NTW Sunrise Ridge HDT 4/11/15

What a weekend. What a perfect weekend! Everything just came together in the right way - the weather, the friends, the mare. The mare! The mare was the best this past weekend. I was so very impressed with her. In our first ever ADS sanctioned HDT, we placed second! 

Note: I highly apologize for the 9582820945869203495 photos in this post. Actually, no I don't. I am MORE than happy to spam the heck out of everyone with my pictures!

Oh yes I am the best worship me humans

I spent the week prepping - cleaning my cart, cleaning my harness, packing hay/grain/etc, organizing clothes, and trying painfully to memorize my courses. Friday arrived, and I had everything ready to go within short order. The showgrounds were about an hour away, quite easy to get to, so I had the mare there and put away in time to make it to the marathon course walk. By 'course walk,' I mean that they tossed us all into a tracter-drawn hay wagon and drove us around the course. Our course was 5k long, with five obstacles (formerly known as hazards but apparently the ADS decided that was too scary sounding recently and changed it). We weren't allowed to dismount and go walk the obstacles, so we had to come back and do that later on our own. We did get a feel for the terrain, which was a mix of wide open pasture land, hills, and wooded paths. The ground was excellent, the scenery was gorgeous, and the longhorns were thankfully pastures far, far away from us.

L and I went and walked the course again after the competitor's meeting. After they deposited us back at the show office, we were debriefed by the TD and the judge, and then sent on our way for the evening. I unloaded my cart and had my wheels measured (required for cones), fed O her dinner and tried to shuffle her hay around so that it would be in a spot where she'd bother to eat it, and headed out with L. O is a tricky horse to maintain at shows, because she doesn't just dive in and eat whatever you put in front of her. You have to figure out the spot she has decided to spend the most time in, and put her hay there - if the hay is on the 'wrong' side of her stall or pen, she won't eat it. She'll freely graze if there is grass, but the hay has to be in a certain spot or else it won't be touched. She'll generally finish her grainfoods if you give her several hours to do it, but sometimes you have to hand feed it to her. She lives on Ulcergard when we go away, and gets dosed with Pro CMC before she gets worked (and I always try to have her belly full of hay). Even at home gets carefully maintained for optimum gut health. I suppose she's not unlike me - whenever I go away from my home base, I don't eat hardly anything. I have to really make an effort to eat and drink enough, and even then I got plenty of raised eyebrows from my comrades at dinnertime as I listlessly shifted my food around on my plate. I guess the mare and I are a good match - got knows the second she got home, she voraciously stuffed her face with hay like she was starving, and I did the same.
Out on the course, we walked around until it was dusk, trying to go over the best routes for all of our hazards on the marathon. For Training, we are only required to go through gates A-B-C, and we are not timed. The time counts towards your total time of course, but it isn't penalty time. We had 23.05 minutes to get through the 5k course and all of the hazards. 

Back at the barn, we checked the horses one last time and crashed for the night. I slept well, but did get up on a whim at 3:30 to check O and her pony friend Bob. Both of them were eating hay (phew) and resting. Thank god for that!

The day dawned misty, cloudy, and grey. It originally called for 90% rain, but we lucked out and didn't get one drop. It stayed nice and cool and cloudy for the entire duration of the day - PERFECT weather for a horse show where you have to play dress up. I bathed O (much to her dismay, but she was filthy), and let her graze under a cooler to dry. I also lunged her for awhile to get the bucks out, but after a few minutes of the zooms, she settled down. Our dressage time was 10:40AM - we were ready to go by 9:45AM, and headed down to the safety check. There, officials check your harness and turnout, take a piece of paper that you have signed saying that everything in your turnout is in good working condition, and then they send you on your way to warm up. I really like that - I think it is super important to be safe, especially when you are in a rattling wooden box behind a prey animal.

Even though she was a little fidgety for the check, O warmed up like a total doll. She was SO good - soft and buttermouthed, compliant and quiet. I wondered if we could possibly hold it together all the way to the dressage ring!

Dressage warm-up:

Me: "Wtf am I wearing"

I think the outfit came out decently. Parts of it look sort of frumpy to me - and I think I need to invest in a wedge seat - but I think with some adjustments I could really make it into something nice.

