What We Did In July - Horses!

Several months ago, Somebody Around Here (who shall remain unnamed) said, “hey, why don’t we take these ponies and show somewhere different – like Upperville or Warrenton? Not that we’d necessarily win, but it would be fun.” Thus an idea was born – or more appropriately, another hare-brained scheme was hatched - in the dark windy days of February.

Schedules being what they are, it turned out that the famed Upperville Colt and Horse Show, as well as the vaunted Warrenton Pony Show, will have to wait another year. But upon perusing travel plans, I noted that the Region 3 Connemara Show just happened to be the weekend we were due to drive back from our annual New Jersey coast vacation. “Hey” – Someone said again, “why don’t we meet you in Middleburg and do the Region III show?” This to Martha Slamer, my partner in “Team Connemara” (yes, we even have a Facebook page!) – along about mid-April.

If “time flies when you’re having fun,” then it’s no wonder I can’t keep track of exactly what happened next, but at some time during that interval we duly sent our entries to Virginia in a flurry of horsey paperwork (most of which was going to Kentucky Horse Park for the World Equestrian Games this fall).

We managed to squeeze in a couple of small local shows and a lot of schooling time, which not infrequently required hauling out of bed and throwing myself into a vertical position some time before daylight. I also managed to ride Lily (Hillside Lily Brown) in her first competitive trail ride, just a week after she unceremoniously unloaded me up against a jump in front of the best looking male judge I have ever seen. May as well go down in style! (we did ride the course successfully the second time around, I might add….). Lily took to CTR’s like a duck to water, and came in 6th on a 15 mile trail ride in pastern-deep mud. Apart from deductions for a high heart rate (59 BPM, but hey, it’s exciting when a total stranger walks up to you and slaps a heart monitor in your armpit…or legpit…whatever!), she finished sound and springy as ever and I was very proud of her. Riding with us was Celeste Phares, who is leasing Kilfenora Brighanna Day from Brenda Kiniyalocts; Bri also finished bright and happy. We hope to take these two girls out again on a local CTR at the end of August.

So…vacation at Cape May as usual, except that at the end of the week I would see my Paddy at Glenwood Horse Park just outside of Middleburg Virginia. After a harrowing drive along the Death Star Trench that the local DC’ers casually call “the beltway” around the capitol (an imposing religious ediface - the Morman temple - sits above it on a hill for a reason, as we Midwesterners were praying like crazy while hurtling along the highway with an overloaded camper strapped to the pickup), we headed west into Virginia and made Middleburg just before dusk. Wow…talk about the epicenter of horse country! Every mile or so there is some equine facility – steeplechase courses, horse show grounds, training barns, tack shops – and interspersed with those are historical markers denoting Civil and Revolutionary War battlefields – it’s a wonder we didn’t suffer significant neck strain. The land is lovely, rolling, absolutely inviting – yeah, I could live there!

So…. we all came to Middleburg – Martha Slamer and Journey, my beloved Paddy, Pat Reichle along for support, my OTHER beloved (the two-legged one) Keith, and our friend Joe Herbert. We pitched camp on a hillside after greeting Martha, Pat and the horses, welcomed the evening cool, and relaxed till the next morning.

Well…sorta. I was nervously trying to assure myself that I wouldn’t have a brain f---, er, senior moment in the middle of a dressage test, worrying about over fences courses, and wondering whatever else might go wrong – but we had a great day and amazingly, everything went right. Martha and Journey put in a good training level combined test , and Paddy and I managed to do the same at Beginner Novice level, so several ribbons down and time to cool off. After cleaning up we hitched a ride into Middleburg with another show attendee since 5 of us couldn’t fit in Martha’s truck cab (at least, not in the sweaty condition we presented at that moment), had sandwiches at The Red Horse Tavern, ice cream from a shop up the street, and then…well, we did all manage to get back to Glenwood in the pickup , although I have to say I never expected to see the raingutters of Middleburg from the position lying flat on my back wedged snugly between Keith and Joe in the bed of the pickup – hoping no one would notice we were breaking the law!

Sunday’s performance classes didn’t start off quite as well – I think I was just too hot and tired to really focus – but our rounds were clear and I stayed on course – yay! For fun I had entered the “Open Pleasure Under Saddle” as did a group of other riders, though none of us could figure out what was wanted other than “ride on the buckle” – so I did. And in the line up I sat there in the sun thinking “I’m four states away from home, riding an Irish pony, listening to ragtime music - how did THAT get in there? - on the speaker system, and showing in a class in which I have no idea what I’m doing.” To add to the absurdity – we won the class. Ok, that was fun! And to top off the day, we also won the “Bareback Dollar” class – so look out Cathy Blackmon! I told one of the teenagers riding, “look, you’ve beaten me all day, let me enjoy this one!” First place trophies were lovely handmade stoneware plates by Alicia Daily depicting ponies in various poses so I was very happy to get one that looks like Paddy. At the end of the day our contingent also netted the award for having traveled the farthest.

The show was wonderful, well run and FULL of quality ponies and friendly people, particularly Dawn Weniger and her family who helped us get settled and told us where everything was located. The facility was venerable and beautiful! Lots of old trees, stone walls, red earth (plenty of which the ponies brought home….), green grass – amazing. The stalls were sturdy and clean, and our full muck buckets were emptied as needed. We travelers particularly appreciated the opportunity to turn the boys (the four-legged ones, that is) out into a spacious paddock for hours at a time, which I am sure did them a world of good. We also were grateful for the many “watering stations” for people – whew! It was HOT! (Pat Reichle’s trick of the wet washcloth buried in ice in the cooler was also a lifesaver ). Anne Moe and her team in the secretary’s booth were always cordial and patient. In short – which this is NOT – we had a wonderful time and look forward to coming out again, hopefully when it’s a bit cooler! And I have to say that when we passed the Upperville show grounds on the way home I waved and said “see you sooner or later!”

