Summer 2023

pair their love of sport with a combined 40+ years of experience assisting buyers and sellers of farms, historic homes & luxury estates. Whether your goal is to earn you colors with the one of Aiken's local hunts, show your hunter or jumper at Bruce's Field, have a cross country school at The Vista or enjoy a hack in Hitchcock Woods, Cissie and Tracey will bring their trusted expertise to guide you to the perfect property to complement your lifestyle!

Cissie Sullivan and Tracey Turner

Tracey Cissie

Summer 2023 Volume 9, Issue 2

Editor

Lauren Allen

Publisher

Pam Gleason

Layout & Design Larchwood Productions

Contributors

Lauren Allen

Liz Crawley

Pam Gleason

Gary Knoll

Jessica O'Connor

Sharon Packer

Natalie Suto

Advertising

Lauren Allen 803-240-1275

Pam Gleason 803-643-9960

Ashley Haffey 607-743-1309

General Inquiries

Lauren Allen 803-240-1275

thecarolinasequestrian@gmail.com

Cover

Jacqueline Ruyle aboard Cyramo Z winning the $78,000 Grand Prix CSI2*

Sponsored by the Earl Scruggs Music Festival. Saturday Night Lights at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina.

Photography by Pam Gleason

From the Editor

The long days and slower pace of summer are upon us – a time for vacations, camps, maybe even horse show holidays. We enjoyed putting together this issue, and we hope you will love reading it. Here are a few of the stories you will find inside:

Mountain destinations such as Tryon, North Carolina appeal to riders who want to escape the sauna of the South. Our feature article explores the Tryon International Equestrian Center and Resort, which has fueled an explosion of equestrian activity in North Carolina. This top caliber facility is packing the house with a wide variety of summer shows, including the Saturday Night Lights Grand Prix series.

Summer camps give kids a chance to pass some of their precious summer vacation with horses. Day camps have a variety of benefits beyond simply helping kids learn to ride, and the memories made at camp last forever. Find our story on page 18.

The young rider featured in this issue is Logan Starnes, who has been winning at the All American Quarter Horse Congress since his legs barely reached the bottom of the saddle pad, and he also has some interesting hobbies beyond riding. (Hint: you wouldn’t want to get in a fight with him.)

Our practical advice this issue addresses the timely topic of riding in hot weather. Need some tips to “Beat the Heat”? Read our story on page 28.

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Equestrians of the Carolinas introduces readers to Joan and Gil Hilsman. The Hilsmans have lived and worked all over the world but now they reside a few miles from the Carolina Horse Park in Raeford, North Carolina. They bring their abundant skills and enthusiasm to help the park however they are needed. Hunter jumper riders will probably feel some familiarity with the artist Georgianna Conger’s work, since they may recognize her clean lines and soft colors from the covers of the annual prize lists of the Aiken Spring Classic horse show. Meet Georgianna (who goes by “Girl”) in our artist feature – she is also a dedicated volunteer at the Aiken County Animal Shelter and has saved hundreds of dogs and puppies.

Our photographic collage “Out and About” showcases equestrians from a variety of disciplines and venues across the Carolinas. Maybe you’ll see yourself! As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us through our website at TheCarolinasEquestrian.com or on Facebook or Instagram and tell us about people we need to talk to, events we need to cover, or places we need to go see.

Lauren Allen, Editor

Tr yon International Equestrian Center

By Pam Gleason

A premier equestrian facility in North Carolina with so much to offer for horsemen and the community at large: In the middle of nowhere; in the center of everything.

Pam Gleason

It was a steamy summer night at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina. Thunderstorms threatened in the distance, but the weather at the Tryon Stadium remained muggy and warm as the first horse entered the ring for the jump off in the $78,000 Earl Scruggs Music Festival Grand Prix CSI 2*. This horse, Cyramo Z, owned and ridden by Jacqueline Ruyle from Navasota, Texas, was a petite grey Zangersheide mare, standing about 15.1 hands. She was the smallest horse to jump that night, but what she lacked in size she made up for in speed. Ruyle expertly guided her around the shortened track in a blazing 35.65 seconds, finishing clear and laying down the gauntlet for the four other horses that made the jump off. Could anyone match her?

The answer was no. When the last round was over, Cyramo Z was the winner, and Jacqueline Ruyle took her place at the top of the podium, flanked by Alexandra Worthington with De

L’oiseliere and Lauren Tyree with Voltanos in second and third respectively. It was an allfemale podium, as well as an all-female jumpoff. In fact, of the 19 competitors that rode into the arena that night, the top seven finishers were women, some of them, including Jacqueline and Alexandra, amateurs. They bested prestigious professionals such as the international team members Harold Chopping (Canada), Doug Payne and Todd Minikus (USA).

