And thank you ahead of time for wanting to learn more about Blue
Clover Eventing and Valerie Vizcarrondo, the girl on the horse, under
the helmet, standing in the arena…you get the picture. And I want to
make sure you get the full picture! Every day I wake up driven to
compete at the highest levels of three day eventing, become a
United States Team rider, and represent my country at the Olympics
and beyond. What I do is beyond a job, it is who I am and what I love to do. I hope that my website helps you learn more about all of the things that make up Valerie Vizcarrondo. For all the detailed information about my riding, achievements and career highlights please click on the links above.For the background scoop on who I am as a person, please keep reading below.

Originally born in Indiana, I have lived essentially my entire life in Maryland, just south of the Annapolis area in the little town of Harwood. I went to high school at St. Mary’s right in downtown Annapolis, graduated with almost a 5.0, was very involved in the
student government association and enjoyed playing on our nationally ranked varsity women’s lacrosse team. Knowing, however, that there is no professional women’s lacrosse, I opted to go to college on an academic scholarship to St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the #1 rated public honors college in the country, in historic St. Mary’s City. SMC is a beautiful college and I vowed that I would take my first year off from horses and see what it was that I really wanted to do, discover what was out there that I might have been missing. That barely lasted a semester! Some good owners and some great class scheduling and I managed to juggle horses and college, riding on an NAYRC team at the same time as graduating my class valedictorian and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Between living on the water and spending my whole life on the back of a horse,I try never to take for granted the beauty of the space around me, and I wake up grateful every day that I get to do what I do. I’m not saying it is always easy! Though I am always grateful. After a bad day at work I still need to remind myself that I get to train and compete international caliber sport horses all day, every day! It takes less than 10 minutes to hop in the truck and drive from my house to my training facility, Kaleidescape, in Davidsonville, Maryland. Every day I get to the barn and Gunsmoke jumps out of the truck, ready for another day at the office! He is a rough coated lercher, black with whitepaws, dressed in a tuxedo is the joke around the barn. But we're not that formal of a crowd! He spends the day alternating between racing around like a wild man, and taking sun naps next to the arena. He puts in daily requests for a swimming pool, though so far has been denied. Mud puddles will have to do! Being surrounded each day by characters such as Gunsmoke and all the horses allow me the opportunity to keep on laughing and keep on learning, two things that I think are very important. I do not think that learning should be restricted to textbooks and classes. To help keep my mind and body limber, I look forward to taking my evening yoga classes each week. I love to travel, and I have yet to find any better way of learning about myself and the complex world surrounding us than by getting out there and experiencing it.

With all of my responsibility at the barn combined with the never ending horse expenses and my terrible fear of flying, it is amazing to think that I have been able to get out and about as much as I have. I was extremely proud of myself for surviving a plane flight to and from a backpacking trip through Italy. I recently enrolled myself in a photography class so that I can better document and preserve my excursions in the future. My next adventure: was a dog sledding trip in January 2008! Last fall some of my closest friends got married surfer-style down in Costa Rica.  All I have to say is, ZIP LINE! I could tell you more stories....but we better move on! 2009 found me in Bermuda at an eco-resort geared towards preserving the natural beauty of the island. And wow what a wake-up call, gasoline there costs over $8 a gallon, can’t imagine what it would cost to fill up my truck! Nonetheless, a simple weekend getaway here or a week long trip there can be super refreshing, and I've found that time-outs from day to day realities amazingly put life in perspective. I have a policy that I live by, and that is you can sleep when you’re old. I don’t have time for sleep right now, and I don’t plan on getting old. Not when there are so many wonderful and exciting things going on all around me.

So RIDE NOW, SLEEP LATER. And enjoy every moment.