What a time was had at the annual membership meeting and awards ceremony! First, thank you to everyone who made time out of their day to participate! The room was full to capacity. Sure it was “intimate” in size to begin with, but we truly did fill‘er up.
The speakers kicked off the day, and they were great. Starting with J & S Trailers, we learned all about trailer flooring and roofs: how to detect leaks; when it’s time to find someone to fix leaks; and how to help prevent leaks.
Some highlights from his speech:
- Bearings need greased every 12,000 miles or 12 months.
- Check under mats annually or more often if needed (urine will eat aluminum)
- Use soap and water to wash out (no baking soda as it will turn aluminum black)
- There are drain holes in floor to allow draining, make sure they are not clogged.
- Roof sealant needs to be checked regularly.
- Make sure vent caps are good, not broken or brittle and check tape to make sure none is broken, cracked or scraped off.
- Use Extream sealant tape. It DOES STICK. Make sure where you place it is where you want it the first time.
- WD40 is not recommended. Rather use Blast Dry lube which is much better.
- Irish Spring soap to keep rodents and bugs out (and it smells good too).
- Run AC daily to control humidity.
How many of you went home and inspected your trailers? How many of you pulled up floor mats? Yeah, me too! I see a road trip in my future.
Then we had Christina and Katie with Triple Crown Feeds deliver a presentation on leaky gut syndrome in horses. Christina has posted the presentation on our FB page for those of you who couldn’t make it. Katie is local to the Ocala area and is available to answer questions and for possible farm call if needed. Some tidbits worth mentioning:
- Feed same food at a ride as you do at home.
- Don’t change feed just for ride, it can upset bacteria in gut. Probiotic needs to have 1 billion per bacteria or more NOT 1 billion total.
- Probiotics should have butyric acid- fermented beet pulp is good source of this.
- Triple Crown has feed with probiotics· ****Triple Crown Alfa Lox for stress when traveling.***
Thank you to Edie Peters for the note taking/sharing.
T-SHIRTS! We are the super store of Tees! We have multiple styles, colors and sizes. 199 to be exact. Priced right and we sold many at the meeting. Be the envy of your friends and fellow competitors every time you wear your SEDRA logo shirt!
If you joined us for lunch, you had to be on your best behavior to avoid going into a diabetic coma! Oh, the desserts! So many options! Homemade pies and cupcakes, cookies, cakes, Jello fluff, more cookies and pies. All the food was good and thankfully, gone by the end of the day.
Jodie Moore brought in her beautiful painted wares to sell. Sometimes you don’t realize you need something until you see it! Jodie is the artist for several of our award categories.
Triple Crown, Vettec, Kentucky Equine Research and Riding Warehouse donated to our organization providing raffle items. Everyone who attended received a shopping tote full of little goodies too. Please support them in return when you can. There were coupon codes for both KER and RW saving you 10% in the RW bags. I’ll also post the codes on our FB page.
We also want to thank our 2019-2020 ride season sponsors: The Distance Depot, Air-Vest.com and Taylored Tack. Please support them when you need gear for either you or your horse!
There really is a website on 20 ways you can use lip balm! https://urbansurvivalsite.com/20-survival-uses-for-chap-stick/
Our meeting went well and by an overwhelming vote, hoof boots will now be allowed for points in CTR competition. Several members really rallied for this option and did the research to support it. Look for the rule within the next 30 days in our rule book on-line.
The SEDRA Membership Directory will be mailed to you this year. Unfortunately, the printer had a technical issue and didn’t start the print job in time for us to pick up in time to have available at the Annual Banquet. If you would rather pick up your book or don’t need it mailed, please contact me at sedraprez@gmail.com.
The directory also contains the list of all the award winners along with pictures of the special award winners.
THE AWARDS! If you gathered anything from watching our multiple award winners pick up their winnings, it was that having a successful horse and a successful partnership doesn’t happen overnight. Horses that were challenging, questionable and making some members question their sanity a few years ago are now winning and going the distance as a dependable mount.
If you didn’t know, you soon found out that non-Arabian horses can do very well in this sport too.
“Age DON’T Matter” Our youngest competing member is 7 years old (was an AERC member at the age of 4) and our oldest is in her 80’s. We still have horses that compete that are in their 20’s.
The entire list of award winners will be available on our website soon.
Don’t forget! To qualify for awards you must nominate you, your horse, your best friend, someone you admire, etc. The forms are ALL available on our website.
RIDES! We already have a list of rides that have sanctioned with others coming in throughout the year. If you plan on attending a ride that isn’t sanctioned, please take a moment to ask the ride manager if they will sanction or let me know and I’ll ask.
FHA Clinic and CTR: Mark your calendars for October 26-27 to attend the clinic on Saturday and compete on Sunday. This is a perfect venue to bring someone new into the sport. Maybe you have never tried a CTR or it’s your horse’s first CTR? Try it here! Doug os looking for speakers so if you are available, and have a topic that applies, please contact him.
AERC Convention: Will be held in Jacksonville, FL in 2020! Save the date of March 6-7, 2020. SEDRA will be teaming up with SERA as hosts (details to come). We’ll need volunteers to work the booth. I’m looking for auction items too. If you are an artist or creator of cool things people will want to bid on, please let me know. We’ll brag about you to anyone who will listen! Find reservation details at www.AERC.org/convention.
From your Prez: Thank you for allowing me to lead this fine, fine group of people, horses…friends again this year. If you didn’t already know, I enjoy the job.
Most of the time.
I LOVE supporting ALL OF YOU in your journey ALL of the time.
Happy Trails! Chris Littlefield, Sedra Prez
