Full Gallop Fiasco

Oh my goodness, where do I start. The boys have had a super season thus far! It seemed like everyone was on top of their game, and we had hardly any cobwebs to dust off! Deacon achieved his CCI* qualifications easily (3 competitions in a row), and Willy started off with a 2nd place (followed by a brief injury). We had a three week hiatus since the last competition... and my goodness we were all covered in cobwebs!

The weekend started with an impromptu trip to Southern Pines. I left the boys at home and had to drive to meet Cherie Gaebel to retake two sections of my USPC HA Test. I've been trying to retake this test since last July, so it was imperative that I get it done NOW! Luckily Cherie was able to squeeze me in on Friday afternoon, so i dropped everything and headed down! Thankfully I was very much prepared for the sections this time, and passed. Yay, finally an HA! Now we have to look forward to the A Testing this summer.

While it was awesome to finally achieve my rating, I stayed up all night studying and didn't have anything ready for the competition! Instead of driving down Thursday night with nothing ready, I opted to get everything done and leave at *gasp* 2 am from Lewisville, NC to Aiken, SC. It made sense at the time, but now I have to question the blonde-logic that went into such a decision.

Wake up calls at 1 am are no fun. Especially when you are running on no sleep from studying the night before! Well i managed to wake the poor ponies up and get everyone on the road by 2:30, which put us at the competition at roughly 6:30 am. Not bad - especially when i had a 7:30 dressage ride. With a quick pit stop and some road work, i pulled into Full Gallop at 7:10. YIKES! Poor Deacon, I literally drove in threw tack on, cantered to the show office, got my number and cantered into the ring. No warmup, nothing. Poor Deacon tried very hard to give me a good test, but with my blood pressure sky-rocketing and him wondering what on earth was going on, we were given a less than desirable score in the low 40s (42 or 41 i think). Willy warmed up great. His trot work was average, his canter work was light and balanced. He was very responsive and right on the aides. I put in, what I thought was one of his best tests. At the end of my test the judge came out of her car and lectured me on how i made her entire ring late and how at this level i should know my times! YIKES. I checked my watch, went over to the ring steward - both of which assured me that I actually went into the ring 3 minutes before my posted time. I guess the judge was having a rotten day! It turns out that the girl in front of me went in the wrong ring, and was the culprit.. but I suffered from her mistake. The judge's score reflected her animosity towards me, giving Willy a 39, a score much higher than what he should have earned. Oh well. Some things are beyond a rider's control.

Show Jumping, usually my best phase, was another disaster. Willy was a wild man, so excited to see big fences at a show, and wasn't very excited to listen to my half-halts. His over-exuberance led me to grip with my hands, forgetting the "release" of the half-halt. This made for an "interesting" first 5 fences. Thankfully I decided to ride and fix our course mid-way through, and the second half of our round was beautiful. Unfortunately the miscommunication on our first five fences cost us 2 rails...something we have not had for several years! While this stunk... the good news is we improved half way through, and seemed to be jumping in harmony yet again. Willy's cross country the next day was textbook. After he managed to get away from me in XC warm-up (I was greasing his hind-legs and he decided it was more productive to keep warming up), he went out of the box like a champ. He jumped fabulously, answered all the questions and had the fastest intermediate XC round of the day! This was a surprise as I still have never pushed for time! With his great xc round, Willy moved up to 4th place! Not bad considering our lackluster dressage and show jumping rounds!

Poor Deacon didn't fare as well in the jumping phases. While he was very well behaved in both warm-ups, we had several miscommunications.. most of which were my fault. I started to pull backwards to the first show jumping fence... and he pulled the rail. I immediately corrected my error and we put forth a beautiful round, which a minor green pony moment at the triple. Not too shabby for this young horse! The prelim XC was technical but fair. The fourth fence was in a fence line, and poor Deacon galloped up to the fence and just stopped. I knew immediately he was confused. "Mom I am not supposed to jump the fence...are you crazy!?". I approached the fence again, and with a little encouragement from my whip, Deacon decided that jumping the fence may not be such a bad thing! Our next two problems came at turning combinations... where i decided to make rookie mistakes... trying to turn a horse using inside rein only instead of outside aides. DUH!!!! To two separate combinations i committed a cardinal sin, and poor Deacon's score and record suffered because of it. I have already set up the same question in our jumping ring at home.. we are going to practice it today!

