MICHELE MUELLER EVENTING
Group hopes to fund local rider's Olympic dreams
by Tracey/The Scugog Standard/March 25th, 2010
Local equestrian Michelle Mueller and her
Because the Canadian season doesn’t begin until June, Michelle, who owns Cedar
Valley Stables on
After a slight leg injury kept Amistad out of competition for most of 2009,
“Michelle started him off slow this year,” said Bill. “She backed off a
division, placed tenth in her first event and second in her second event. Then
she bumped him back up to the top level for the Pine Top Spring Advanced HT and
he won! He’s pretty much stepped right back up to where he was.”
Michelle competed at a three-star event in
A good run at the Rolex would secure Michelle’s place on the team for the WEGs,
and it would provide Amistad with some good experience at the track where he
would be competing for Canada in September, but if the decision is made to hold
him back they’ll still have the three-star Jersey Fresh in New Jersey and the
Bromont in Quebec to prove they’ve got the stuff before the team selections are
made in June.
And that’s just the beginning. While a place on the Canadian team for the
Worlds this summer will give them a good chance at the Olympics - if they both
stay healthy and competitive - they’ll be back to the States for more spring
training next year and possibly competition on the European circuit and a place
on the team for the PanAm games in the summer of 2011. Then it will be back to
the
Bill has no doubt that Michelle can do it. Ten-year-old Amistad is proving
himself to be unstoppable this spring.
“I’m probably one of her biggest fans,” said Bill, “but I honestly believe that
Michelle has the potential to go all the way. I always have. She just needed
the right horse. And Amistad is just coming into his prime.”
But like all Olympic hopefuls, they’ve had to make sacrifices and the price for
Olympic honour is steep, “in the neighbourhood of $70,000 to $100,000,” said
Bill. “You don’t just show up and do your ride.”
Michelle, who is a certified therapeutic riding coach and Level 2 eventing
coach (eventing includes the three disciplines of dressage, cross country and
stadium jumping) with 30 students has had to put teaching at her Cedar Valley
Stables farm on hold. She was the instructor for the Durham Therapeutic Riding
Program for nine years but couldn’t devote the time to the program while
focusing on the Olympics and her eventing students will have to wait until she
comes back home at the end of April to take up their lessons again. Bill, a GM
worker, is left to manage the farm and the bills, which are mounting.
In the four months she’ll be gone, Michelle’s out-of-pocket expenses will run
in excess of $25,000. She sold two horses just to go “and while she’s down
there,” said Bill, “she’s effectively lost her sponsorship.” Hay, which costs
her $3 a bale here is $18 a bale in the States and Amistad needs one every two
days, plus his feed, which is supplied free of charge here by Sunderland Feeds.
Stewart Bruce, Michelle’s ferrier, provides Amistad’s foot care at no cost here
and he has volunteered his time to fly to Kentucky to shoe the horse two weeks
before the Rolex (former students have banded together to pay his air fare and
have offered to cover her expenses for the next month). Amistad himself - born
to a milk mare at Windfield farm in
It was Karin Davis, a trainer out of
“It’s
A $10 donation buys one kilometre and gets your name on the ‘Wall of Sponsors’
listed at the stables and on the web site (www.cedarvalleystables.ca).
A fundraiser is planned for April 10 at the Scugog Island Hall. “It’s a silent
auction and get together,” said Karin, who is administering the trust fund and
is hoping to get the people of Scugog behind her student, “who is well and
truly qualified for the Olympics.”
To find out how you can donate to Michelle Mueller’s ‘Support the Dream’ Olympic
trust fund or to buy a kilometre on the road to
NEWS ARTICLES
Local rider to represent
Canada
at World Equestrian Games
by
Tracey Coveart/The Scugog Standard/July 1, 2010
Local equestrian Michele Mueller and her horse
Amistad are one jump closer to their Olympic dream. After returning home from
spring competition in the United States, Michele had been waiting anxiously for
the call that would put her on the Canadian Team for the World Equestrian Games
this fall. It came two weeks ago, and the Scugog Island resident will be heading
to Kentucky in September for the biggest ride of her life.
“I was quite
excited,” said Michele, a three-day eventer who competes in dressage (often
described as ballet on horseback), stadium show jumping and cross country. “I
had to stop and think about it for a bit before it sank in!”
