MiniHGal
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For once I am actually on the ball about writing an event up and posting it with pictures! I never did write up Happs for here, though I wrote an article for CDW (Carriage Driving World). Oh well. In any case, this past weekend, my mom and I showed at the Henry Boyd CDE (combined driving event) in Woodside, CA, just south of San Francisco. There were only 5 VSEs (very small equines...under 39") there, which was unfortunately quite low, but there were a large amount of other turnouts. That included three tandems, a four-in-hand, and several pairs, along with the often-seen singles.
She showed Dapper Dan, a 6 yr old chestnut sabino(yes, he is a solid, just with lots of sabino roaning!) gelding, put to a Pacific Smart Cart with his new Tanglewood Farms custom harness, in the Preliminary VSE division. I drove Fascination, whom most of you ought to know, a 12 yr old sooty buckskin pinto mare, put to a Jerald Mini A with 30" wheels for dressage and cones, and a custom marathon roadster for marathon. Her harness is also Tanglewood-made, but not custom for her; the collar was made for my tandem wheeler, who was bigger and had a much heavier neck than her, and the rest of the harness was made for a 31" gelding, Oliver. We showed in the Intermediate division, for the fourth time at a CDE.
Our story begins as we arrive on the show grounds on Thursday afternoon. As usual, we are running late, and my mom has her dressage go in less than two hours. They ran all the Training entries and the VSEs(except for Intermediate) on Thursday because of the large numbers of entries. So we whip out the harness, dusting frantically, and I braid his mane and forelock. Midway through adjusting Dan's new collar, I realize the traces are nowhere to be found. "Mom, where are the traces?" "I don't know, I thought you packed them." "Nooo, you packed up your harness, I packed mine." "Uh oh." Yep, we forgot the traces, which makes it basically impossible to continue harnessing, as there is no way to pull the cart! Fortunately, we tried my collar on him, and it fit well enough to do dressage in.
Dan's dressage went ok, although he was quite certain that the judge's stand was going to eat him, causing a lot of counterbending and snorting down at that end of the arena. But his lengthened trot was nice and he wasn't fussy with his head(a recent development).
Warming up for dressage
Working trot
Lengthened trot
Showing off his new harness, except for my collar
Friday morning found us scrubbing my harness, polishing brass until it was too shiny to look at, and braiding Fascination. I decided to do the hunter-type braids with the yarn, and I really like how it turned out. Plus I love the pulled look anyway, not the fluffy pony look. I have been just banding them in, but I think these stayed better as well.
Fortunately, we timed it just right(not having to get two horses ready is wonderful), and so I had an hour of warm up. I know, that sounds like a lot, but as our average work time at home is about an hour and a half, it was just about right, especially as this was a high level test that takes a lot of suppleness and throughly warmed up muscles on the horse's part. And it paid off, because we got a 50.56 (68%), which is very good for Fascination. The turnout that won the Intermediate division of the show was only 6 points ahead of us in dressage. We were placed 5th out of 13 Intermediates after dressage, so all that dressage work is slowly paying off. We got 8s on both of the lengthened walks, and 8s on the lengthened trots, except from one judge who said the test calls for a lengthened trot NOT extended. LOL Our collected trot is getting there; that is the most difficult movement for her, but we did get ok scores there.
Have to actually post this one, because I think she looks very nice... :bgrin Yes, I am a proud mommy.
Halt
Working trot
Collected trot-she's having to think about it
Working trot from collected--Her reward after a collected trot is to stretch down, even if for a moment, so that is what she is doing here. Her back muscles work very hard and she will get resistant without a momentary release.
Coming down the centerline at a working trot
Saturday was marathon, and it dawned bright and sunny, promising to be quite warm. Mom did the full Prelim course, with a 2.9k Section A, a 1k Sect D, and a 5.7k Sect E; total: 9.6k, with 5 hazards. Dan is finally figuring out that hazards mean go fast! He really enjoyed himself a lot. Also, we made a stop at Carriage Driving Essentials and bought a set of Zilco traces to replace the traces left at home. This meant that Dan could use his collar on marathon.
Cantering around the water hazard
He can gallop fast in the collar!
