by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 28, 2022
This is a letter from Judith Stratton, who served as DVHA’s vice president. She is responding to an article that appeared on this site Nov. 4. Here is a link to it.
It was with interest that I read your article on the dissolution of DVHA. I would like to address some of the comments that were made by DVHA members.
The first is in regard to the assertion that we did not properly conduct the dissolution process stipulated under our constitution. Two written communications; the first one announcing the dissolution and the second letter containing a ballot, were sent to all of the current adult voting members and life members. Approval of 75% of this mailing was required in order to proceed.
Secondly, that “little band of older members” is offensive to those of us who have given many years of dedicated service to the organization. We were also in DVHA in the early ’70s/’80s and some of us go back as far as the 1960s.
If any member wanted to give it “one more try”, where were they? They never attended meetings to express their concerns or to offer assistance. In fact, two of the life members expressing their dissatisfaction in your article didn’t even return their ballot to vote their opinion. Yet, they used your article to express their concerns and aspersions on DVHA.
There were several comments regarding Jessica Brittain. She was a 3-year member of the executive committee but was president only from December 1, 2021, through September of 2022. Also, she was not forced to resign. She stated she was not going to run again for president and was not going to chair the hunter/jumper division in 2023. Her decision to no longer be active was hers and hers alone. At the August general meeting we asked her and Jen Cassidy to present their ideas at our next general meeting in September, but they never bothered to attend and offer their presentation.
As you well know, DVHA is very dependent on the members volunteering to staff our shows. If we have an insufficient number of members, especially adults, we cannot survive. Membership in DVHA is also vital to the attendance at our shows as it constitutes the base from which we can forecast our upcoming show season. As property owners, in order for DVHA to maintain our showgrounds, hire judges and other staff, and pay taxes and insurance requires a monthly minimum gross income. By August of this year, we realized that we would be facing an insufficient amount of funds to even start a 2023 season. This same lack of funds also prevents us from making the necessary improvements to the footing in our rings.
We would have loved to continue, and we would have preferred to have heard from all of these members personally. The fact that members now bemoan the demise of DVHA without supporting and participating in the organization is on them.
Judith E, Stratton
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 17, 2022
European champion, reserve world champion, second place in the Longines FEI World Cup final and winner of the Grands Prix of Geneva, Zurich, Basel and Lyon, the gorgeous gray. Clooney 51 is saying goodbye to his fans next month.
Ridden by Martin Fuchs, this son of Cornet Obolensky owned by Luigi Baleri competed in two Olympics (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2021) and won the the Rolex Grand Prix in 2019 at the Palexpo.
Just after the Olympics in August 2021, Clooney fell in turn-out and broke his shoulder. The efforts to save him for a happy retirement came to fruition. But his connections felt that what was missing from his career was a last lap to say goodbye to his many fans.
The Geneva, Switzerland, show was a natural location for this, since those involved with him are Swiss. It will happen on Sunday, Dec. 11 before the start of the Rolex Grand Prix.
“Clooney is the horse of my life, an extraordinary being. He has given me so much and it is with him that I have had my greatest successes,” stated Martin.
Martin Fuchs and Clooney. (Photo © 2018 by Nancy Jaffer)
“His accident was a terrible ordeal for him and for all my team, but in the face of it he proved what strength of character he has. Today, he is well and he deserves to have a ceremony that reflects his fabulous career and the genius that he is. Geneva was an obvious choice, as we had one of our most beautiful moments here when we won the Rolex Grand Prix.
“I am very much looking forward to this farewell, which promises to be very emotional, and during which I will be surrounded by the great Geneva public, my family, my team and my friends.”
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 28, 2022
Trainer Joy Kloss, who ran Fox Hunt Farm in Lumberton, N.J., died suddenly on Thanksgiving night in Tryon, N.C. She was 71.
Joy Kloss, second from right, with Leslie Howard, Anne Kursinski and McLain Ward at the 2016 memorial service for Frank Chapot. (Photo © 2016 by Nancy Jaffer)
A USEF judge, she was a respected trainer who gave clinics and was involved in horse sales.
Callan Solem, who met Joy through her own mentor, the late Carol Hofmann Thompson, called Joy “the consummate horseman. There was nothing about anything at the barn or the training she couldn’t do herself. She afforded so many possibilities to so many people.”