This was the July 1 edition of Saturday Night Lights, one of the signature events held at Tryon International each summer. The showjumping series, presented by Tryon Horse and Home, begins at 8 pm and is designed to showcase the sport at an elite level. Outside the arena, there was a festival atmosphere with an array of familyfriendly entertainment – hobby horse races and face painting for children, carousel and pony rides, jugglers and soap bubble makers, even a mechanical bull. Before the show jumping started, spectators enjoyed live music on a stage

Above: Jacqueline Ruyle cools off with a Champagne spray after her victory; Saturday Night Lights Grand Prix. Left: Second place Alexandra Worthington with De L’oiseliere tries to beat Jacqueline Ruyle's time in the jump off.

fronting the arena. The Legends Club restaurant offered a ringside dinner, or spectators could choose to watch from comfortable elevated seats or from an adjacent grassy lawn. The experience was created to appeal to a wide audience, not just to horse people, and to provide a way for nonequestrian members of the community to get close to a horse. The entire evening was offered free of charge.

“One of the very earliest commitments that we made was that this place would be accessible to anyone,” said Sharon Decker, who is the president of the Carolina operations of Tryon Equestrian Partners, the private group the owns Tryon International. “So that’s the reason we have a free carousel and free pony rides on Saturday night. We want people in the community to come out and enjoy the horses for free. Sure, we have great places to eat and plenty of places to buy things and spend money, but for anybody to come, there is no admission fee.”

Sharon Decker has been with Tryon International since 2015. She confesses that she was not a horse person before taking this job, but she did have a solid business background, and in fact her previous position was Secretary of Commerce for the state of North Carolina. Mark Belissimo, who is the managing partner of Tryon International, assured her that he was surrounded by plenty of people who knew horses. He wanted someone to run the business.

“My compelling motivation has been job creation,” said Decker, explaining that the Tryon area, which once had a booming textile industry, was lacking in opportunities after the mills closed down. She said that economic impact studies have shown that Tryon International has created about 4700 jobs. Today the facility employs 160 people year round, with close to 400 during the height of the season.

Tryon International, opened in 2014, is an immense facility encompassing 1600 acres in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Equidistant from Charlotte and Asheville, it bills itself as being “in the middle of nowhere and in the center of everything.” Facilities

include the Tryon Arena where Saturday Night

Above: Face painting and soap bubble makers for the kids on Saturday evenings.

Pony rides (above) and rides on the hand painted Venetian carousel (below). Tryon International is somewhere people can go to "touch a horse."

Sharon Packer

Lights is held, the International Stadium, the Blue Ridge Stadium, seven additional show arenas, a warmup ring, an indoor arena and a sprawling cross country course that is used for eventing cross country as well as for the marathon phase of combined driving competitions. There are cabins of various sizes for rent, a large RV park and seven permanent stables to house competition horses. The spectator areas include multiple restaurants, the Silo bar, and a variety of shops and boutiques including equestrian and non-equestrian stores.

For people unfamiliar with the horse world, Tryon International is perhaps best known for music festivals, Spartan races and the annual Christmas Market. For horse people, it is famous as the site of the World Equestrian Games in 2018, an event that brought the world’s best horses and horsemen to North Carolina. The facility also holds lower octane competitions and attracts horses and riders from all corners to compete in a variety of disciplines.

“We get people coming here from Georgia and South Carolina,” said Sarah Madden, who is the public relations and marketing manager. “But we also get people from California and Texas, and people from Kentucky or Michigan on their way to Florida in the fall, or on the way back home in the spring. We also have a lot of professionals who come here with sales horses, or horses that need more experience.” Shows often include Olympic riders from various nations, mingling with the locals and raising the standard of competition.

According to the Tryon International website, disciplines at Tryon include dressage, driving, eventing, show hunters, show jumping, mounted games, para dressage, rodeo, vaulting and working equitation. Additionally, there is a new western trail riding program with a stable full of ranch horses provided by Spy Coast Farm Western and available through Tryon Western Adventures. (Trail riding on your own horse is not currently available.)

Along with show jumping, signature events include the Tryon International and the Fork, both four star eventing competitions and two

Above: Harmon Classics Derby Mania: Makayla Frederick and Hat Trick. Below: Kylee Mckeregen on Oded Shimoni's Wimbledon competes in dressage.

Above: the eventing cross country course doubles as a marathon course for combined driving. (World Equestrian Games, 2018)

Pam Gleason

Sharon Packer

Liz Crawley

Combined Driving Events. There are six weeks of recognized dressage, and this year Tryon was the site of the Intercollegiate Eventing Championships and the United States Pony Club National Championship, among other things.

On weekends that Tryon International does not have its own equestrian event scheduled, the facility is available for organizers of other local events, and, according to Sarah Madden, became an especially popular place during and after COVID because the facility was open and had all the necessary protocols in place.

