TJ and I had a wonderful time this past weekend at the Metamora CDE. For those of you that have not been to Metamora, MI, it is horse country to die for. The wide dirt roads, rolling hills, beautiful old barns and unique and beautiful homes make this area very special. We stayed at the new and highly recommended Crooked House Farm B&B which was just a few miles down the road from the CDE. Janine, Charlie, Junior and Fred all made us feel very welcome.
I competed in the Preliminary Single Horse division with my 14 year old Dutch Harness Horse mare Odessa. I had really high hopes for her because she was driving beautifully in the warm up thanks to a lesson with Gavin the night before. Something about the arena just sends her into orbit though so while we entered the ring for the first time without spazing, she lost it going down the centerline and even did some leaping in the air moves as we 
passed the judge's stand at E. Despite her antics we were tied for 3rd out of 7 horses after dressage. She can be really stunning when she's not being goofy.
The marathon was always a concern. She didn't have much gas on section A and I still haven't figured out how to work the vet box to get her calm and cooled down fast enough. She needs more like 13 minutes because the first 3 minutes she's still flapping her lips and trying to figure out if all of the commotion is going to kill her. Kathy could see we were struggling with keeping O. calm and getting water on her and stood in front of her and fed her carrots which immediatly made her drop her head and start to relax. Unfortunately it wasn't soon enough and her temp only dropped from 103.4 to 103.2 in 10 minutes and with her lack of umph on A, I decided to retire. 2 others in my division also retired. It's definitely back to the drawing board on her conditioning.
Retiring meant that I had time to go watch Laura Nuessle and Chama make driving the obstacles look so effortless and smooth. They are a first class pair to watch and without a doubt deserved everything that they won.
Cones proved to be really challenging and I believe there were only 2-3 double clean rounds out of 47 competitors. We probably could have had our first clean round had she not spooked at the sea of lime green cones setters and the wandering judge at 15, but I guess 1 isn't too bad considering she was pretty bouncy despite me trying to keep her slow and round (didn't happen).
So we were tied for 3rd in dressage and 3rd in cones out of 7. I would have liked to see how we did in the obstacles because I bombed them so bad at the Gayla, but oh well. Overall she was great and showed a lot of promise.
Thank you to Jim, Alicia, Tricia, Barb and all of the volunteers for your generosity and time in putting together such a great event. It was great to see everyone and to meet new people and to get to know others better. We couldn't have asked for a more enjoyable weekend.
Many thanks to TJ! You are the best groom and navigator!
For those of you that check the Woodsmith Farm site after a show, I dropped the ball on taking pictures and only took a few so please visit Bob Mischka's website for some great photos. I don't know what I was thinking when I didn't want to bring the big camera.
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