The warmup went SO well.... but how would the test go? Only one way to find out...

Halt, salute, breathe!

I tried REALLY hard to narrow it down to my favorite pictures. But there were so many to choose from! And so many more I didn't post. They were ALL so good!

The test was a 56.39, which apparently is a pretty decent score. The best score of the entire weekend was a 47.67. I'm not completely clear on how this translates to eventing type scoring - in eventing it is quite common for everyone in top few placings to score in the upper 20's or low 30's. As far as I can tell, scoring in the 40's is about the same as scoring in the 30's in eventing. Or maybe that's not being generous enough... I can't really tell. Everyone gushed over O and raved about her score, so it must have been a decent one!

We were only one point behind the leader, a lady who has been showing Training level for literally 20 years. I'm not kidding, 20 years! Her mare is super, super experienced and mine is still quite green (and I am quite green too). Out of my test of solid 7s and 6.5s, there was one glaringly lonely 5 staring out at me from the final comments. Like in every other kind of dressage, you get scored (on a double coefficient for some of them) for the horse's gaits, impulsion, submission, and driver position, as well as on your presentation (your outfit, condition of vehicle/harness/horse, etc). We got a 9 on presentation! We also got a 7 for my position, a 7 for her impulsion, and a 7 for her gaits. I know you're all just shocked to hear that the lone 5 - which was a double coefficient, so technically two 5s - was for submission. Who, O? Never!

5 for submission? Can't imagine why!

Right from the dressage, we headed to the cones, which was running back-to-back. I really liked that format - that way, your horse was already warmed up and ready to roll. They remeasured the course for us, and we were on our way! I though for sure that she would spook at the judge's box, but she didn't. She also didn't spook at the giant Eiffel tower, the mules, or anything else going on.

The skinnies - the blue cones were set 5cm tighter than the regular cones! Made it!

Element A of number 17 - it was set on a very tight zig zag, and we had a knockdown on element D

Turning towards 6

The Eiffel Tower!

Trying not to knock over element C in the second of two very tight zig zag combinations

The course was super tough. 20 elements, two of which were combinations of four in a zig zag, and two skinnies. That's a LOT of stuff for a noob like me! In the end, I had 3 knockdowns. All of them were completely driver error, rookie mistakes from just not having done this enough. I knew every time I was about to hit one, but of course it is always too late by that time to save it! I was not the only one - literally every single person in my division had at least one knockdown. The leader of our division had two, I had three, and the person in 3rd place had one knockdown. Technically that made the 3rd place person the winner of the cones, but it did not change our overall placings.

Unhitching!

We unhitched O, put her back in her pen to rest and eat hay, and headed out to walk the marathon one more time. My awesome navigator B had showed up right before dressage, and I conned her got her to come with me out on the course walk. It ended up being a total laugh - we caught up with some others who let us bounce around in the back of their golf cart with them. The obstacles this years had the theme of "Into The Woods," presumably because they just made it into a movie recently. There was a Cinderella obstacle, a Little Red Riding Hood one, a Rapunzel one, a Jack and the Beanstalk one, one with the Big Bad Wolf in it, and another one with maypoles that had a theme that I can't remember. I got one look at the Cinderella carriage and thought O was probably going to have a heartattack and die when she saw it:

Spookerella

L and I actually thought the horses were going to be having total panic attacks over the entire course. We had Spookerella, Little Red Spooky Hood with her billow red cape, the Big Bad Spook which was a terrifying werewolf in a nightgown, and a bunch of other scary looking things on course. As we hitched and prepped for the marathon, I instructed my navigator B to HOLD ON in case of any massive spooks. W assured us that the horses weren't going to spook, but we didn't believe her.

After another safety check, we were off on course! We got to the first hazard, Spookerella, and waited for the spooks.... and.... they didn't come! B and I looked at each other briefly as we passed right by the carriage several times with no problem. She didn't even look at it.

That grin says "oh my god she didn't spook at anything!"

The longer we were on course, the bigger our grins got. O got her Hauling Ass trot on, and all I had to do was vaguely steer her. I didn't have to speed her up, slow her down, or redirect any massive spooks. All we had to do was follow our directional arrows, make it through all of our compulsory turning flags, and enjoy the scenery.