Lewis Pack is one local organizer who started holding competitions at Tryon International in 2020. Pack, a horse show manager who works or runs 48 shows a year, moved his Harmon Classics shows to the facility because they had outgrown their original venue, Harmon Field, a multiuse park in Tryon. He said that competitors at his shows have been excited to compete at Tryon International and that it is rare for young riders on a budget to be able to afford showing at a facility of this caliber.

“My intent is to make sure the riders have a good experience,” said Pack. “I want the kids to have an experience they can learn from, and think, I want to do that again. Any time kids get an opportunity to show in a ring where Olympic riders have competed, it’s good for them.”

In addition to attracting traveling competitors both regionally and nationally, Tryon International has also been a draw for horsemen looking to purchase property in an equestrian area. Not only does having the venue nearby bring in dedicated horsemen, it can also become the deciding factor on where some other professionals take a position.

“We have a new heart surgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital, and coming here became his choice because his wife is an equestrian,” said Sharon Decker. “So people are coming for a lot of different reasons. But I always remind folks, this has been horse country for 100 years. It’s just that now, many more people are finding out about it.”

Impressive as Tryon International is, and as important as it has become to the region in nine short years, Sharon Decker says we haven’t seen anything yet. In addition to expanding the equestrian calendar, Decker says she hopes to add more sporting events to the schedule, especially those that involve young people. In the near future, Tryon International will be unveiling a residential community that will cater mostly to horse people who want to own a base of operations convenient to the facility.

“I think in a lot of ways we are just getting started,” she said.

Western trail rides are a new offering at Tryon International, with ranch horses provided by Spy Coast Farm.

Saturday Night Lights

May through October, 2023

PBR® Tryon Chute Out June 23-24, 2023

Earl Scruggs Music Festival

September 1-3, 2023

WCRA Rodeo

October 6-7, 2023

Shadrack’s Christmas Wonderland Drive-thru Light Show

November 20, 2023-January 1, 2024

Winterfest Village

November 30-December 23, 2023

The Art of Horsemanship

• World-class equestrian center

• Exceptional equestrian studies program

• National championship team

Your future is bright at SCAD.

To learn more about SCAD equestrian or explore other award-winning programs, visit scad.edu or email admission@scad.edu.

Summer Horse Camp

Story and Photography by Lauren Allen

Summer, when you are a kid, is heaven. Adults may revile the excess heat and humidity, the bugs, the thunderstorms, but kids don’t seem to notice. Freed from their busy school schedule, their time stretches luxuriously to fill the long days and the wonderful weeks of vacation. For parents who still must participate in the daily grind of work, summer day camp is an excellent way to occupy the kids.

For kids, camp offers opportunities for hanging out with friends, playing in water, practicing arts and crafts, and for some lucky children, the chance to spend some of that time with horses.

Ann Riley Graham and Amelia Hock at Tweedberry Farm in Ridgeway, South Carolina

Equestrian day camps provide children with opportunities to ride and handle horses. Many campers may not have had much prior experience with this; for others, interactions with horses may have been restricted to structured riding lessons, where the horse is prepared, ridden and then deposited back in the stall within the allotted hour.

At camp, however, young riders often get to spend time playing with the horses: brushing, decorating them with ribbons and fingerpaint, riding bareback and just enjoying being close to them – even the oldest, most rickety equines get their share of love.

Margy Peterson, of Tweedberry Farm in Ridgeway, South Carolina, hosts a series of day camps each summer where small groups of kids enjoy swimming, playing in the creek, painting and crafts in addition to riding.

“I think that camp is a great opportunity for kids to get out in nature. They spend so much time inside, and with technology nowadays, that I think it is really important for them to get to

slow down and just enjoy this wonderful earth.”

Ashley Haffey, who owns Haffey Dresssage in Troutman, North Carolina, runs five horse camps every summer, as well as during other school holidays or on teacher work days. The summer camps run Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

On a typical day, her groups of four to eight children might start out with a riding lesson, followed by a half hour of horse care, an activity such as painting or crafts, a scavenger hunt, and a lesson about veterinary or farrier care, followed by lunch.

“My kids don’t clean stalls unless they really want to,” she adds with a laugh.

“I break the kids into groups and do team challenges, so it's fun," she continues.

"Sometimes I have younger groups that play unicorn bingo and build little shoe box horse stables. Some groups are more advanced and can ride and take care of the horses themselves.”

In addition, Haffey always stresses responsibility, including not just horse care,

Above: Amelia Hock and Ann Riley Graham on a bareback stroll. Right: Ann Riley Graham decorates her pony with fingerpaint.

but finances. “Sometimes they have to earn monopoly money for their rides. Sometimes I give them Breyer horses that they have to keep and care for for the week.”

It does not always go according to plan, however. “Yes, last week, the kids failed to follow directions, and all the Breyer horses died,” she admits. “But the kids also really enjoy the camps because they get to do something real: help put hay out for the horses, or even take a horse to the vet.”