Nine members
have been named to the Canadian team, but the decision as to which four members
will ride and which five will attend as alternates will not be made until after
the American Eventing Championships (AECs) in in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia,
in mid-September, a mandatory event for all WEG competitors.
Right now,
Michele is concentrating on finishing well in her next rounds of advanced level
competition: Witt’s End in Mansfield and Richland Park in Michigan in
August.
She’ll head to Aiken, South Carolina, 10 days before the AECs and
then to WEG training camp in O’Cala, Florida. She’ll be there for almost two
weeks, then leave for Kentucky on Sept. 24 to attend the opening ceremonies on
Sept. 25. The games themselves run for three days, Friday, Sept. 30 to Sunday,
Oct. 2.
“Whether I’m riding or an alternate will depend on my performance
from now until then,” said Michele. “I’m just keeping my horse going and
working. He’s had his time off. I’ll start doing some conditioning work with him
and building him back up - not that he’s lost much condition in three
weeks.”
Michele had a taste of Kentucky at the Rolex Kentucy Three Day
Event, which ran April 28 to May 1, on the same course as the WEGs - without the
fences. “It was sort of a pre-trial run for the WEGs.”
Amistad, said
Michele, “was absolutely phenomenal. He ran that track and didn’t put a foot
wrong. I don’t think I had a single fence that I though, “Oops, that could have
been better.’”
The horse did trip and stumble once in the water, “but he
kept his stride. We had a handful of time faults, but I didn’t want to take a
chance and push him too hard. He had lots of energy left.”
Michele’s plan
was just to end up with a respectable score in her first four-star competition.
She ended up placing in the top 10, in tenth place out of some 53
starters.
“The Canadian contingent was awesome,” she said. “We had nine
entered - which was the most ever at the Rolex - and four placed in the top 10;
seven in the top 20.”
With her husband Bill, Michele owns Cedar Valley
Stables on Scugog Island. A popular riding instructor in her own right,
Michele’s quest for the 2010 Olympic games in London, England, began with a
fundraiser on the Island several months ago.
“We were hoping for maybe 40
items for the silent auction,” said Michele. “We got more than 100! My dressage
coach raised $2,000 doing clinics and in one afternoon we raised $13,000. And
that was just horsey people and their friends and family. We haven’t even
approached any businesses.”
She likely won’t have to. Now that the word
is out about her WEG selection, the phone is ringing off the hook with
sponsorship offers.
“It hadn’t even been a week and sponsors were
stepping up and sending us logo wear,” said Bill, who still can’t believe the
response. “It’s been pretty busy.”
Master Feeds is offering sponsorship -
“We’re getting together for a presentation and we’ll know more about that,” said
Bill - and Sunderland Feeds, Michele’s main sponsored, has upped its level of
support.
And just last week, Schleese Sadderly donated two new saddles
that are custom-fitted to Amistad’s body.
“Michele was out in the new
dressage saddle the other day,” said Bill, “and she can feel a difference in the
way he moves. At this level, it can mean the difference between a seven on one
movement or an eight or nine. That’s a big difference.”
Schleese also
left behind a jumping saddle so she can try that one out, too. “They’d like her
riding in both their saddles at the WEGs,” said Bill.
It’s a lot of
attention for a small-town girl, but Michele could get used to
it.
Especially the love she’s getting from her fans. ‘Mueller Miles’ are
being sold at the stable and at www.cedarvalleystables.ca and
michelemuellereventing.com to help get rider and horse to the next summer
Olympic Games in 2012. It’s 5,650 kilometres from Port Perry to London, England,
and kilometres cost $10 each.
“We’ve already sold 500,” said Bill -
$5,000 toward Michele’s Olympic dream, which won’t come cheap. Bill estimates it
will cost between $70,000 and $100,000 to get Michele and Amistad across the
pond.
As for her generous sponsors and supporters, Michele couldn’t be
more grateful. “Some people donate a lot, but buying a kilometre is something
even students can do,” said Michele. “It makes it easier for everybody and we’re
constantly getting money in. A little here and a little there and it starts to
grow.”
Michele is hoping to organize a Meet and Greet before she heads
stateside for the WEGs, so people who don’t know her can get a look at the rider
beneath the helmet.
And she’s trying to keep her excitement in check.
There’s a lot of fences left to jump before she’ll find out her fate at the
WEGs. “The news took a while to settle in. Now I’m to have to wait and see.” And
ride like her Olympic dreams depend on it.