While our scores and individual performances were not up to par this weekend, it was a fabulous learning experience. As any event rider will tell you, our horse's mistakes reflect the mistakes his rider makes. Obviously I have some homework! The boys and I will be leaving for Southern Pines a day early (thursday) to get in a flat lesson with coach Colleen Rutledge. Hopefully Full Gallop dusted off all our cobwebs and we can put some great phases in this weekend at the Horse Park! It looks to be a very challenging weekend... Wish us luck!

Courtney

What's Happening with DGE?

Photo by HoofClix!
Hello all!

You all may be wondering why the pony has been MIA from events this month? Well, after running beautifully at Full Gallop he came home with a stump leg! His left front was swollen, extremely sensitive, and very hot! I was at a complete loss because he jogged sound after his great XC run... so I called the vet immediately. The diagnosis: severe rubs from his brand new Tri Zone XC boots (the no-rub ones!). Similar to a girth gull, the boots killed/rubbed off almost all layers of skin protecting his tendons. Luckily no tendons or ligaments were effected, but the skin was in such bad shape that poor pony had to stay in his stall with Surpass ointment everyday. No water, dirt, sand, soap, etc was to touch the skin. So after two weeks post- Full Gallop the pony is finally back in work. Needless to say this put a huge damper on our competition schedule. We were supposed to run Intermediate at Pine Top II, then advanced at Pine Top HT. Since we had to scratch from Pine Top II, our advanced debut needed to be pushed back... now it looks like we will wait until after Jersey Fresh CCI** for the big move up. Sigh.

Anyway, the pony is feeling much better now! He is back in full training and being his naughty self. We were all set to go to Pine Top HT, but unfortunately i had three flat tires on the trailer... meaning its time to tighten my belt and get 5 new tires for our rig. So the pony missed his outing, yet again. Not to worry we have my favorite events coming up.. another run at Full Gallop, Southern Pines II, The Fork, then an advanced CT at Longleaf.

Deacon and I braved the winter weather yet again for pine Top II. Georgia received over 4 inches of snow... and I almost decided to stay home! The Pine Top crew worked overtime to make the facility competition-ready and worked very hard to accommodate all of the competitors! Due to the storm and delayed ride times, Deacon and I had all three phases pushed back to Sunday. Deacon was PERFECT in dressage warm-up, really soft, supple, and obedient... ready to WIN! But other things were in store for us... Deacon reminded me that he is still a baby and will go silly baby things. Dressage was in a grass area...which was horribly deep and uneven, but worse... show jumping was on one side of the arena, and xc was just across the pond. Poor Deacon just froze, and wasn't sure which way to look. The good thing is... he is starting to understand his job! He say the horses running and jumping, and knew it was time to GO... unfortunately it made for a very tense, distracted, and B-A-D test. oh well, i guess I will allow the baby horse to have one bad test every two years. Despite our interesting version of prelim Test A, we managed to obtain a qualifying score from Brain Ross. Show Jumping was BIG and quite technical for Prelim, riders had to find the perfect canter and perfect spot or rails would fly! Deacon was jumping great in warm-up and posted another DOUBLE CLEAR round. YAY! XC was even more intimidating, especially for this early in the season... questions like a bounce bank (with a huge off), corners, offset lines, BIG gallop fences, Bounce bank water fence, jumps in the water, etc. Deacon had never seen half of these questions before so I wanted to go a bit slower to really give him the opportunity to understand the course. My plan paid off. Deacon grew more confident as the course went along, and was an absolute super star, with plenty of gas left in the tank! He moved all the way up to 6th. Not too bad for his 4th prelim, in a division filled with Intermediate Horses and Riders (who were using Pine Top as a 'dust the cobwebs off' event). All in all, I was very pleased with Deacon - he is now qualified for the Virginia CCI*!

We have a short break before we head to Aiken for Full Gallop. See you all there!

Courtney

Running in the RED!

Photo by HoofClix
Wow 23 blog followers... the pressure is on to keep these posts up-to-date. I want to let everyone know that this weekend the website will be updated. I apologize for the delay, horses and school have taken precedence!