Learning to ride horses teaches kids how to be better partners. They learn to cooperate as well as to be assertive, to find balance, to have boundaries but to be kind—these skills are life lessons. Riding camp helps children grow as riders and as individuals, but also sets them among a group of others who already share the same inclination. Equestrians tend to share an uncommon grit and perseverance, in addition to an appreciation for horses.

Ashley Haffey says that many of her kids become good friends away from the camp as well and that they come back year after year until they

become teenagers. “Then they fly away for a bit. But I am pretty sure they will be back when they are in their 20s.”

For children who have only had weekly or monthly riding lessons shoehorned into their schedule, equestrian camp can offer a chance to practice riding in a more concentrated way, sometimes even twice a day, and often on a series of different mounts. Immersion makes any skill stronger, and riders who attend camp have the gratification of seeing their abilities grow right in front of their eyes. Parents might be amazed at their progress and gains in confidence by the end of a week. Kids who may have had a passing interest in horses prior to camp may find afterwards that a lifelong flame has been kindled.

More than one parent has his or her own fond memories of horseback riding at camp, and by sending their children to summer riding camp they pass down a love that, even if it may ultimately be indulged only intermittently through the generations, is cherished nonetheless.

Ann Riley Graham and Amelia Hock cool off after their ride at Tweedberry Farm.

Logan Ryan Starnes

At the age of 13, Logan Ryan Starnes already has plenty of experience with winning. As the son of the Quarter Horse breeders and trainers Jay and Kristy Starnes of Manning, South Carolina, the young cowboy may have come by riding inevitably, but his mother says he didn’t exactly take to it at first. Apparently, his first pony, Bullwinkle, was a strong-willed type, and it wasn’t until Logan graduated to full-sized horses that he started to enjoy riding.

Logan began his show career in the Leadline division at American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and National Snaffle Bit Association (NSBA) shows when he was only 4 years old. He rode a mare named Certainly a Classic, also known as Cici. At 6, he moved up to Walk-Trot, finishing third at the prestigious All American Quarter Horse Congress in Ohio.

“His legs did not come past the saddle pad,” says his mother, Kristy. “One of the judges said afterwards that you could always hear where Logan was because there was a wave of clucking following him around the arena.”

The following year, Logan started riding Certainly Flatlined, a gelding bred and trained by the Starnes family, whose barn name, Peter, often became “Perfect Peter.” On Peter, Logan won the Walk-Trot division at the Congress in 2017, and the pair have been showing and winning ever since.

“He is a special horse; he is definitely a unicorn,” says Kristy, and Logan concurs, affirming that Peter is his favorite. He has won the 11-and-under Western Pleasure with him three times; he’s won the 18-and-under Team Tournament Western Pleasure, and has placed in Open futurity classes with him against adults. Logan will be showing Peter this year at the Youth World Show, coming up soon in Oklahoma City, where he has twice been Reserve Champion in the 13-and-under division.

This year Logan is also riding and showing a 3-year old named Strike 3, barn name Simon, in the Western Pleasure Futurity classes. His winnings so far have placed him among the top 35 Open Non Pro riders in the country. Strike 3 was also bred and raised by the Starnes family, and is out of the same mare, A Certain Illusion, who is a sister of the Walk-Trot horse that Logan began showing with.

Jay and Kristy Starnes ride and train about 16 horses and breed about six to ten foals a year. Logan helps work with the babies, and does all of his own training with his parents on the ground to coach him. He also plays lacrosse at his school, Laurence Manning Academy, and has earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do as the youngest ever in his program. So many accomplishments and barely into his teens: The future certainly does look bright for Logan Starnes.

Left: Logan at 7 with Certainly A Classic, 2017 AQHA Congress. Right: With longtime partner Certainly Flatlined aka Perfect Peter

Logan and his parents with the 3-year-old Western Pleasure Futurity mount Strike 3

Beat the Heat

by Pam Gleason

We are in for a hot summer. A worldwide warming trend combined with the El Nino weather pattern is bringing some of the highest temperatures on record to many places, including the United States. Although some people may pride themselves on being tough enough to ride on even the most sweltering days, always remember that hot weather is harder on horses than on riders. Not only are they the ones doing most of the work, they also produce more heat and are more susceptible to heat stress than humans are. In other words, if you are hot, your horse is hotter.

Ride in the Morning

If you live in the Southeast, you probably already know that early morning is the best time to ride. In most parts of our area, the coolest temperatures are shortly before sunrise then climb steadily after that. In some places, late afternoon brings relief, but in others, the heat continues to build until sunset. The entire region is prone to dangerous thunderstorms in the afternoon, so morning is not just the coolest time to ride, it is also often the safest.