A nice trot into the Stumphenge hazard
Fascination and I drove later in the day, with the intermediate entries. We did a 2.9k A, 1k D, and 7k E, with 6 hazards, coming to a grand total of 10.9k for marathon. Fascination was certainly not tired by it, but it was a good length of course, with lots of hills. Probably the best part was that Fascination's walk time was 5 seconds off of the Intermediate Horse walk time, based on a 6.5kph speed. So she was walking 6.4kph, and that was just walking along, not really trying to push her. Considering the Int. VSE walk speed is 4 kph, we came in very early (but in the D walk section, you are only penalized if you are over time). And the worst part of the marathon was that in Section E, in the third hazard, we bent a shaft. We were going too fast, and I realized the turn was tighter than it looked, so we caught a shaft on one of the stumps of Stumphenge. Fortunately, the bend was close to the end of the shaft, and the metal is fairly 'stretchy' and quite strong, so it lasted the rest of marathon. Our hazard times put us in second after marathon, with a score just 0.04 away from the leader in marathon (About 0.14 seconds slower in the hazards!). Unfortunately, I didn't get very many pictures from marathon.
Going through the water hazard, which she just blazed
Galloping out of the last hazard
And lastly was Sunday, the day of cones! It was blustery weather, with the wind snapping off hats, and the clouds intermittently covering up the sun. Dan was not behaving very well for cones, and the pair of them knocked off 3 balls. Oh well. It was a tricky course though, with lots of 'sucker gates' that look ok, but are angled just enough to catch you if you don't drive it straight. Fascination was much more interested in speed than precision(and to be honest, I was too), so we garnered 6 penalties, for knocking off two balls. Our victory lap was a full out gallop, which she very much enjoyed.
Dan
Speed trot
Big trot
Gallop for the finish line!
Conclusion:
Dan and Mom were second prelim VSE, fifth overall prelim (out of 30+ horses)
The first place Prelim VSE also cleaned up with the Overall Prelim Division award, in front of all the horses and ponies. WooHoo!! She had a decent dressage score, did well in marathon, and went double clean in cones(no time penalties and no balls down)!! She had gone to Happs and won Prelim VSE there too.
And Fascination and I were first Int. VSE (out of one), and second in the Overall Intermediate division (out of 13), with third several points behind us, and first 6 points ahead (darn those two balls in cones!!). We also got the Most Promising Young Driver award, which was very neat.
Any questions, ask away!!
: I love to talk about my hobby!
She showed Dapper Dan, a 6 yr old chestnut sabino(yes, he is a solid, just with lots of sabino roaning!) gelding, put to a Pacific Smart Cart with his new Tanglewood Farms custom harness, in the Preliminary VSE division. I drove Fascination, whom most of you ought to know, a 12 yr old sooty buckskin pinto mare, put to a Jerald Mini A with 30" wheels for dressage and cones, and a custom marathon roadster for marathon. Her harness is also Tanglewood-made, but not custom for her; the collar was made for my tandem wheeler, who was bigger and had a much heavier neck than her, and the rest of the harness was made for a 31" gelding, Oliver. We showed in the Intermediate division, for the fourth time at a CDE.
Our story begins as we arrive on the show grounds on Thursday afternoon. As usual, we are running late, and my mom has her dressage go in less than two hours. They ran all the Training entries and the VSEs(except for Intermediate) on Thursday because of the large numbers of entries. So we whip out the harness, dusting frantically, and I braid his mane and forelock. Midway through adjusting Dan's new collar, I realize the traces are nowhere to be found. "Mom, where are the traces?" "I don't know, I thought you packed them." "Nooo, you packed up your harness, I packed mine." "Uh oh." Yep, we forgot the traces, which makes it basically impossible to continue harnessing, as there is no way to pull the cart! Fortunately, we tried my collar on him, and it fit well enough to do dressage in.
Dan's dressage went ok, although he was quite certain that the judge's stand was going to eat him, causing a lot of counterbending and snorting down at that end of the arena. But his lengthened trot was nice and he wasn't fussy with his head(a recent development).
Warming up for dressage
Working trot
Lengthened trot
Showing off his new harness, except for my collar
Friday morning found us scrubbing my harness, polishing brass until it was too shiny to look at, and braiding Fascination. I decided to do the hunter-type braids with the yarn, and I really like how it turned out. Plus I love the pulled look anyway, not the fluffy pony look. I have been just banding them in, but I think these stayed better as well.