On to Sporting Days...
North Carolina is being hit by a never-ending series of snow storms. The weekend of Sporting Days was no exception. The predicted storm was so severe that I decided to go down to Aiken for the full weekend, instead of making the trip and competition in one day (oh darn, another day in Aiken). Deacon was a bit full of himself Sunday morning, whether it was the chilly morning weather, or lack of riding since Wednesday's full gallop (the ring in NC is frozen) I will never know. But boy was he naughty! However, in true Deacon style he collected himself around the ring and put in a MARVELOUS test. He was soft, supple, and very ride-able, which made the new test much easier! Show Jumping was quite big and was a long, twisty course - not the best thing for a baby horse's first prelim! Deacon, once again, proved me wrong and jumped a splendid round. His jumping style was a little flat, something I believe is attributed to running him Wednesday-Sunday. I am very much against running horses this frequently, but the scheduling really left me with no choice! I needed a solid training followed by a soft prelim...and Sporting Days is the only one around! (usually people use the spring as a warm-up, and then move up to the level they competed at the prior fall). Deacon's clear show jumping round led right into his clean xc round! I was very excited about this round - not because we could use it as a qualifying round for a spring *, but because his confidence level grew after each fence and he really is understanding the preliminary questions!

With Deacon's wonderful performance he finished in 2nd place! in his 3rd prelim! Wow! The great performances the past week from my two horses has landed me in the 22nd spot on the USEA Top 50 rider leaderboard! This is a fabulous accomplishment, especially considering I only have two horses (which i started myself), and am a full time student in school, and have been battling this crazy winter weather! I am so proud of my boys, and look forward towards a great 2010!

Beginning with a BANG!

Hello everyone! I hope that this post finds everyone warm and well! Thankfully the boys and I managed to miss the historical 3+ feet of snow that hit the Mid-Atlantic this past week.. though North Carolina did see its fair share of nasty weather!

DGE spent this winter tine-tuning everything. We took advantage of the beautiful indoor at An Otherwise Perfect Farm in Upperco, MD and really worked on finessing the new USEF dressage tests, building insane amounts of grids, and of course the endless/tedious trot sets around and around the indoor. While I was only able to squeeze in a couple of lessons with Colleen right before I left for NC, it was very helpful for pushing our work even further towards the edge. Colleen and I were also able to fine tune DGE's competition plans for this year - highlights of which include Jersey Fresh CCI**, Virginia CCI*, Fair Hill CCI**, Advanced at Millbrook, and taking the entire team down to the AECs. I am incredibly excited to see how the year pans out...

I decided to start the year a bit earlier this season, beginning with the Wednesday event at Full Gallop. It is customary for most riders to enter their horses a level lower than they normally compete - this gives the horses a chance to re-acclimate to the competition environment and to shed all the winter cobwebs! Since the boys had an early winter vacation, I felt that they were ready to go back full force. My instincts were enforced with two perfect jump schools with Holly Hudspeth the Thursday before our first event. The horses were jumping great, looked happy, and were incredibly fit for the end of January. Willy was to begin the season running at Intermediate, while Deacon would begin at Training...though would run his first preliminary the following weekend.

The boys and I shipped down to Aiken around 1 pm Tuesday morning, arriving just in time for me to run over to Full Gallop and walk the intermediate course. After a late night of bathing/braiding/cleaning tack/organizing the trailer/spoiling the ponies, everyone was tucked in for the chilly night. Thankfully, Wednesday promised to be in the 60s and sunny... a welcome change to the dismal, dreary weather we have seen all winter.

Willy's dressage was first. I have not decided on my feelings towards the new tests, they will definitely take some getting used to! I am excited to perform in the large area, for it eliminates the claustrophobic feeling that can be associated with medium canters down the long sides (in a small arena). Despite two small errors, Willy performed a very nice test...and was rewarded by a high - but competitive score from Brian Ross. His comments were very spot-on, rewarding our obedient and work-man-like test, but suggesting that the envelope should be pushed more. This was an exciting change for Willy - He is finally relaxing in the ring, and I look forward towards really pushing ourselves in the area... hopefully our explosive moments are a thing of the past. Deacon's dressage was quite similar to that of his brother. Very correct, and obedient - although the judge challenged us for more. He received a 35 and was in 10th, although fractions of points separated the top 10 places.