Hydrate

Be sure that both you and your horse are getting enough to drink. Your horse must have access to clean, fresh, cool water at all times. Some people still believe that it is dangerous to allow hot horses to drink cold water, or that water should be withheld from horses that are working. Extensive studies conducted on performance horses have shown that this is not true. Horses lose a large amount of water to sweat, and they need to replenish that as quickly as possible to avoid dehydration and combat heat stress. Encourage a horse to drink by making sure

that his water buckets and tanks are kept clean through frequent emptying, rinsing and scrubbing. Ensure he has access to free choice salt to help him replenish lost electrolytes and stimulate his thirst. If you put a commercial electrolyte powder in his drinking water, offer him a bucket with plain water too.

Assess Your Horse’s Condition

Horses vary in how well they can tolerate summer temperatures. Fit, lean younger horses are better equipped than older, heavier and more sedentary ones. Excess fat will slow heat loss. Larger horses, even if they are big because they are muscular rather than fat, have a harder time staying cool than smaller horses.

If your horse is more pasture ornament than world class athlete, choose cooler days for your rides and keep them short and easy. If your horse is fit and accustomed to hard work, tailor your rides to the weather conditions.

On hotter days, use interval training –periods of more strenuous work punctuated by walking in the shade – to allow your horse to cool off. If you are competing, warm up and then give your horse a 10 to 20 minute break in the shade before your start time. Preliminary studies have shown that pre-cooling, which you can do by hosing with cold water for about 10 minutes before you ride, might help your horse tolerate longer or more strenuous work.

Is your horse excessively hot, nostrils flaring and breathing heavily even when he is standing in the shade? In hot and humid climates some horses lose the ability to sweat. This condition is called anhidrosis, and usually causes less sweat production, not a totally dry horse. Anhidrosis is not well understood, but seems to happen when the horse “wears out” his sweating mechanism.

Gary Knoll

Hannah and Tempi Jungling enjoy the pond at Sandy Hills Farm in Aiken

Cool Down

A working horse generates an immense amount of heat. For example, an endurance horse makes enough heat to bring 25 gallons of room temperature water to a boil at a rate of two gallons per minute. In order to keep his internal organs at a safe temperature, a horse needs to rid himself of this heat. He has four ways of doing this. They are:

1. Evaporation: Sweat coming off the skin, and water vapor coming out of the lungs, has a cooling effect. The key is that this sweat must dry up in order to provide cooling. When the humidity is extremely high (generally over 75%) sweat may simply sit on the coat, creating a blanketing effect.

2. Convection: Wind or air from a fan blows over the horse's skin, carrying heat away with it.

3. Radiation: Heat rises off a horse’s body and dissipates into the atmosphere. A healthy resting horse has an internal temperature of 99-100.5 Fahrenheit. Any time the air temperature is hotter than this, radiation will not help cool a horse.

4. Conduction: Contact with a cooler surface or material draws heat out. Cold hosing or ice water baths are the most common ways that horsemen use conduction for cooling. The best way to cool out a hot horse is with a combination of these methods. Cold hosing or ice water bathing is the primary and most effective way to bring a horse's temperature down (conduction.) Cold water should go on the whole horse: it does not cause muscle cramps or damage. Once the horse is no longer hot, he should be scraped to make sure there is not an insulating blanket of water left on his coat. Then placing the horse in front of a fan or walking him in the shade will allow convection to help evaporate the remaining water off his coat.

Horses with anhidrosis must be carefully tended. They may need to be kept inside with a fan and cold hosed periodically. There are various supplements and electrolyte formulas that may help them start sweating again. The old-fashioned, traditional cure? A beer a day, preferably Guinness. Some horsemen swear that it works, but there is no scientific proof. If your horse is having unusual difficulty tolerating the heat, it is best to call your veterinarian for advice.

Stay Out of the Sun

Be sure your horse always has somewhere shady to go. If he lives outside, he needs a run-in shed that blocks the afternoon sun, or a stand of shady trees. If he spends time in the stall, it is often best to keep him inside with a fan during the day and let him out at night.

When you ride, if possible, use a shaded area: a covered arena, down a forest trail, along the edge of a tree-lined field. Riding in the sun will heat your skin and your horse’s skin, making you both work harder to stay cool. If you can, ride on the grass (which absorbs light and heat) rather than in an arena (which reflects it.)

Too Darn Hot

No matter how many precautions you take, there will be days when you and your horse should skip the trail ride, training session or competition. There are various formulas that assess how dangerous the heat is on a particular day. The heat or comfort index makes a complicated calculation using the air temperature and the relative humidity to arrive at a “feels like” temperature.

You may also have heard of a “horse heat index” that simply adds the temperature and the relative humidity together. The rule of thumb in this system is that if that number is below 120, there should be no problems with the heat. From 120 to 150, you should take some precautions; between 150 and 180 you need to be especially careful and over 180 you should cancel your ride, put your horse in front of a fan and retreat to air conditioning with a nice cold drink.