Fortunately, we timed it just right(not having to get two horses ready is wonderful), and so I had an hour of warm up. I know, that sounds like a lot, but as our average work time at home is about an hour and a half, it was just about right, especially as this was a high level test that takes a lot of suppleness and throughly warmed up muscles on the horse's part. And it paid off, because we got a 50.56 (68%), which is very good for Fascination. The turnout that won the Intermediate division of the show was only 6 points ahead of us in dressage. We were placed 5th out of 13 Intermediates after dressage, so all that dressage work is slowly paying off. We got 8s on both of the lengthened walks, and 8s on the lengthened trots, except from one judge who said the test calls for a lengthened trot NOT extended. LOL Our collected trot is getting there; that is the most difficult movement for her, but we did get ok scores there.
Have to actually post this one, because I think she looks very nice... :bgrin Yes, I am a proud mommy.
Halt
Working trot
Collected trot-she's having to think about it
Working trot from collected--Her reward after a collected trot is to stretch down, even if for a moment, so that is what she is doing here. Her back muscles work very hard and she will get resistant without a momentary release.
Coming down the centerline at a working trot
Saturday was marathon, and it dawned bright and sunny, promising to be quite warm. Mom did the full Prelim course, with a 2.9k Section A, a 1k Sect D, and a 5.7k Sect E; total: 9.6k, with 5 hazards. Dan is finally figuring out that hazards mean go fast! He really enjoyed himself a lot. Also, we made a stop at Carriage Driving Essentials and bought a set of Zilco traces to replace the traces left at home. This meant that Dan could use his collar on marathon.
Cantering around the water hazard
He can gallop fast in the collar!
A nice trot into the Stumphenge hazard
Fascination and I drove later in the day, with the intermediate entries. We did a 2.9k A, 1k D, and 7k E, with 6 hazards, coming to a grand total of 10.9k for marathon. Fascination was certainly not tired by it, but it was a good length of course, with lots of hills. Probably the best part was that Fascination's walk time was 5 seconds off of the Intermediate Horse walk time, based on a 6.5kph speed. So she was walking 6.4kph, and that was just walking along, not really trying to push her. Considering the Int. VSE walk speed is 4 kph, we came in very early (but in the D walk section, you are only penalized if you are over time). And the worst part of the marathon was that in Section E, in the third hazard, we bent a shaft. We were going too fast, and I realized the turn was tighter than it looked, so we caught a shaft on one of the stumps of Stumphenge. Fortunately, the bend was close to the end of the shaft, and the metal is fairly 'stretchy' and quite strong, so it lasted the rest of marathon. Our hazard times put us in second after marathon, with a score just 0.04 away from the leader in marathon (About 0.14 seconds slower in the hazards!). Unfortunately, I didn't get very many pictures from marathon.
Going through the water hazard, which she just blazed
Galloping out of the last hazard
And lastly was Sunday, the day of cones! It was blustery weather, with the wind snapping off hats, and the clouds intermittently covering up the sun. Dan was not behaving very well for cones, and the pair of them knocked off 3 balls. Oh well. It was a tricky course though, with lots of 'sucker gates' that look ok, but are angled just enough to catch you if you don't drive it straight. Fascination was much more interested in speed than precision(and to be honest, I was too), so we garnered 6 penalties, for knocking off two balls. Our victory lap was a full out gallop, which she very much enjoyed.
Dan
Speed trot
Big trot
Gallop for the finish line!
Conclusion:
Dan and Mom were second prelim VSE, fifth overall prelim (out of 30+ horses)
The first place Prelim VSE also cleaned up with the Overall Prelim Division award, in front of all the horses and ponies. WooHoo!! She had a decent dressage score, did well in marathon, and went double clean in cones(no time penalties and no balls down)!! She had gone to Happs and won Prelim VSE there too.
And Fascination and I were first Int. VSE (out of one), and second in the Overall Intermediate division (out of 13), with third several points behind us, and first 6 points ahead (darn those two balls in cones!!). We also got the Most Promising Young Driver award, which was very neat.
Any questions, ask away!!
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