Added Callan, “You always knew where you stood with her. That was a working woman. There was not any work she was not willing and able to do when it was going to make things better for a horse.”
Joy’s close friend of more than a half-century, Nancy Dawn Ashway, her classmate at Southern Seminary and Junior College in Virginia, was just on vacation with her earlier this month.
“She had great horsemanship. She was straight to the point. She didn’t coddle her students,” Nancy recalled.
Kathy Brown Serio, a former student, paid tribute to Joy on her Facebook page, calling her a “fierce competitor, a loyal friend, and a force to be reckoned with…”
She added, “I thank you immensely for all you did for us growing up, there will never be another Joy Kloss. You taught me the subtleties–how to finesse a course, and showmanship, and I will forever be grateful.”
Survivors include Joy’s daughter, Kayley White (Al) and two grandchildren.
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 21, 2022
A memorial service will be held next year for Sergeantsville Grain & Feed owner James Fred McCue Jr., who died Nov. 7 at age 73.
The son of Esther Mastrobattista McCue and James Fred McCue Sr., Jim was a native of Bernardsville, where he was the 1967 Heavyweight State Champion in wrestling and received a scholarship to Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pa., for wrestling. He has been inducted into the Bernardsville High School athletic hall of fame.
At Bloomsburg, Jim he won the Pennsylvania State College Wrestling Conference Championship. He qualified for the U.S. Olympic wrestling team, but was unable to compete due to injury. Jim went on to complete his master’s degree in Education, but ultimately decided to go into the family business.
He worked at Somerset Grain & Feed in Bernardsville until he purchased Sergeantsville Grain & Feed in 1981. Jim was happiest when working hard and being with his own family, feedstore family, friends, and customers. Jim was a staple of the Sergeantsville community and cherished its members.
Jim McCue
He served on the Delaware Township Committee and Planning Board, becoming the only person in New Jersey, at the time, ever elected to local office by a write-in vote. That is the way he became the mayor.
Jim’s friends described him as firm but fair, generous and hardworking. He was big-hearted and didn’t take things too seriously, being known for his sense of humor.
Jim is survived by his wife of 37 years, Stephanie; their children, Chelsea McCue Harms (John Harms) and Peter B. McCue; a granddaughter, Scarlett Harms; his sister, Sarah “Sally” McCue Horwitz (Ralph Horwitz) and his brother Peter A. McCue (Elizabeth Miller).
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Doylestown, Pa., Hospital IMU unit, Doylestown Hospital Hospice or any charity of choice.
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 20, 2022
Barbara Isaac, one of the country’s pioneers in therapeutic riding, died Nov. 14 in Ormond Beach, Fla., at the age of 91.
The founder, with her husband, Hanen, in 1979 of the Handicapped High Riders Club which became Riding High Farm in Allentown, N.J., she was part of a group interested in learning about therapeutic riding instruction who gathered around Octavia Brown’s dining room table in the late 1970s.
Octavia, founder of the Somerset Hills Handicapped Riding Center (now Mane Stream in Oldwick) told those who came to her Bedminster, N.J., home everything she knew about the subject, in the days before NARHA (North American Riding for the Handicapped Association) was formed, and its successor, PATH International, wasn’t even a dream.
As Octavia recalled, Barbara “made it clear that she had been seeking something like this to put her heart into–and she did.”
Barbara devoted herself to Riding High’s clients and its growth. She also contributed to the development of therapeutic riding in the state and the country.
“Since more and more people in New Jersey were learning to be instructors and wanting to create programs, Barb suggested we create a state interest group and that was the birth in the early 1980s of HRH (Health and Recreation through Horses) of N.J., which served as a network and information resource for those providing equine assisted services,” Octavia stated.
Barbara Isaac, second from right, when Health and Recreation through Horses of N.J. received the Dominic Romano Community Service Award at Centenary University in 2013. With her, from left, were Mary Alice Goss, Joan Schneider, Gaye Collins, Octavia Brown and Liz Doskotz. (Photo courtesy Octavia Brown)
“We were the first state group under NARHA, and things just went on from there. Way more politically savvy than I was then, she contacted the New Jersey Horse Council and the New Jersey Equine Advisory Board for HRH to become a member. That opened the door to making the entire New Jersey horse industry aware of what we were up to, and they embraced us from then on,” said Octavia.
