Laura Hinsdale Rides to Success
by Caitlin Venezia,
February 24, 2011, page 19.....

Laura Hinsdale has big plans for the future, and, based on her success in 2010, well she should.  Laura spread her success last year from the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, to The Syracuse Invitational Sport Horse Tournament in Syracuse, New York, with top placing in the equitation in Florida to the junior jumpers at the National Horse Show.
Laura (17), daughter of Irene Hinsdale, began her riding career at her family’s Country Cedars Farm of Charlotte and is training with the Holly Hill Farm in Marston Mills, Massachusetts. A senior at CVU, Laura spends the winter in Florida, training and competing each weekend and continuing her studies with a tutor. She is still deciding where to go to college; she has been accepted at several.
Laura began last year with two second places in the ASPCA Maclay at the Winter Equestrian Festival and proceeded to qualify for the USEF Medal Finals, USEF Talent Search Finals East, New England Finals and the ASPCA Maclay Finals, on Ormont, an equitation horse owned by Caroline Gilbert. In April of last year, Laura worked her way toward the Equestrian Sport Productions Reserve Circuit champion in the children’s jumpers with top placings in every Children’s Jumper Classic on circuit on Tiona, owned by Danielle Stacy.
Laura then began a new chapter with the purchase of Country Cedars Farms Woodstock, a 7-year-old Holsteiner, with whom she has excelled from the children’s jumpers to the low junior jumpers. Laura and her new jumper finished the year with top classic ribbons at the Vermont Summer Festival, first place in the Low Junior Jumper Classic at the Fieldstone Summer Showcase and the Fidelity Jumper Classic, which earned her the coveted circuit champion award for those shows and a top-ten placing in the junior jumpers at the National Horse Show. Woodstock finished the 2010 season with the United States Hunter Jumper Association Silver Stirrup Award for the low junior jumpers and the Zone 1 Low Junior Jumper Championship.
This coming season Laura looks forward to moving up in the jumper ranks with her horse, Woodstock, to the high junior jumpers and continuing her success in equitation. All of these accomplishments will surely lead Laura to achieve her goals not only as a top equitation rider but a possible future Olympian as well. Her last junior year has all the ingredients to make Laura a very successful female athlete and should make all her neighbors in Charlotte very proud.

Caitlin Venezia is Laura’s trainer from Holly Hill Farm.