Meadow Brook Farm

10/25/2026

10/25/2026

Fall at the farm. 🍁

10/15/2026

👀

09/22/2026

USDF Region 2 Championships….What. A. Ride.

Weather was trash the entire time. Everyone was cold. Everything was wet. Riders were edgy. Horses were twitchy. Helmut was unbothered.

But despite all of that….it was a great weekend. Our D ladies did a damn good job riding through the challenges and we are SO PROUD of them. And the horses-our young ones stepped up to the plate in a major way, the newest addition to the crew really proved himself to be a super good egg, and the lone mare in the group threw her mom a bone 🦴 when she needed it. They were all just so freaking GOOD. 🥹

Final placings:

⭐️ Cari Shanks and Pjoter-9th out of 36 in the Third Level AA Championship

⭐️ Margret Schrant and My Lord Ferdinand-10th out of 36 in the Third Level AA Championship

⭐️ Kate Wallace and Opportune K-10th out of 29 in the Training Level AA Championship

⭐️ April Morris and Alluwe WF-12th out of 34 in the First Level AA Championship

I’m sure y’all know where we’re gonna go with this post now 🤣 Placing well is all fine and good and of course we love to see our team do well. That’s really secondary though to how and why we got here, and why we keep showing up for this insanity all season—it’s the journey, it’s the love of the horses, and it’s the village around us. We have a loooong list of people to thank!

Shirley Dau and Glen, Dennis and Mary Shanks, Eric, Mady, Nora and Troy Wallace, Wojtek and Asia Drezek, Bailey Finnestad—thank you for showing up to support us all season long—we love you guys so much! 😘

Paige Abbott and Wayne Carlson—thanks for everything you to do keep our horses happy and healthy. Extra thanks to Wayne for his patience with thrown shoes and pictures captioned “does this look weird to you?” 😬

Nora Arnold and Emma Kane-Mikan—thanks for the beautiful braids all season long, your friendship, and for your overall awesomeness!! We are lucky to have you as part of the MBF family! ⭐️⭐️

Sara McKiness—thanks for accommodating all of our high maintenance ponies at home so they can be (mostly) functional at the shows 😅😘

Most of all, thank you to Helmut for the encouragement, support, guidance, smart-ass jokes, drink-pouring, tear-wiping, hand-holding, and horse-hosing; thank you for answering endless questions, dealing with our nerves, the countless lessons and schooling sessions, the training rides, and the kicks in the ass; thank you for pushing us to be better, for making sure we keep an eye on the big picture, for never letting us take the shortcut, and for creating a space in which we can believe in ourselves and our horses. 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

The 2026 chapter of D shows is in the books….looking forward to next year. Cheers! 🥂🍻

09/07/2026

🔥🔥Triple-decker show update comin’ in hot 🔥🔥

1️⃣ First up: August Dressage at Lamplight….

For the second year in a row, this show was kinda an Achilles heel for our D ladies. It’s run at the same time as the USDF Festival of Champions so the judging is tougher, the rings are different, there’s a bit more atmosphere, etc. It’s a real test for horses and riders and the results are sometimes mixed.

Did we have a great time? Yes. Did any of us achieve a personal best test score? No. Did we maintain a positive attitude 100% of the time? Also no. What we DID do is support each other, laugh a lot, trusted our horses even when it felt a little scary, pushed ourselves through some fatigue and frustration, and left the show Sunday with more confidence (and homework) than when we arrived.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: it is hard to be an amateur in any discipline when your attention and time are always being pulled in 20 different directions. We are so proud of our D ladies for always showing up even when it’s not the easiest or the most fun❤️ Kate Wallace Margret Schrant Cari Shanks

2️⃣ Bailey Finnestad competed at the American Eventing Championships last weekend with her homebred mare Open Aire and ended up 5th in a BN-Amateur division of over 25 riders! This is an absolutely massive achievement and there were definitely some misty eyes in the MBF camp when we saw Bailey and Ariel in the awards ceremony in the legendary Rolex arena. Way to go Bay! So happy for you! 🥲

3️⃣ Wojtek Drezek and Bailey popped over to Lamplight this weekend for a jumper schooling show and had some really great, educational rounds with both horses. Wojtek’s young horse stepped out for just his second show ever and he was such a good boy! Ariel was unimpressed after her championships last weekend 🤣 Both horses moved up in height yesterday and handled it like total pros.