We did walk through sections of every hazard, which we can do at this level with no problems. I figured it was smarter to steer well and not smash into anything. She really impressed me in every hazard, powering up the little hills, carefully balancing with the breeching down them again, and steering on a dime (as best she could with the giant lumbering cart, anyway). B and I were laughing our way along as we cruised, just enjoying ourselves because we literally didn't have to do anything but sit there as we went along the kilometers between the hazards.

Super cool Rapunzel!

She's a good sweater, that's for sure! She worked hard!

We did come in over the time, because I walked in the hazards, but we weren't very far over it. We ended up with 9.75 time penalties. The leader had no time penalties, but remember she's been doing it for 20 years, so I felt like that was pretty good on my part! Both B and I were super impressed with O - she didn't spook at anything, trotted along easily, and then pulsed right down in the vetbox when we were done. She wasn't even winded! She did get good and lathered, but she always does - she is a profuse sweater. Which in the Texas heat is a good thing!

About to go wash off The Sweatball

We finished with a total score of 75.14, which landed us a solid second, miles ahead of the 3rd place person. Yeahhhh mare!

O has had the past few days off - a well deserved little vacation. She really earned it - what a mare!

Sunrise Ridge HDT - Short Update!

I will have the full report on Sunrise Ridge shortly - it will be chock full of pictures and good times! For now, seeing as I need sleep, I will leave you with a picture from the dressage and let you all know that we did not die, kill anyone, make any severely bad rookie mistakes, or make anyone gasp in horror. In fact, there may have been some gasps of delight instead!

More soon on my super, super weekend!

Countdown to Sunrise Ridge HDT: Two Days!

It's been a long time since I had a real countdown to a rated show. Like, a long time. A really, really long time! I think the last rated show from any discipline was the 2009 AECs. Everything I've done since has been schooling shows, no national organizations involved. That's all about to change! (And of course, by rated I mean ADS sanctioned... 'rated' being the catch-all term for a show sanctioned by the national mother organization.) I haven't really even had the ability to blog about my prep work yet - I've had little ability to prep yet so far this week, which has been super hard. 

I am feeling pretty dang nervous for this show, I'll admit it, although I am feeling relatively in control of my pre-show checklist. It's SO hard to go into a brand new sport - there is SO much to learn, so much to remember, and so much that is still confusing to me. I know exactly what to expect from USEA or USDF shows - hell, even rated h/j shows, from the handful I've peppered into my regular show schedule over the years - but the ADS is an entirely new thing for me. ADS, like many of the other major US sport organizations, is under the USEF umbrella, and like the other major sport organizations, it has an extremely lengthy rulebook that covers each sect separately (pleasure shows, combined driving, etc). There is SO much information in there, it's hard to get your head around it. I like knowing the rules - I hate being left in the dark on things - so I have spent a lot of time pouring over the rulebook and committing things to memory.

Still, it's HARD to remember stuff. It's hard to remember 20 sets of cones, and it's hard to remember not to forget the compulsory turning flags on the marathon, and it's hard to remember the order in which things need to go. It's all uncharted territory for me!

That said, I think I have things mostly under control. We did go ahead and put O on Altrenogest, so we don't have to worry about any, erm... hormonal upsets. That's a large load off my back... she was due to come back into heat this very weekend and I was not looking forward to that one bit - especially since she'll be stabled behind a gelding who was only just recently cut!

I installed my chrome rein rail a few days ago as well. Considering the fact that I am about as handy as a cream cheese bagel, this is just as much of an accomplishment as the winch install was. But it looks AWESOME!

For reference; this is what the old one looked like:

Ugly AND broken

I put all of the original bolts back into place and painted over them. When I have more time, I can putty the holes and pain over them again - I just don't have that kind of time right now though. Nobody will notice at an HDT, especially not with the presentation portion being assessed during the actual test itself. They do inspect your gear before your dressage and your marathon, but they're looking for things like safety issues, not your lack of style. 

