Woodsmith Farm

Talk about a ride; the Metamora CDE of 2009 was an event to remember as this year they experienced the most rain in the 25 years of the show.  For those of you that have showed at Metamora, you know how tough the course can be in the best of conditions.  Add 6" of rain into the mix and you have a roller coaster ride on marathon day.

Section A was a muddy mess but neither of my turnouts had problems staying upright in the tight turns.  Section D was nearly impossible to make times on as the ground was soggy and there were small lakes to cross and by the time section E came around the horses were so tired that even though there wasn't much mud, they just couldn't keep the pace up.  If you made the times and your horse was still cantering out of the obstacles, you did one excellent job of conditioning-congrats Kirsten Brunner on the most fit horse award.

Amy Neary and I groomed and navigated for Rachel Niceley and I picked up another navigating trip with Bob Burrows and his training pony pair after his wife had a close encounter with a post on the golf cart and was lame.

Bob's girls did a great job of slogging through the mud and we only came in 30 seconds late after E and without them being too hot.  Unfortunately Bob had to trot me back to the barn so I could hop on the carriage with Rachel for my trip through A and D with her.  Because Amy has recently had surgery, we decided that I should take the brunt of section A and D and let Amy do what she does best and navigate for Rachel through E.  That was a good decision because A was one slick and muddy ride by the time the Intermediate division was on course.   I was mud covered from the knees down after A.  The Intermediate pace is much faster than training level and at one point Rachel and I were rattled so hard and for so long that we were laughing uncontrollably or at least I was because  I could see Rachel bouncing up and down with the marathon belt I was holding onto being the only thing holding her in. 

Aside from the mud, the scenery was beautiful.  I felt like I was in one of the old historic hemlock forests out West.  The pine trees were huge and made a thick canopy overhead.

A lot of horses had trouble with the marathon and had to retire.  Several came in very, very hot which was a bit troubling.  The Metamora officials did an incredible job to help cool the horses down though.  I saw Jim lugging bags of ice around and everyone was pitching in with hoses and buckets.  All of the horses were OK, but it can be scary to see temps get that high.  Our group decided our own cooler of ice was a must have for next year.

We won't go into details about dressage and cones other than we looked beautiful on dressage day!  One judge gave us a 10 on presentation.  Amy's braids looked wonderful, Rachel and I had on new duds, and the carriage and harness were sparkly clean due to some team work from Jacob back at home.