Props to anyone who read through that entire post; props to our horses and riders for some great outings; and of course, we can never end a post without thanking the Birthday Boss himself for his literally never-ending patience, guidance, coaching, and general propping up of his riders. Helmut was sitting at the D show doing a virtual course walk with Bailey between dressage tests….we are so lucky to have a trainer who is so invested in helping us succeed and more importantly, helping us LEARN.

😅😅😅 next up is Regionals in two weeks, then a horse trials at Silverwood, and then….we rest. 😴 Except Helmut because he does not appear to need sleep and downtime like the rest of us mere mortals.

09/04/2026

🚨MAY WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE 🚨

🥳🥳 TODAY IS HELMUT’S BIRTHDAY!!!! 🥳🥳

🎶Go Boss Man, it’s your birthday🎶
🎶We gonna….horse show??…like it’s your birthday🎶

In true Helmut fashion he’s spending his birthday riding, teaching, and taking students to a show. Luckily for him it’s jumpers and not yet another boring D show 🤣

Thank you Helmut for everything you do for us! We hope you have a great day!

EDIT: if any of you actually show this to him-please make sure you tell him that is a DOUBLE STUF OREO. Thank you.

06/08/2026

MBF D Squad were winners at Windy City last weekend!

The dressage girls were out in full force for the first show of the season; we were lucky to have beautiful weather and the horses were absolute STARS all weekend long. Recap:

🥇Kate Wallace and her Opportune K were freaking on fire 🔥 and laid down a couple of beautiful tests, with the highlight being an AA T3 win with a 74.4%!!!!! 😱🤩😱🤩😱🤩 So proud of these two-Oliver is a big, strong, young horse and Kate has been patiently bringing him along with a focus on correct development-we are thrilled to see that patience paying off!

🥇Duewer Rich Teri brought her golden baby Querinus F to his first Lamplight show and we seriously could not have been more impressed with this 5 year old! His behavior matched his color all weekend long-he literally never put a foot wrong. Teri and Henry had some really good tests including an AA T3 win with a 70%. Teri has done the majority of the work on this young horse by herself and he’s one of the best-brained babies we’ve seen. Yay Teri!!!!

🥇Cari Shanks and Pjoter came out of the winter at full send, making their Third Level debut as well as taking on the 6 Year Old classes. Those young horse classes are TOUGH and this show was no exception. Pjoter earned a 68.5% in the 6 YOs on Sunday and got some really good feedback from the judges, as well as getting 2nd place at Third 3. We’ve adored Pjoter since he was sent to Helmut to be started 3 years ago and we love that he and Cari are doing so well together!

🥇Olivia Pilch brought FOUR (😳😳😳) horses-she was just a little busy-and per usual, her whole herd were total professionals. Her new ride Baileys on Ice won a Third 3 class on a 70.5%; Mollegardens Fashion won the PSG on Sunday (69.7%); and her best buddy Zeke returned to the show ring after a long break—these two gave the USEF Dressage Seat Equitation a try and earned a killer 78%! Last but not least, her young guy Dancer got in some really good schooling with both The Boss 😎 and Olivia and handled the atmosphere like a champ.

We had a great weekend and loved seeing so many friends after a long, cold, boring winter. HUGE thanks to everyone who came out to support our crew (Shirley Dau, Mady Wallace, Nora Wallace, Wjotek & Asia, Eric, Cari’s lovely parents)…..

And speaking of seeing friends, we were beyond excited to see Margret Schrant’s longtime BFF Athena in the ring with her new mom! Athena looks like a million bucks and it was so fun to see her doing so well ❤️❤️❤️

Thanks as always to Helmut for the schooling rides (though these ladies are getting pretty damn good and he actually didn’t have 1 million rides this show! Gotta take it easy on the old man 😜), the coaching, and keeping this crazy train on track….mostly. And on the subject of crazy, the most insane thing we saw last weekend was Helmut drinking water. Those of you who know him know that that’s….not normal. It was weird. He almost puked.

Next up is the IDCTA Summer Kickoff show at Silverwood!