Show Jumping was scheduled before XC, which is both a blessing and a curse. Show Jumping before the XC gives the horse's a little more spunk and jump over the fences, which hopefully translates to a clean round. On the other hand - the horses are very excited and somewhat more difficult to ride b/c they know what comes next! But DGE proved that we were ready for the game! Willy really WOW-ed the crowd with his ridiculously athletic jumping style... I swear this horse is allergic to paint! He jumped a brilliant course to finish in 2nd. While Deacon performed his "bad-boy act" once again near the in-gate, once he got on course he jumped better than ever! He did not touch a rail and really rounded his back over every fence! I am very excited for this horse as he is developing into a real athlete!

I was very excited to get back out on the cross-country, although I did not have an opportunity to school before the event... anyone on the East Coast could tell you why! Willy went out of the box like the true champion he is, and was a star from start to finish. He was a little over-zealous the entire day, and cross country was no exception. It always takes him several events before he realizes that jumping his mother out of the tack over every fence really isn't necessary. While I did not push Willy for time, he was eager through the finish flags - a tribute to our new trot-based conditioning program. Deacon was the real superstar of cross country. I was expecting at least a little rustiness on his part, as he is still new to the game, but I was quickly proven wrong! Deacon was bold and brilliant, finishing with a double clear round!

The end result was Willy finishing in 2nd, and Deacon in 5th. Not too bad for our first time out! We look forward to Sporting Days, where Deacon will be competing at the preliminary level. Willy's next outing will be the big Pine Top, competing at Intermediate.

Goodbye 2009

I apologize yet again to all our followers about the delay in posting about Defying Gravity Eventing's wonderful end to the 2009 season.

2009 has been a year of incredible highs and lows...but as we all know, this is the way with horses! The year started out perfectly, in hindsight probably too perfectly. Willy qualified for the NAYRC** team with a flawless performance at both Poplar CIC** and Fair Hill CIC**, and Deacon was one of the top 10 USEA training level horses. Not too shabby for a Young Rider, who is also enrolled full-time at Wake Forest University, and working on the side!

The summer brought a near career ending injury for Willy, puncturing his knee at a local HT. Despite our best efforts, it was in Willy's interest to put our dreams of representing the U.S. again at Young Riders behind us. With wonderful help from our two vets, IRAP injections, and the aqua-tred facility at Normar Farm... Willy made a slow but stead recovery. After completing our rehab program, Willy felt better than ever.

Returning to North Carolina, I had two very fit, restless horses ready to make their mark on the eventing scene. We started off with both horses competing at Training level at Five Points Horse Trials... and to my surprise Willy and Deacon went into show jumping in 1st and 2nd place. An unlucky rail dropped Deacon to 4th... but a clear but exuberant round from Willy allowed him to lead the victory gallop! Next the boys were off to Paradise Farm where Deacon placed 3rd in the T/P division, and Willy was 7th in a very competitive preliminary division. Tryon was another big event for the boys, Willy repeated his win of the I/P division, and Deacon gave the prelim a good go! Both boys had disappointing dressage tests, but stellar show jumping rounds. Unfortunately with the incredibly difficult preliminary questions, Deacon was a little too overfaced and I pulled him up at the 2nd to last fence. Regardless he learned much at Tryon, and really showed how he has grownup in his last event at Virginia.

Halloween weekend was spent at Virginia Horse Center. Willy competed in his first intermediate post-accident, and what a performance indeed! We went into the dressage ring with a purpose, and came out in first place! Willy never looked back posting a clean and fast cross country, and a fabulous show jumping round. Brian O'Connor - the announcer at Virginia - said over the PA system "you show those bay TBs and Warmbloods who owns THIS arena." During Willy's victory gallop "I Believe I can Fly" was playing over the PA system... it was a moment which I will forever cherish. To have come this far and accomplish this much with Willy, despite all the odds against us, is a miracle. Willy has added so much to my life, he is such a blessing to be around...even in his grumpy pony moods.

Deacon was not to be outdone by his older brother. He was 7th out of all the starters in the preliminary division after dressage. The cross country was incredibly challenging, but Deacon showed his courage and jumped all the jumps and answered all of the technical questions right away! Since it was his second attempt at prelim, i did not ask him for a big gallop - instead we settled into a comfortable pace. Even with our time penalties, Deacon moved up to 6th place after XC. Another unfortunate rail at the last combination in show jumping dropped him to 7th place... but despite the groans from the crowd, i couldn't have been happier!

With Willy winning 3/4 of his event's after his injury, and Deacon completing his first preliminary horse trial the boys had some well-deserved let-down time. I will post another update soon as to our winter 'boot camp'!