We had our final drive today, after several days off - it's been raining and we've been stupidly busy. O was a wonderful lady, solidly putting in a few relaxing miles on a nice contact before we headed back to the barn. A few days before a show, I always tend to get a little nervous, and rather than drill my horse in their dressage work, I opt for lighter things like hacks and conditioning workouts to keep them fresh - and to keep me from letting my nerves get in the way and start up with the nit-picking. Tomorrow, she'll be lunged, and we leave Friday afternoon for the showgrounds.

I made a few adjustments to the harness and I think everything is sitting well now. I raised the tugs a little bit, and was pleasantly surprised to find it made it ride much smoother - way easier to balance it while in it. I also stuck my saddle pad back on just for schooling purposes - we'll remove it for the dressage, but I think it is worth it to use it during regular schooling at home. Between the new ear bonnet, the new rein rail, and the outfit I'll have on, everything will look mighty nice at the show.

Today I cleaned out my trailer tack room, printed off all the show info, fixed my winch issue, had my trailer spare repaired, drove O, did barn chores, and cleaned my harness. I'll admit, I'm pretty sold on my synthetic harness now - it was stupidly easy to clean. All I did more or less was hang it on a gate, turn the hose on, and spray it down, then wipe it clean. Voila! It took me less than 10 minutes and it looks brand new again. 

Tomorrow I need to: pack up all hay/grain/buckets/haybags/etc, clean out the back of the trailer, get shavings, clean my cart, clip/trim/tidy up O, and probably get some raingear because there's something like a 90% chance of rain on Saturday (awesome). Among many other things... there's a lot to do before we leave on Friday!

Thankfully P (who is at day 335 today) looks like she's going to hold out on us until at least next week. She finally has fluid in her udders (FINALLY!), so I have been able to test them. The fluid is in the water/sticky amber colored stage - far, far from milk - and is nearly off the charts on the pH scale. That means we still have a fair bit of cooking left to do, thankfully. Cook all you want, baby! Don't come out until next week!

The Comedy of Errors

I've said a few times before that my life is a giant comedy of errors. Everything that can hilariously go wrong in a day usually does, especially on an important day. But at least it is funny most of the time... hey, if you're not laughing you're crying, right? 

But the good news is that none of the bad stuff relates to O's behavior. In fact, she gets a gold star for being a total angel all week long. 

Everything else though? It's been a bit, erm.... well. You know.

When we last left off, I was lunging or ground driving O nearly every day, anxiously awaiting my new harness. Without a harness to use, I was kind of a sitting duck. I also put EasyShoes back on O, just on the fronts, to see if *maybe* she could keep them on for longer than one single workout. 

And, technically she did! She kept them on for more than one single workout. She kept them on for...  two. And then, she ripped one off, halfway through the second lunge. Grand total of lasting time: 3 days. I hope you're proud of yourself, mare. I went ahead and removed the other one and decided to can that idea forever. She's just a bad candidate for most everything that goes on her feet, save for her ratty old Cavallos. She has ripped through a pair of Deltas, two sets of EasyShoes, a set of Superfast shoes, and pulled off a pair of Gloves and a pair of Renegades. It's kind of amazing that the old Cavallos have lasted as long as they have - god knows when she gets her big-moving trot on, I hear her striking them with every single stride. The problems of being a short-backed, big-moving horse, I suppose.

So, there was that. Anyway.

On Tuesday afternoon, my harness arrived!! I was so excited to have it. I'll fully admit that I am a leather snob, but I am impressed with the quality of this synthetic harness. The padding is this awesome waffle weave that is so, so soft, and the quality of the rest of the synthetic is just as nice. The smaller less important bits of strapping are your more typical oh-that's-plastic-harness type of synthetic, but the overall look is super nice. It just about passes as actual leather if you're just taking a quick glance.

Pre-adjustment. It's a nice harness! Good and squashy but sturdy at the same time.

On Wednesday afternoon, I harnessed her up in the afternoon, put her to, and headed out down the road to see what exactly we'd have going on. I hadn't driven her since she busted the other harness into a bunch of pieces, and we were going to be traveling on the exact same route, so I was interested to see exactly what she would do. 

