WINDCHASE 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY!

     This summer is the 30th Anniversary of the founding of Windchase. We are going to celebrate this with a party, on Saturday, August 6. We are inviting all current and former clients, students, boarders and friends of Windchase to come join us. From 2:00 p.m. until whenever! It will be a potluck, so bring food. RSVPs are appreciated. We hope you can make it!

     Wow, have thirty years really gone by already?

     In the summer of 1986, my mother and I first came to see this lovely spot on the earth that is now Windchase.  I had lived pretty much all of my life up to that point on our small farm in Great Falls, VA, which is much closer in to Washington DC.  It was countryside when I was a kid, but by the mid eighties it had become very developed, offering fewer and fewer places to ride.  I was feeling increasingly hemmed in and frustrated at a time when I was competing very seriously and trying to make an International name for myself, and I needed to have the open space to train and condition my horses.  One day when I had been kicked off yet another of the places I had formerly had permission to ride, I came home and said to my mother, "Mom, let's move!"
     Well, we Dawson's believe in action.  The very next day, Mom went out searching for farms in Loudoun County.  She hooked up with a realtor who happened to be a fellow Event rider, and he took her to see a piece of property that he thought we might like.  She immediately fell in love with it, and a few days later took me out to see it.  Of course, I also fell in love with it at first sight.

     Within a week, we had negotiated a contract and gone ahead with plans to buy the property.  In August, 1986, we went to settlement to purchase the farm, and christened it Windchase.  During the late summer and autumn of 1986 we had the barn builders start on the arena and the stables.  We had our priorities right; get the barns built and worry about the restoring the house later!  We also had a crew working on creating the lake.  Mom and I commuted from Great Falls on an almost daily basis to work on the parts of the construction that we were doing ourselves; things like the dock in the lake, the water system in the stables, the retaining walls outside of the barns.  In the spring of 1987 the barns were mostly completed and I moved in. Mom joined me later that year. The house was renovated in 1988. Jineen became an important part of Windchase a few years later, when she moved next door and became the stable manager.
     

     Windchase looked quite different back then.  There was pretty much nothing here but corn fields.  The area where the barns and the sand ring are was a hay field, and all the pastures and galloping field was planted in corn.  Where the lake now is, there was a swamp with a stream lazily meandering through it, and the lawn near the house was mostly shrubby woods.  The house itself was old and dilapidated, just over half the size it is now, and covered with awful old asphalt shingles over the wood siding.  People advised us to bulldoze it down and start fresh - but fortunately we didn't heed that advice.   
      We had dreams and plans.  Mom and I spent many hours designing the stables, planning the renovation of the house, mapping out where to put the barns, pastures and fences.  We designed everything ourselves, envisioning what it would look like once completed. It has been one of the most rewarding and satisfying things that I have ever done in my life to make those dreams become a reality. Mom and I worked together to develop Windchase, and I know she also felt a huge sense of accomplishment at how it turned out. Now she is gone and we all miss her, but I feel she is still watching over Windchase.

     I have great memories of those early days. I was so excited about Windchase, and I clearly remember saying to myself, "I wonder if in 20 years, I will be as excited about this place as I am right now."  And then thinking, "Yes, I am sure that I will be."  And I am here to tell you, now 30 years down the road, that if anything, I am even more in love with the farm than ever.  Every day I ride around the farm and totally appreciate how lucky I am to be here at Windchase.  There is some special magic attached to the piece of land that is Windchase, and there is no place else I would rather be.   

     So like I said, we are throwing a 30th Anniversary Party.  On Saturday August 6, we will have a pot-luck cookout to celebrate Windchase's 30th birthday.  All of you present and former clients, students, boarders and friends of Windchase are invited!  Starting around 2:00 pm.  It is pot-luck, so bring food.  RSVPs are appreciated. Come celebrate with us!