However, the FEI, which is the organization

that regulates international equestrian sport, says that these heat indexes are at best misleading and at worst dangerous. The FEI’s position is that the only valid method of assessing heat risk to horses is the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), a single number that takes into account the temperature, humidity, wind speed and strength of the sun. The WBGT used to be difficult to derive, but now you can purchase a handheld WBGT Index heat stress thermometer.

According to the FEI’s WBGT Index (developed for eventing horses in the Atlanta Olympics), when the reading is less than 28 centigrade (82.5 Fahrenheit), there is no danger. From 28-30 C (82.5-86 F) some precautions are necessary. From 30-32 C (86-89.6 F) working horses will need to be cooled aggressively and from 32-33 (89.6-91.4 F) the conditions are hazardous. Once the WBGT Index is 33 or above, the conditions are “not compatible with safe competition.”

Horsemen are always advised to put their horse’s welfare first, and this summer, that is especially important. But after their horses are squared away, people need to take care of themselves too.

Wear sunscreen and loose fitting, lightcolored clothing. Moisture-wicking fabrics and those treated with chemicals that produce a cooling sensation when they are wet can help keep your skin cooler. Many riders use cooling vests. These may be vests with pockets for ice packs or they may be made of material that absorbs water and then slowly releases it over a number of hours to provide an evaporative cooling effect.

Always be on the lookout for symptoms of heat stress, including muscle cramps, dizziness, nausea or headache. Cool yourself off and get out of the heat as quickly as possible. If you don’t feel better soon, seek medical attention. Heat stress can progress to heat stroke, a potentially lifethreatening condition that kills over 600 people in the United States every year.

Stay safe this summer, take good care of your horse, and remember that there will be cooler, drier days ahead.

Hot Legs

Do you ride with wraps or boots to protect your horse's legs from impacts or to provide support for tendons and ligaments? Some recent research suggests that it is time to rethink this practice.

Horses’ lower limbs rely mostly on convection cooling: the movement of air across the skin surface that carries heat away. Leg wraps and boots insulate the leg, hampering this cooling process. A 2021 study carried out by a team at Middle Tennessee State University measured the temperature of horses’ legs during exercise wearing six different types of leg protection as well as uncovered. They discovered that horses wearing leg wraps during exercise experienced potentially dangerous overheating in their lower limbs, while uncovered legs actually became cooler as the horses worked. Not only that, but after the wraps were removed, the previously wrapped legs stayed hot for several hours after exercise. Uncovered legs warmed somewhat after the exercise was completed and stayed warm, but they never got as hot as the legs that were wrapped.

The superficial digital flexor tendon that runs along the back of the cannon bone relies almost entirely on convection cooling since it is “hypovascular” meaning without an abundant blood supply to carry away heat. Tendon cells show negative effects from the heat after about five minutes at 104 degrees Fahrenheit or more. At temperatures above 109, the cells begin to die. The horses in the study with bare legs had skin temperatures of about 82 degrees, while the wrapped legs got as high as 97 degrees. Since the core of the tendon is typically about eight degrees hotter than the skin surface, this means the wrapped horses may have had tendon temperatures in the cell damaging range. This could contribute to micro tears in the tendon fibers and tendonitis –the dreaded bowed tendon.

So should you wrap? Decide whether your horse really needs those boots or polos or if you are just using them out of habit. Although more research needs to be done to make positive recommendations, the Tennessee study suggests that if you do wrap, you should remove any leg protection as soon as possible after you dismount, and it would not be a bad idea to cold hose your horse’s legs after your ride.

Equestrians of the Carolinas

Joan and Gil Hilsman

If you have ever shown at the Carolina Horse Park in Raeford, North Carolina, chances are you have encountered Joan and Gil Hilsman. The Hilsmans, who are in their 70s, live five miles down the road, which Joan says makes it easy to support the park. She competes there with her own horses and then runs home, drops the horses off, and comes back to help out.

The Hilsmans enthusiastically participate in any way they are called upon—dressage scribe, cross country jump judge, warmup supervisor: anywhere they are needed. Joan is on the Carolina Horse Park Board of Directors, and she also coordinates awards for the competitions. Gil fixes “just about anything that needs fixing.”

“I married a horsewoman,” says Gil, laughing, when asked about his role. “I owned boats all my life and finally found a hobby more expensive.”

Joan and Gil met when her father, who was also a sailor, suggested they both crew for him in an ocean race in California. Joan, who was living in New York and working in public health, flew over to help. Three months later, the two were married and moving to France for Gil’s job in the oil industry. In the years since, they have lived and worked all over the world, from Oklahoma to England to Kazakhstan. Gil remained in the oil business and Joan taught science courses in high school and junior college, and they raised three children.

When they decided to look for a farm to purchase for their retirement, they agreed that it had to be accessible to a coast. They soon found a 30-acre farm south of Aberdeen, North Carolina that checked all the boxes. It was near Joan’s parents (who lived in Pinehurst at the time) and not too far from the ocean. They could even grow their own hay for their horses. They moved to Aberdeen from Texas 15 years ago, with Gil sailing his boat solo from Houston to New Bern, North Carolina.

