TJ and I spent a week in Florida and now realize why people winter there. Great weather and great carriage driving facilities like Black Prong Equestrian Center make Florida the ideal winter retreat.
After 3 nice days at Black Prong, we headed to the Florida Horse Park show grounds for the Sunshine State CDE. Preliminary showed on Friday so we had two days to get some much needed dressage work in before her test. I thought we were going to maybe pull off a test that could be middle of the pack and then she lost it walking to the on deck arena. The head went up and never came back down and she was totally running through my hands, dropping her shoulder and zooming around. We scored a 73.33 and 8th place.
We can usually bring ourselves up a few placings on marathon day so I had hopes that all would go OK. She was wired on section A and had showed us her newest move at one of the eventing coups that were found throughout the course, but we got through it. Before we started I had moved the reins off the snaffle and into the first slot anticipating that she might ignore me like she did in dressage, and it ended up being way too much. I made some mistakes in the obstacles and any correction resulted in a big response so while we placed 4th out of 9, it wasn't pretty and not a run I was especially proud of. She did go in the water with only a hint of hesitation so that was huge and I was very happy about that as seen on all of the pictures.
Cones day was another one of those she was OK in the practice and then lost it in the arena. It will be a good day when I finally figure out what is so different about two spots 100 feet from each other. She was in zoom, zoom mode but I had her on the snaffle setting so as I was steering at least she wasn't leaping in the air too badly...except at 9 which headed into the water. She smashed that cone completely and since I wasn't sure if I had technically gone through the cones, I made another attempt to head toward 9 but she was having no part of it and I was concerned that she was going to show everyone her new move so I said oh well and headed to 10. After not hearing the whistle, I continued on with only that one ball down and time penalties. The problem at 9 knocked me into 7th place and out of the ribbons.
I am going to confirm this, but after cones someone told me that I am allowed to drive anywhere on the course except through the start/finish and cones. This means I could have trotted through the water while I was waiting for the whistle. I sort of knew this but didn't know how it was really allowed to be practiced...bridges, water, etc. I remember a judge commenting to a 4 in hand driver to go easy as he worked over a bridge multiple times before the whistle. I also need to check on the rules about how much of the carriage needs to clear the cones vs going over one. I wasted too much time circling instead of just going on to 10.
Overall the show was an interesting one and I learned a lot. TJ was my super navigator and groom and as always his help was much appreciated. We met some new and interesting people including Gerard Paagman of Ideal Harness. Gerard will be at the next few Florida shows so check out his HUGE inventory of harness and driving stuff. He has pretty much anything you might want or need.
We are all back in Kentucky and are going to make a go at staying on a training schedule in an attempt to make it to Little Everglades. It's snowing here today so I don't know how realistic this is going to be. Isn't it time for Spring yet?
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