She was perfect. Lovely, quiet, forward and soft. No problems with transitions, stopped and stood like a rock anywhere I placed her, and we even had a passenger join us for a little while partway down the road. He was a big dude too, and surprisingly that extra weight REALLY made the cart ride smoothly. No extra balancing required, we just sat there and had a good time! I should see if I can figure out a way to add some extra weight to the cart, to see if I can make it ride that smoothly all the time.

Did I win?

Super, super pleased with her. And pleased with my harness!

I gave her Thursday off, since even though we only worked 3 miles she did get good and sweaty on Wednesday. On Friday, I had a lesson scheduled for 10am with W again, so I was up at the buttcrack of pre-dawn (4am). Once at the barn, the mares were fed and then left to munch their alloted bit of alfalfa while I winched the cart into my truck bed, hooked up the trailer, and made sure everything was ready. I had to drop off some clipper blades at the sharpening place on my way there, so I wanted to make sure I was on the road by 7:30 so that I could drop off the blades, arrive early, let O eat, unload the cart, harness up, and be ready on time. (There is an awful lot of equipment to deal with when driving, in case I hadn't mentioned that before. It's worth it but it's also a PITA.)

As I was pulling down the driveway, I noted that one of my trailer tires looked low. I had the low tire sign on my truck as well, but upon inspection a few days ago found that it was nothing more than a tire that was just barely slightly below the point where it triggers the signal - it just needed some air, all the tires did as they were about the same level. I drove about 20 mins up the road, pulled into a gas station, cursed at the idiots parked in the spot reserved for people needing air, ended up having to back the trailer into the spot (which thankfully I am good at), and checked the tires. The trailer tire that looked low was not low at all, thankfully. I got around to the other side to check tires, and to my great alarm and surprise, the valve on one of them popped clean off. Air came screaming out, rapidly deflating the tire right before my eyes.

Whoever invented these is a genius 

So, there was that. Anyway.

Very annoyed, I pulled out my spare, jack, and wrench, and got to work. O has a relatively low tolerance for being stuck in an immobile trailer, and as I was loosen the lugnuts, she started banging around. The entire trailer started bouncing up and down like a lowrider hydraulic. "Mare! Shut up!" I yelled, to no avail. When she continued, I reached my jack up and meant to tap on the side of the trailer, to make a noise and get her to stop long enough to get the lugnuts loose without my jack flying off in every direction every time it bounced. I completely miscalculated the trajectory of this movement, and the jack connected with the sliding window on the passenger side escape door. To my astonishment and alarm, the window exploded, showering me with shards of glass. It did get O to shut up for a second, but I shudder to think about if this had been on the driver's side, where she was. It would have been a little too much flying glass waaaaay too close to her face, I'd think. As it was, I got sliced in a few places, but otherwise was fine.

Nice aim hawkeye!

So, there was that. Anyway.

I was so completely flustered at this point that in my apparently blind rage, I put the tire on backwards. As I was tightening the lugnuts, I noticed that tire was totally flat too, so I looked for the air gauge and... not there. Yep, on backwards. I had to relift the trailer, take it back off, turn it, and put it back on. Again.

Strongly considered this option

So, there was that. Anyway.

At this point I had been dicking around on the side of the road changing tires and cleaning up glass for the better part of an hour. I was seriously running late. I half considered just giving up and going home, because surely this was a sign from the universe to just can the day and try again tomorrow, but I swallowed the threatening lump in my throat and pressed on. Did I mention I'm also super PMSy right now? I really just about broke down and sobbed on the side of the road, that's how hormonal I am. I suppose this is what makes me sympathetic to O's ridiculous emotional outburst when she's in heat.... I have them too.

I somehow managed to get my blades dropped off, get my butt to the lesson, and finally get the day rolling. I had hoped to be there by 9:30am, but I didn't pull in until almost 10:30am. So grateful that W and L were sympathetic to my plight. What a total cluster of a morning, seriously.