“When he isn’t tied up to a horse trailer, he still likes to be on his boat,” says Joan, but Gil says that he enjoys participating in horse sports because “It makes her want to get up every morning, so that’s fantastic.”

Joan has ridden horses since the age of 6, when she and her identical twin sister took lessons in the Chicago area. The twins got more riding time when their father bought a 500acre cattle ranch in Arkansas. Joan mostly rode Western and it wasn’t until she was in her 40s that she started jumping.

Today, she has competed up to Training level in eventing and she enjoys bringing along young horses at the lower levels. Her twin sister now lives in Georgia and breeds warmblood sport horses, so Joan has acquired some horses through her. She also competes a buckskin Quarter Horse/Cleveland Bay cross named Talisman, who has won the North Carolina Dressage and Combined Training Association’s Horse of the Year several years in a row, as well as the Carolina Horse Park’s “Over the Moon” award for the high scoring rider over the age of 50. Joan found Talisman at a ranch in New Mexico where he was working cattle with a cowboy who had acquired him after the breeder, who bred him for dressage, passed away. Joan was familiar with Cleveland Bays from her time in England, where Queen Elizabeth protected and supported the breed. She knew that Cleveland Bays tend to have kind temperaments and great movement, and there aren’t that many in America, so when she saw Talisman advertised she immediately flew out and brought him home.

Riding cross country in competition is her favorite thing to do with horses, says Joan, and the friends she has made through the sport bring her great joy. “I have several friends in their 70s and 80s competing along with me here at the Carolina Horse Park, so I hope to keep competing as long as I can safely do so.”

It is evident that both of the Hilsmans like the wind in their hair, but after so many years of travelling all over the globe, Joan and Gil have put down roots in the Southern Pines community. The Carolina Horse Park, particularly The War Horse Event Series, which is dear to Joan’s heart, and the extended community of fellow equestrians all continue to benefit from their generous support.

Top: Joan Hilsman and her horse Talisman having a blast galloping cross country

Bottom left: Gil and Joan at the War Horse Event Series awards, where Joan won the “Over the Moon” award for the high scoring rider over the age of 50.

Bottom right: Joan and Gil with their rescue dogs, posing for a Christmas card picture

Pam Gleason

Animals & Art

Georgianna Conger’s Passions

by Pam Gleason

From the time she was very young, Georgianna Conger has been driven by two passions: animals and art. She grew up in Aiken, South Carolina, in her family’s home bordering the Hitchcock Woods, a vast forest of longleaf pines traversed by trails for walking, riding and foxhunting. There she developed her eye for painting, and cultivated an intimate understanding of the many animals around her, especially the dogs that her family kept and raised, and the horses in her mother’s stable. This understanding translates into an ability to capture an animal’s essence in her paintings, making her a natural as an animal portrait artist.

Today, she has a career creating portraits on commission, as well as teaching art to private students of all ages. She still lives on the edge of the Hitchcock Woods in a home next to the one where she grew up and where her mother still lives. Her studio is in a converted tack room in her mother’s backyard stable, where she can look out the window at her two horses.

“I feel incredibly lucky to be able to do this,” she says, seated at a table where she is working on a dog portrait. Her warmblood Fergus, a 20-year-old semi-retired hunter, grazes in his paddock on the other side of the window. The studio’s walls are lined with horse and art books. One of her students, a neighbor and a friend, has just wrapped up a successful session painting a landscape. “Nothing makes me happier than painting someone’s dog or horse and then giving the painting to them and having them say, oh my gosh, you’ve got it. That’s him.”

Georgianna, known to her friends as Girl, was born in Portland, Oregon, but came to Aiken when she was 6 months old. Her father, Ford Conger, was in the lumber business, and her mother Courtney Conger is a lifelong horsewoman with a background in art and journalism. The two met in Augusta, where

Courtney was working as a reporter, and after they married they moved to New York and then to the Northwest for Ford’s job. But Oregon was cold and wet and Courtney was not happy: she needed to be where she could ride, and so they moved back to Aiken with Girl and her two older brothers. There they purchased a historic house that had been owned by Louise and Thomas Hitchcock, founders of Aiken’s Winter Colony. The house, which had been a guest house for the Hitchcocks’ winter visitors, had a 28-stall stable where Courtney took boarders and ran a business buying, breeding, training and selling horses until Girl was 13 years old. Girl and her brothers were very much a part of this enterprise, schooling and showing the sales horses as well as learning every aspect of horse care. It was a perfect place to do it, just a short hack from the Hitchcock Woods, and it was an idyllic childhood.

