Guess what we did this last weekend

[MInx]

Wow! Jealous here! Can I come out to play?

Beautiful pictures, definitely keepers.

Maxine

 

[TinyMiteVillage]

Those are awesome pics. Great job.............

 

[anita]

Very nice pictures Al. Great job I envy you both

Anita

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Al, I'm thinking from all the winking icons that you were being lighthearted but I just want to be clear: I wanted to drool, not critique! LOL

Then once you know the patterns you can always set it up on your own place for practice.

The dressage patterns are available online and in booklet form so you don't even have to memorize them for practice if you don't want to.

The other good news is that you can practice the elements (circles, turns, straight lines) and the gaits (walk, free walk, working trot, halt, back up) just about anywhere without any special equipment. The patterns for cones and marathon change every time so just set up some cone pairs anywhere flat and practice driving between them from different angles until you and your horse know how to do it. Marathon, well, just practice tight fast turns in small areas! The only consistent pattern to either phase is that in cones you follow the numbers (1-2-3-4...) and in the hazards you follow the letters (A-B-C for training level, A-B-C-D for Prelim, etc.)

I urge anyone that has not gone to one of Tom's ADT to go and learn. You'll be glad that you did!!

It was great for our club and we had a wonderful turn out. You can see pictures of ours on our site.ADT with Tom

Wow Joyce, great pictures! Thanks, I hadn't seen that gallery before.

There were some very nice horses there and it's wonderful to see breed show people trying the waters and having fun.

We had plans here close to home or would at least have come to watch. Al, I have a boarder here - they were with me last year when we came out to watch - who plans to start doing cde next year. He's a little bored with the show ring LOL. Now just need to talk his wife into driving too.Jan

Woot!

Be sure and let the organizers know that there are horses and drivers coming up, they really need to hear that. One of our shows here in the Oregon area nearly stopped offering the division because there were only four horses last year, never knowing that there were a bunch of drivers who were waiting for their horses to mature so they could show the next year. Several competitors made a grass roots effort to drum up entries for 2007, the organizer reluctantly offered the division, and the VSE's were a third of her entries this year! But they need to know there's interest.

I'm so thrilled to hear people interested in this sport! It's possibly the most fun you can have behind a horse.

Leia

 

[Al B]

In the "for what it's worth" category. The palomino that Susan is driving has been driving only about 3 years. She has been with an AMHA trainer all this year. The last time she drove was at the AMHA World show. She had never done a dressage pattern or seen cones. She also didn't have a clue about what the hazards were. She just did what she was told and drove like she had been trained.

And yes Liea I was joshin' you. I have lots of pics but they are high quality and thus very very large files. I have to resize them and convert them to get them into any reasonable size.

Editing to add a bit more information. The speed mini's are required to travel (9 kph) may sound fast but it's actually below a collected trot. Our time for the cones course was 4 min 20 sec. I never got above a working trot and I came in at 3:20. There is no need to hurry and risk bumping a ball.

In the marathon we had 30 min 44 sec to complete 4.6 kilometers. At the 2 kilometer mark I was 2 minutes ahead. I had to almost walk (but you have to trot except for the last 500 meters) just to bleed off time. I piddled around in the hazards (doesn't count against you in training level) and took long routs.

 

[susanne]

Don't stop there, Al -- inquiring minds (and gearheads) want to know!

What harnesses and carts you and Susan are using?

 

[Al B]

We are both using our Jerald carts for the dressage and cones. I put on the wooden wheels just to make ADS happy. The marathon carts are just plain old easy entry carts. I'm not rich enough to buy those fancy Lignite, Bellcrown, Pacific, etc. like some of the higher falooten folks.

My harness is a standard Lutke. Probably too light for this but it works. Susan is using a leather show harness from Double Diamond. Again we're not rich enough to buy those Camptown, Zilco, etc. synthetic CDE harnesses.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

::snort!::

Al, you're crackin' me up. I use a Bellcrown and a Camptown because I can't afford a Jerald!! Of course it would probably be cheaper to have bought one of those first as then it would be all I need whereas now I have to have my Bellcrown, Camptown, AND a show cart and show harness, but hey!

Just depends which one you did first. I started in CDE so I bought for that first.

Leia

 

[Sterling]

Awesome pics and thank you for sharing with us! Looks like you had a wonderful time...beautiful turn outs...and Al, I have to say your little grey sure floats my boat!

Who is he? You'd think us being in the east coast we'd have more CDE's around here...there is only one that I know of "closeby" which is about an hour away....and this year I looked for it on the events list and they did'nt give it for whatever reason.