Happy Holidays!
Courtney

Student Success!

Luckily I have many positive things to report since my last entry....

Student Christine Lonsdale performed beautifully at the East Coast Pony Club Championships in the Beginner Novice division. Christine and her adorable pony Magic had a respectable dressage test, and finished the event on their dressage score! I've only been working with Christine for the month prior to championships, and it was incredibly rewarding to hear all of her hard work (both on jumping, conditioning, and on the flat) pay off. I have high aspirations for this pair, I can't wait to see just how far they will be able to go... both horse and rider have so much untapped potential. Hopefully I can get them to do some recognized novice and training events in 2010.

The clinic in Ithaca, NY was absolutely lovely. A friend of mine, Brittnie Chidsey organized the clinic as part of her pony club's summer camp (Red Jacket PC). I had actually met Brittnie last year when we were on the winning team for Show Jumping at the 2008 USPC Champs, and we have stayed in contact ever since (for further information about Champs, see the Chronicle of the Horse article which highlight's Willy's 5 perfect rounds). The days were long, but all of the students were wonderful, and everyone learned something that weekend - I know that I saw a HUGE improvement in everyone. The club was incredibly generous, even taking me out on my first tubing adventure... something I loved doing, but I'm not sure if I could ever do again. I'll stick to jumping 4' solid fences.

I also had the pleasure of teaching for my own club, Green Spring Hounds, all summer. We have such a phenomenal group of both kids, ponies, and parents that Tuesday morning lessons were very much anticipated. As a young instructor, it was incredibly rewarding to see the progress made by each and every student week to week, from the walk-trot-ers to the "big kids" doing double bounce gymnastics.

At the end of the summer, I was able to help long time friend Tammie Monaco with her adorable new pony. Though he has a bit of a lazy streak, with quite a few ground poles and some interesting jump designs, he really started looking like a top notch hunter pony! Can't wait to hear how he is doing!

Throughout the summer I captured the ride on Betsy Hochstein's beautiful young Hanovarian mare, Callie, who has remarkable potential. She is a top-notch mare, and though green, shows much promise for great things. It was incredibly unfortunate that I had to give up the ride to come back down to North Carolina, but Callie is in great hands and I look forward to hearing lots of success stories!

Sweet Summertime

Hope that this posting is finding everyone well! Though we haven't competed since May, somehow the team has still been quite busy. I've chosen to spend this summer primarily training and working on the finer details - hopefully this will pay off for the fall season! Let me recap..

Willy has been doing lots of trail riding, trotting, and dressage work, and we are awaiting the results of the 2nd IRAP injection, hoping that this is the golden ticket for getting him back up to the top levels. Until then, Willy's having a summer vacation - which he is not altogether happy about. He LOVES jumping, and he doesn't understand why - all of a sudden - he isn't allowed to do what he loves. Until then, I am trying to take him to the river once a week and let him paw/roll/swim - which he thinks is the greatest thing a pony can do b/c it gets his rider soaking wet (if nothing else, all that pawing in the water is a great way to open up his shoulders). But I can confidently say that his dressage is improving, and that he is finally beginning to use his back, and have "horse strides" as opposed to "pony strides". Hopefully he can continue this progress into the competition arena, whenever we get the "clear"

This summer Deacon has truly matured into a top-notch athlete... his flat work and jumping have improved tremendously. I am quite confident that he will be a force to be recon with at the Training 3-day this November, but in October I hope to compete him in two preliminary level horse trials. His flat work is really quite solid for the preliminary level, and with a few more schooling opportunities I believe he will be able to move up easily. I'm quite excited to see how far this horse will go! On a side note - I've discovered that not much fazes Deacon - every single time I take him out hacking or trotting we come across a HUGE black snake (I'm convinced that it is some mutated form of an anaconda) and - despite my shrieks of terror - he doesn't care... simply continues on his way. How often do you find that in any horse, let alone a young one! (Willy and I are more than willing to run away in the opposite direction)

I've been kept quite busy preparing for my pony club ratings, teaching, and training horses. In fact, I have just been flown up to Genoa, NY to teach a two day clinic ending Wednesday! I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by, but I am very excited for the upcoming fall season and my final year at Wake Forest.
Our first competition back will be Five Points at the Carolina Horse Park where Deacon will be competing at Training and *hopefully* Willy will be coming back at preliminary. Stay tuned for more updates!