Girl with her Paint gelding, Deacon

Pam Gleason

“I did Pony Club, I showed and foxhunted and evented,” says Girl. “We’d be out in the woods for three and four hours at a time on our ponies, all with no adult supervision. We had chickens and goats and horses and never less than six dogs. It was just magical.”

Their home had separate accommodations where various young horsewomen came to spend a few months every winter. There were students from Bennett College in New York, which had a renowned riding program, and horse trainers such as Carol Altman Fallon, who won the Maclay championship in 1962 and was a superb coach and mentor. For Girl, the most important boarder was Sandra Etherington Tucker, an artist and horsewoman from New Jersey who became a close family friend.

“I must have been 4 or 5 years old, and I was just mesmerized by her. She was working in oils and pastels, and I would sit and watch her,” says Girl. A few years later, Girl started taking art lessons with Anne Lattimore, a respected Aiken artist. Growing up, whenever she wasn’t riding, Girl was drawing and painting. It is no surprise that her subjects were usually the animals around her.

Girl went to Sweet Briar College in Virginia where she studied art, rode on the riding team, and was the head of the riding council. After graduation she moved back to Aiken, where she did animal portraits, sporting art and decorative painting before getting married and having her daughter Caroline. She continued to ride and show – by this time her mother had embarked on her successful real estate career, but there were always family horses available, many of them homebreds. Girl’s father, Ford, was the chairman of the Aiken Steeplechase, and Girl worked with him to organize and promote the event. After his death in the early 1990s, she served on the steeplechase board of directors for 27 years. She has created the covers for the Aiken Spring Classic Horse show annual prize list for 20 years.

Well-known in the horse community, Girl often got commissions for horse and dog

paintings, and her career grew organically. She says she is an oil painter by trade, but today works mostly in acrylics, which she appreciates for their versatility and ease of use, and she also loves pencil drawing. She started teaching and mentoring children early on, and added art classes for adult students a few years ago.

Girl is known in Aiken for more than just her art, however. She is also one of the most dedicated volunteers for Friends of the Animal Shelter Aiken (FOTAS), the animal welfare organization that works with the Aiken County Animal Shelter.

“My mom used to breed dogs as a hobby,” says Girl. “So we had a kennel set up for that already, but we had stopped breeding once we realized how bad the situation was with dogs in the shelter here. When one of the founders of FOTAS asked us to foster a mother dog with puppies, we said yes.”

In the beginning, Girl thought that fostering puppies would be a good experience for her daughter Caroline, a preteen at the time, so that she could care for newborn puppies and help to raise a litter. But it became more than that.

After the first litter of puppies was adopted, there was another litter, and then another. With a seemingly never-ending supply, Girl’s kennel is rarely empty for long. In the 12 years that she has been fostering, she estimates that she has taken in about 500 mothers and puppies. Some

litters are pure joy while others are devastating heartbreak: mothers might arrive starved or sick, with puppies that are weak and vulnerable to disease. There have been whole litters that have died of Parvo one by one, and litters that have only survived with extensive nursing care. But for the puppies that go on to be adopted into loving homes, it is worth it.

“You’re doing a yeoman’s job,” says Girl, noting that other people do more than she does – fostering more than one litter at a time, for instance – and that she sometimes worries that she is not doing enough. “But then I realize whether you are saving one puppy or ten puppies, at least you are doing something. We do love them. We used to cry and be so sad when we had to say goodbye, but it has gotten easier. We had a litter leave last week, and the runt was so sweet, and I was sorry to see her go. But I just gave her extra kisses and said a little prayer for her to get the best home. That’s all you can do.”

With her daughter Caroline pursuing a PhD at Virginia Tech in Environmental Science, Girl feels that she is entering a new chapter in her life, one in which she will have more time and mental energy to devote to painting. She plans to continue to work on portrait commissions, study with other artists and do more teaching. Although she is limited in the number of students she can host in her own small studio, she hopes to be able to teach at a larger facility in Aiken in the coming year.

“I’ve learned to love teaching,” she says. “And I have learned a lot from it. I am so proud of my students and what they do. I’m pleasantly and proudly surprised by how rewarding it is.”

As for her own art, she is constantly striving to be better, not just in technical aspects, but in the emotional connection that she creates. “I don’t want to sound contrived, but I really do try to capture their little souls,” she says. Many of the painting commissions she gets are of dogs or horses that have recently died, and she works from pictures sent to her. “I’m incredibly honored by that,” she says. “I’m honored to be entrusted with those memories, and so grateful to be able to spend that time with them.”

For more information: congersportingart.com. Girl is available for commissions.

Pam Gleason

Marketplace

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Parting Shot

Summer Days

Tempi Jungling and her mare Olivia after going for a swim in the pond at Sandy Hills Farm in Aiken. Olivia is a Georgian Grande (Percheron X Painted Saddlebred) mare owned by the Jungling family and is in foal to the Connemara stallion Top Gun. Photography by Gary Knoll.

Gary Knoll

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