad,” Faudree said. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but … it was just a horse. Then I got on him, and there was this magical ‘click.’”

After the selection trials, Faudree tried to spend as much time as possible with Kristen. He was also trying to sell Ernie — as an equitation horse.

“I needed the money,” Faudree said. “I had bought the farm, and added on to the barn … I was out of money.”

By October, it became clear that Kristen had a short time to live. She chose to stop radiation treatments, telling her family: “I’m done with this. It hurts. There’s a better place for me, and I can do so much more for you guys up there.”

Faudree was with Kristen the last month of her life. She died on Nov. 22, 2008.

“To see my sister face death, head on,” Faudree said. “It really showed me the value of faith.”
Shortly after Kristen’s death, Faudree was scheduled to teach a clinic in Louisiana. “They said, “If you want to cancel, we’ll understand,” Faudree said. “But I went through with it.”

At the clinic, Faudree reconnected with Mosing, whom he had met at a previous clinic (Mosing’s daughters, Kaitlynn and Madeline, had also trained with Faudree). In early December, Mosing called Faudree.

“She said she might be interested in owning a horse,” he recalled. “I told her Pawlow was for sale, and she asked what it would cost to own an event horse. She thought about it, called back and said she wanted him. I about fell out of my chair.”

Riders often depend on sponsors like Mosing to keep them actively competing at the upper levels. But Mosing has become much more than a sponsor to Faudree.

“She’s become a great friend,” Faudree said. “More like a sister. She reminds me so much of my sister. And I know it was Kristen’s hand in all of this that made it happen.”

In addition to her interest in horses, Mosing is a breeder of champion Yorkshire Terriers. In February, she asked Faudree to show one of her terriers (Brody) in the breed group at the Westminster Kennel Club show in New York City.

“I got to Madison Square Garden at 11 that morning and showed at 2:15,” Faudree said, laughing. “It was intense. It felt like the 10-minute box at Badminton.”

They won the group.

Faudree’s focus is on Ernie now, but Brad remains his gold standard. “Karen Stives (the 1984 Olympic silver medalist) gave me the best advice,” Faudree said. “She told me, “Don’t expect your next horse to fill his shoes.” I’ve never forgotten that. And I never will. No horse ever could.”

Without Kristen, Faudree acknowledges that his future triumphs will be ­bittersweet.

“There are times I would give everything up to have my sister back,” he said. “Even for an hour. I’d do it in a heartbeat. “But somehow, I know she’s still a part of it.”

Millbrook Horse Trials This Past Weekend.

Andromaque, "Missie," is officially an Advanced horse! She was so amazing and I can't even describe how elated I was after her cross country run. She finished second overall and was one of there horses to go double-clear. Her finish was even more amazing because she did her dressage test in a torrential downpour. When we changed rein across the diagonal 1/3 of the way through her test, I could not even seen the letter at the other end of the ring.

Missie at the water complex.

Missie at the water complex.

Pawlow was equally competitive at his first event back from Rolex. I ran him in an Intermediate division as part of his short list program leading up to the selection trials at the American Eventing Championships. His dressage score was fantastic and he finished fourth overall. He is progressing right on track in his program.