South Farm CT

Monday, May 10, 2010

So home from Rolex and it's time for the Combined Test at South Farm. Wednesday night I headed out to the barn to clean tack. And then Friday after work I got a short jumping lesson on Kaye. Of course then Bonnie and I had to drive over to Tammy's to pick up the trailer, so by the time we did that and fed the horses, it was late when I finally got home. Saturday morning I picked Astrid up at 5:30 and we got to the barn to start feeding and get the ponies ready. Airy and Kaye both needed quick baths. Neither of them was terribly dirty but they both we're a bit dusty, and Kaye's tail was gross! So got them bathed and the trailer packed and we were on the road shortly after 8. Not too bad!

When we got to South Farm, Bonnie was the first to ride. So while she and Astrid got Airy ready I headed inside to pick up our packets. And then back over to the trailer to help Bonnie get on. Of course though Kaye wouldn't stand quietly on the trailer without Airy there so we had to take her over to the dressage ring with us. Airy was a complete snot in dressage, totally distracted by everything, including the Amish buggies. Of course when she actually settled down for the second canter the judge gave them lower scores than the first, bad canter, go figure! After Bonnie finished dressage we all headed back to the trailer. Airy to get a bit change and Astrid to start getting Kaye ready to ride.

Astrid headed into the dressage ring first for her Very Green test which was Intro B. She was having a pretty decent ride until she got to the free walk. And that's when she had a complete blond moment and forgot what she was doing. Unfortunately she was eliminated for it. Then it was time for Bonnie to do her stadium round. Airy was still way to fascinated by the Amish buggies so it was interesting to say the least.



Airy did have a double clear round even if she did make things difficult for Bonnie. And that was enough to keep them in 3rd place in the Training division.

Then it was time for Astrid to head back into the dressage ring for her Baby Beginner Novice test. Luckily she did much better that time and remembered her whole test. She had a pretty decent test overall, Bonnie and I were both really pleased with her. We quickly changed tack as she wanted to jump in Bonnie's saddle rather than mine. A quick warm up and they were ready to head into the stadium ring. A double clear round later and they finished 5th out of 7. Not too bad for Astrid's first show!


By the time Astrid finished her stadium course I only had about 10 minutes to switch tack and warm up before I was due in the dressage ring for my first ride. Luckily Kaye was already warmed up, it was just a matter of getting her listening to me and on the bit. Finally it was time to my Novice A test, and for pretty much the first time ever I rode into that dressage ring confident! It was actually pretty cool. I didn't think about the judge I just went in there and rode my test. Seriously it was the best test I have ever ridden in competition. And I got to bring home a pretty blue ribbon to show for my efforts.


A few minutes later I went back into the dressage ring to ride the Beginner Novice B test. Again we had a pretty decent ride. Not quite as good as the Novice A test, but still better than most other dressage tests I've ridden. Unfortunately the judge favored horses that were behind the vertical rather than one that was in a beginner novice appropriate frame and we didn't get a really great score. Oh well, I don't really care about the ribbon, I know I had a good ride.

Time now to put on Kaye's boots and running martingale and head over to stadium warm up. Had a good warm up. As usual my first fence was pretty ugly, but it quickly improved. Jumped maybe half a dozen warm up fences and we were ready. Unfortunately they weren't ready for us in the ring. So we waited, and waited and waited. Finally it was our turn to go into the ring. And Kaye was a ROCKSTAR! God I love that mare. She was just on. Jumped every fence exactly the same, we got our leads, she was listening to me. It was just awesome. And of course, we had a double clear round. Which ended up being enough to move us up to 8th out of 14. I'll take it.


Just cracks me up that we both had our eyes closed

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