I was there with my good little mare, KLS High Altitude, which Maureen consistently puts into the program as High Attitude! LOL! That might actually be a more fitting name for her...
It was an awesome Driving Trial with so many participants! There were 32 to drive on Saturday and 29 on Sunday. This is the only place in the country that can draw those kind of numbers! And many are starting to move up the ladder, there were NINE VSE turnouts competing in Prelim on Sunday! How cool is that? Some were veterans in the division, others were trying it out for the first time (including myself). It was actually just fine in the weather department as well. The rain only happened overnight, otherwise it stayed away until we were packing up to leave. Thanks, Mother Nature! I heard that it had rained most of the day on Saturday just 30 minutes south, and also to the north, but we definitely got lucky.
It is always fun to see the folks at combined driving events. There are few enough of us that pretty much everyone knows each other. There were some new competitors, eight in all, that came to see what it was all about. Most were from our area breed shows, and were welcomed with open arms from friends new and old. It was Susanne's maiden driving competition, and I know she will have tons to say about it! Mingus looked MAHVELOUS and Susanne not too shabby herself.
Cody of course is one in a million, and I know that Leia will have a few stories of her own. But I will leave it to them to tell!
As for us, Ally and I did very well in some respects. Ally could have done a lot better if she didn't have a bonehead driver! I had misread our start time for dressage on Day 1, thinking we were to go off at 9:37. I arrived at the gate to check in at about 9:25, and she said, "You're in next!" and the previous competitor had just given her final salute.
I said, "I thought I went at 9:37???" to which she showed me the listing. As I squinted at the tiny text, a blurry 9:27 appeared. YIKES! No warm up, which to Ally means no right bend. Sorry Charlie! Then I forgot a halt at C, which gave us an additional 5 penalties, OH WELL! This put is into 13th place after dressage, but we are still having fun! Had a perfect fast cones run on Maureen's devilishly fiendish course, REALLY BIG FUN! Then came in from Marathon right on center of our window, which put us into 6th overall out of 21 training level competitors for the day.
At the awards presentation, Maureen once again offered to re-do the schedule if anyone else wanted to try prelim the next day. Suddenly I found my head nodding and my hand shooting up in the air. Possessed! I was possessed by the competitive spirit! Yes, we will try it! Got our new times, then went out to re-map our hazards since Maureen is an amazing course designer who ALWAYS makes the easiest way in to A go through D. Which I had done earlier in the day on every hazard! Oh noes!!! Brain exploding! Then to get the new dressage test, which I had not ever seen before, no problemo on being able to DO IT, but memorize? Ack!
We went out for our dressage on Sunday morning, plenty of warm up time, yes! We can do this! I was the first to go in the prelim division, so no opportunity to watch another do the course first. I got partway through test 3, before I missed the left turn across the arena from B to E. Eek! Before the whistle blew, I turned Ally as gracefully as we could to cross the arena. Ah, pulled that one out! Oops! Now I am late for the walk at C!!! Down transition! Down transition! Smile at the judge.
OK, a little rough up to now, let's do the rest in a little better style! We did well enough to earn a great score of 42.18 on our first prelim test ever! We were third at that point. We did fine with the tighter clearance on cones too, right up to #20 where we dropped a ball. Dang! Still good on time though...
The adrenaline got to me a little too much in marathon, both I and Ally were having a good old time indeed getting to finally canter in the hazards as we'd practiced at home. However, in our euphoric state we missed gate D in one hazard, and went through B backwards and hit a knockdown in another. However Ally galloped boldly into the water, and was pretty darned smooth through our turns. On the hazards we did correctly, we were very competitive on times. We will definitely be competing at that level from here on! What a blast we had!
Happ's will be offering an Arena Driving Trial (ADT) series this winter, for those Northwesties who think they might like to test the waters. It is so much fun, I swear to you that you will not care where you place. It took me three years to get into the ribbons! I kept after it, because it was so much darn fun.
Hope to read some other accounts soon!