That herculean effort should have been enough for the summer…but the following weekend (July 24-25) was Gemwood Horse Trials north of here in Fairborn, Ohio. My first ever horse trail. Holy cow, what the heck was I thinking? Ok, just “Beginner Novice, Novice Rider.” Some of you old-hand eventers may not even remember your first event so you will laugh at this – but WHAT A BLAST!

Oh sure, I can say that now, but I spent all last week worrying whether or not I was going to embarrass myself (and Paddy) in dressage, completely flub stadium jumping, or simply meet my death on the cross country course. All these things went round and round in my head as the temperature and humidity got higher and higher. Saturday morning found me hurriedly braiding Paddy’s mane and tail, and wishing I was doing something else – like a trail ride. Nerves, I guess. Off we went. Had a little warm-up, did what I thought was a singularly lackluster dressage test – but didn’t forget any of it – and went to look at my placing. The posting said “2T” after Paddy’s name. What the heck was that –short for “too terrible”? ? No, wait – I discovered I was in a tie for second place out of 13 riders..Holy cow, again! Stadium jumping went fine; we were definitely having an “on” day and had a clear round with no time faults despite some slightly slippery footing . So, end of day one, still in a tie for second. But the horrible scary cross country beast still lay ahead.

I went to Mass Sunday morning and made my peace with my Maker. I admitted to Keith that I was scared, but had realized in a moment of clarity somewhere after the Gospel (when I was supposed to be listening to the sermon but instead was thinking “and #4 is the ditch…”) that all I had to do – and it sounded so simple - was RIDE PADDY RIGHT. He’d done this before for Martha, after all. And we’d had some good schooling sessions earlier in the month. Nothing to worry about, right? Except jump 3, a sort bench, #4 (that spooky ditch), and #11, a HUGE log. The new water hazard was an “option” since there had been no opportunity for open schooling, the other choice being to go around the pond, jump a log, then double back onto the course. I figured I would go for the sure thing and school the water later. Resignedly I loaded Paddy and headed to Twin Towers after bidding my mom and my husband and all the pets farewell (gloomy, wasn’t I? But I had a pretty hard fall at Twin Towers last year, and was still uncertain of my ability to ride Paddy “right” at the right time). Nonetheless, sitting in second place and with $185 dollars in fees already spent, I wasn’t going to let it go to waste without a good fight.

The clouds cleared and the day had cooled off. Martha and Journey sailed off on their training level ride and came back with Martha grinning as usual and telling me “you will have SOOO much fun!” “He’ll be fine.” “He can do this!” (OK, if you say so!) We watched Martha’s daughter Sarah take Gamin over her first official cross country course ever – very stylish and elegant despite some hesitation at that #3 bench, black and lurking in the shade. Then it was my turn - “#126, you’re up!”– gulp! And magically…here’s what happened next (in medical terms, I think adrenaline kicked in):

The first two jumps were a small coop and a negligible table, kind of warm-up “freebies”. Paddy sailed across #1 then began the long curve to #2 and I found I was humming the theme to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Well, that seemed wierdly appropriate. I knew I had to keep calm coming up to #3 – that scary bench – and somehow I did and he was up and over - letter perfect! “Ok,” I said to him, “the next one’s that ditch, and I know you don’t like ditches, but you’ve done this one bef---“ and he was over before I could finish the sentence (I’ll bet the jump judge, Martha’s friend Mary Lou, was laughing at my stream of conversation!). I took a deep breath at that point and resettled myself as Paddy cantered along. “Ok, now we can reorganize,” I said, because jump 5 was an easy log, 6 was several logs – no problem. By the time we had scooted around the pond and doubled back after the log option at #7, Paddy had conveyed to me by his pricked ears and gentle tugs at the bit, “Don’t worry, Ma, I got this!” (or maybe a better translation was “who’s your Paddy NOW?!!”)– and on we went. #8 was a fun table we’d schooled over, #9 was more stacked logs and #10 was an Aiken log – heck, 2 days before I’d never even HEARD of an Aiken log! – but Paddy didn’t care. We galloped on. I knew that somewhere the announcer’s voice was floating over the course, saying something like “and #126 is clear over the Aiken log” or noting “an unfortunate parting of the ways, “ for some unlucky team (her dreadfully polite and politely dreadful term for a fall), but in my memory it was silent except for the rhythmic beating of Paddy’s hooves. It was all good! Even the big fat log #11 (what was that tree, about 400 years old??) posed no problems and by then I knew we had it made because the rest were jumps we’d schooled over. But as we went over log #13, my watch timer went off – oh, crap! Time faults! Well, no matter, we were both still alive. The last jumps - #14-16 - were familiar, and in a straight gallop – red coop, black coop, log/stone jump – and we were done! It was wonderful, amazing – WHAT A RUSH!!! Paddy was sweaty but barely breathing hard. I patted him, praised him profusely, and (best of all, as far as he was concerned) fed him some carrots I had shoved into my pocket at the last minute for just that purpose.

Yeah, yeah – I know, it was just beginner novice, and although the time penalties dropped us to 4th place overall, I’m still just glowing over what we accomplished. What a great pony!

He had yesterday off, and today I took him out bareback for a little trail loop, relaxed and easy through our woods. We stayed out till the horseflies threatened to carry us off, then I came back to chores and the rest of the week’s responsibilities including laundry. Funnily enough, I ran across a great quote, printed on the pocket lining of my breeches, of all things:

“Courage is trusting your horse to get you there.”

Ain’t it the truth.