***This post is a report from the
2013 Champagne Run Horse Trials (July 12-14) at the Kentucky Horse Park
in Lexington, KY, attended by Katharine, Moxie's Social Media Director,
and her super pony, Tristan. The competed in Senior Training Rider A and
finished with a penalty score of 54.8 and a 7th place ribbon.***
It's
very important to keep a show horse fit between venues, however Mother
Nature conspired against us the three weeks prior to Champagne Run. This
led to some very creative workouts; walking and trotting on the
blacktop roads around the barn, walking on trails as much as the mud
allowed, and one evening even a quick spin around the gravel circle
driveway during a 10 minute span between thunderstorms. We did have the
opportunity to take a dressage lesson with the renowned dressage
instructor and Aussie, Ilse Schwarz
as she visited Cross Creek Farm in Columbus, NC, the weekend before the
show. Ilse was absolutely wonderful, and really helped me manage my
fine tuning and worked through Tristan's amazing array of tricks that he
uses to avoid actually working the correct muscles. She got us working
very well together, and my goal the last week of show prep was to
maintain that feeling all the way to Lexington.
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| Ilse working her magic on Tristan becoming light in the bridle. |
This show
allowed for a more relaxed feel at the beginning; my dressage time
wasn't until 1:46 pm on Friday with Stadium following at 4:20 pm. We
arrived at the showgrounds Thursday evening with plenty of time to
settle Tristan in and go for a nice relaxing hack around the dressage
rings. We managed to get a wider stable aisle this show which was really
nice. My mom came prepared with an awesome weekend set-up complete
with; 12x12 tent, crock pot to cook lunches, and coolers full of water,
Gatorade and chocolate milk!
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| Horse show moms (and boyfriends) are the best! |
Friday started out
as a very casual show morning, compared to waking up at 4:30 am to make
sure everything is ready to go for an 8:00 am ride time. We arrived at
the Park around 8:00 am to feed and take Tristan for a nice morning walk
and hand graze. Next was braiding and last minute grooming to make sure
he was spic and span. Then waiting. Lots of waiting for 1:45.
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| Getting our Kentucky Bluegrass fix! |
Dressage time
finally came and we headed to our warm up. Tristan wanted to be a little
snarky with me when we got started, but thanks to Ilse's lesson, I had
several tricks up my sleeve. Tristan wants to be heavy? Time for medium
trot! Tristan wants to be against the bridle and fighting? Time to go
sideways. We really had things together by about 10 minutes before our
ride. Then he started getting hyper. Tristan is so fit, tiring him out
in warm up is no longer an option. We headed in for our test a couple
degrees hotter than I would like, fortunately for us judges find his
gaits more appealing when he has a little extra gas in the tank. We
ended up scoring fairly well with a 36.8. It would have been much better
if not for our giraffe impression at the right-lead canter depart. (I'm
thinking about petitioning the removal of that part of the test if
anyone wants to join me!)
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| Not too shabby. |
A
quick two and a half hour break between phases was just enough to find
out we were in 2nd Place in our division (wow!) and cleaning tack before
warming up for Stadium. The course was beautiful and colorful in true
Champagne Run style. We had a fairly good round, but gained one
uncharacteristic rail in a one-stride combination. However, we still
managed to hang onto our placing as we entered into the final phase.
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| Jumping beautifully at Fence #8 |
Cross Country day
turned out to be pleasant and breezy with a slight threat of storms that
managed to hold off for most of the day. The advantage of the slightly
cooler weather was that it really revives the horses before they gallop
off among the rolling hill of the Kentucky Horse Park. Our Training
course was fairly difficult, even for someone comfortable at the level.
The fences started up very small, and then suddenly became very large
and wide with some tricky combinations including a rolltop to a drop, a
ramped sunken road, and some maxed out wide ramps in a dark hollow.
Tristan warmed up beautifully and had plenty of energy to spare as we
headed to the start box!
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| A nice stair step at #15 |
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| The out of our half-coffin at #17 |
We jumped the entire
course clear, using my new gallop-trot-crop-gallop method for difficult
fences, but unfortunately wracked up 14 time faults because I was so
busy having fun running around the course, I forgot to keep track of
time! As a rider, I was slightly nervous about some of the jumps, but
Tristan proved to me, yet again, that he has nerves of steel and lives
to jump! For your viewing pleasure, my lovely boyfriend Nathan uploaded a
helmet camera video compiled with RNS Videomedia's footage of the event
to offer two viewpoints on YouTube!
We
ended the show with a 54.8, a purple ribbon, sound horse, healthy
rider, and 3 of 4 qualifying rounds towards moving up to Prelim! To top
all that great news off, Eventing Nation, the top blog for all things
eventing featured my video as their Monday video!
All great things! Tristan is back to enjoying some vacation time
following the show with about six weeks before our next events. I'm so
glad to be able to spend this amazing time with my incredible pony, my
dedicated show team (mom, boyfriend and dog are possibly the best
cheering squad ever), amazing coaches, and of course the support of my
family at Moxie!
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