I unloaded O and set her up with her haybag, and right away she was completely opposite of how she had been last time. She was intensely focused on her hay and dove right in, to my complete and total joy. She stood like a rock and gobbled while I unloaded the cart, harnessed her up, made some adjustments on the harness according to W, and put her to. Last time, she was too in heat to be able to think about anything beyond the other horses. This time, we drove right out into the field, got to work, and had an AWESOME drive. We ran through our dressage test first - both L and I were a little underpowered and our horses weren't being particularly fancy, but we knew it and we both made sure to make sure they were both awake during their tests at the show. We have the actual test down well now, it will be easy for me to remember - although I have to make sure I halt for long enough. In driven dressage, there is a certain amount of time you have to halt and stand immobile (I think 5 seconds for us) before you proceed onto the next movement. Easy enough to remember - I just have to, you know... remember it.

We went from there to the cones course, which L had set like the one we'll have at Sunrise Ridge. The competitors have all been emailed a packet showing our cones course and all of the hazards.... and wow, I'm pretty sure they're deliberately trying to make all of the newbies either pee their pants, eliminate out, or end the course crying. It's HARD. REALLY hard. The cones course was 'inspired by Kingdom of the Sun.' Meaning.... it's really freaking complicated. There are not one but two combinations of four cone sets placed in a really tight zig zag, nearly 20 set of cones, and two sets of cones that are 'skinnies,' set 5cm shorter than the actual legal length of each division. Can they even do that? I forsee a lot of knockdowns happening. Or maybe not, seeing as most of the people that go to this show have been doing Training level for the past 20 years and know what they are doing.
L had set the zig-zag of four cones set up at the tight length, 10 meters between each one. I struggled to do it, and clipped several cones, especially when turning to O's stiffer side. I will absolutely need to practice that this week, because with a full size horse it is HARD.
While doing our cones courses, O really turned on the sparkle and moved out big time. W was impressed and commented on the trot we had, saying that was the trot we really need for dressage. Not sure if we'll get it on the date of the show but we can try!

Super, super pleased with the lesson. O was super. Super! Could not have asked for better. She always seems to be a little weird the first time we go to a new facility, and then the second time she goes she is always perfect. Hopefully by getting to the show and being able to walk around on Friday, she'll be good and quiet by Saturday. We're only a week away now!

I see a few more adjustments I need to make on the harness and placement of the shafts, then we should be good to know. The chrome rein rail gets put in shortly too - how nice will that look!

We went over our packets, then I winched up the cart, loaded the horse, and headed out. After picking up my blades (just on time, before they closed), I made it safely home, and unloaded O and turned her back out. And then, because this is the comedy of errors, I realized to my dismay that the winch cable had tightly wrapped around itself within the sheath of the winch. It was so taut that trying to loosen it manually for an hour amounted to absolutely nothing. I even dismantled the thing and couldn't fix it. It's toast. It's super hard to keep track of exactly where the cable is going while you're winching the cart in.... crap. I need to get that repaired or replaced ASAP - luckily I had the foresight to buy the warranty. But still... I've only used it to go places twice, and I already destroyed it. I did, however, discover that when I am in a Hulk rage, I can in fact roll the cart down the ramp myself using only the weight of my body to counterbalance and carefully lower it down. Note to self: do not try this when in a cheerful mood, you surely will not have the strength for it. I am super sore today, the cart weights a few hundred pounds and trying to keep something that heavy from rolling rapidly down a ramp is not easy.

So, there was that. Anyway.



So far, I have recently destroyed a tire, a window, and a winch. O has destroyed several important pieces of a nice harness, and a set of Easyshoes in three days. It's a good thing we usually both choose to use our powers for good, because I think if we teamed up, we could totally destroy the universe in short order. We are awfully good at destroying stuff!

Day 330

Before we get to the updates about the new harness (!!) and today's lesson, I'll give P's quickie update. Basically: nothing to report. She is at day 330 today, and she has regressed some. Her udders, which were huge the other day, have totally deflated again. They were a lot smaller yesterday, and today they are nearly empty, just sagging bags. 

Womp womp

She may be an atypical developer - she might not get her milk in until right before she foals. Or she might just have decided to cook her baby a little longer than expected and hold out on us! At this right she might hold out for a few more weeks. Who knows! 

I have lots of other updates to write about, but need to head to bed! Let's just say my updates include a super well behaved horse, a new harness, a lesson, a flat tire, a broken window, and an exploded winch. Yeah... it's been an eventful few days!