She recounted that Barbara “got herself on the board of the New Jersey Special Olympics and talked them into funding an annual statewide Special Olympics equestrian competition, as far as I know the first in the nation as a free-standing horse show.
“When the national Special Olympics were drafting guidelines and rules for national competition, the two of us went to Washington D.C. to meet Eunice Shriver (the sister of Jack and Bobby Kennedy) and persuaded her to offer horse show ribbons as well as the standard three Special Olympics medals, pointing out that this would be a horse show.
“She told us that having gone to Foxcroft (a private equestrian-oriented girls’ school), she perfectly understood why ribbons were important. That is in effect to this day. She also agreed that men and women, boys and girls of all ages should compete together, only divided by their equestrian skill level.”
Barbara went on to train future instructors at Riding High Farm, which became a PATH premier accredited program.
“It’s safe to say that while I may have introduced Equine Assisted Services to New Jersey,” continued Octavia, “it was Barb who made it respected and valuable to the movers and shakers in the New Jersey equine industry. She once said to me, `Sometimes, I feel like your pupil and sometimes like your mother.’ She taught me so much about politics, running an organization and influencing people, sometimes against their so-called better judgment, to follow her lead. Thanks to her dynamic leadership, we achieved so much in and for New Jersey.”
Barbara was a mentor to many, including Mary Alice Goss, founder of Special People United to Ride.
“She was very dynamic, very loving and very giving,” said Mary Alice, who did her practice teaching with Barbara before starting SPUR.
“She supported all of us, she helped anybody and everybody who showed an interest. If you came up to Barbara and said, `I’m thinking about starting a program,’ she started supporting you.”
Robyn Sturz, the executive director of Riding High, noted that Barbara was one of those people who made sure something got done, once she had an idea.
“Everyone jumped on the train with her for whatever the ride was going to be. She definitely was a strong-willed person and an icon in the industry. It rollar-coastered into what therapeutic riding is today.”
One of her interests was working with at-risk youth, which Riding High continues to do today, along with therapeutic and veterans’ programs, serving 95 people each week.
Barbara stayed involved with Riding High for decades. Even after retiring in 2005, she made it a part of her life for another 10 years, until she moved to Florida.
Visitation will be Nov. 27 6-8 p.m. and Nov. 28 9:30-10:30 a.m. followed by her funeral at Huber-Moore Funeral Home, Bordentown, N.J. Interment will follow at the Brig. Gen. William C. Coyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery, 350 Provinceline Rd., Wrightstown, N.J. Donations in her memory may be made to Riding High Farm, 145 County Road 526, Allentown, N.J
by Nancy Jaffer | Nov 15, 2022
The mascots of the 2024 Paris Olympics have been announced, and they are….two hats. Not berets, which might first come to mind when thinking of a French chapeau. The honor instead goes to Phyrigian caps, to be called the Phryges, for short. The Phyrigian cap was a symbol of liberty during the French Revolution (and you know how that turned out.)
Here they are, the Paris 2024 Olympic mascots.
So why this incredibly odd selection, though in recent years, mascots have not been sensible and cute choices such as Amik, the beaver that was the rep of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, or Hodori, the tiger from Seoul 1988.
According to Julie Matikhine, brand director of Paris 2024, the most important attribute for a mascot is “meaning.” Cuteness is no longer sufficient.
“We are absolutely not in an approach of symbolizing through an animal or finding the famous designer that could have an idea instead of us. Meaning comes first each time Paris 2024 is designing or creating something,” commented Julie, who said the Games wanted “a mascot with something to say.”
“To be honest, at one time we even considered that perhaps it was better not to have any mascot rather than have a mascot with no precise purpose or meaning.”
The respective Olympic mascots for Paris 2024 embody the idea of liberty “but in a cuddly way.”
Yikes.
What’s wrong with something cute that could be found in nature, such as the duck-billed platypus, kookaburra and an echidna (spiny anteater) from Sydney 2000? Many mascots were stylized, such as the 1992 Barcelona mascot Cobi,a Pyrenean mountain dog with human clothes and characteristics, and that is imaginative, rather than wacky.
The caps’ predecessor in Olympic mascot weirdness was Whatizit, later known as Izzy, the symbol of the 1996 Atlanta Games. A “product of information technology,” it was considered an unusual mascot because it was not an animal, a human figure or an object. Obviously, it started an unfortunate trend.
