April 27th, 2008

Hi all,
Yesterday dawned grey with a hint of rain in the air. I know since I was up at 5:30am to feed the girls. By 6:30am, DL was in the trailer and we were on the way to Concord, MA for a small Arena Driving Trial. We had the first dressage go of the day being 8:30am. Everything went smoothly as we arrived at the gorgeous farm on the banks of the historic Concord River.
Our ‘arrival’ was announce by a small flock of guinea hens, a half dozen long necked geese and smattering of odd looking waddling ducks. Quickly we unloaded my marathon vehicle and put it over by the nearby empty (except for the fowl parade) paddock. As I unload Dawna Lisa, she swung around to take a VERY careful look at the loud residents of this farm. Yes, we were the first to arrive….
Dawna Lisa was very good about everything and except for some ‘starring’ didn’t spook or dance around. To relax her, I gave her a firm brushing that produced a small cloud of short bleached hairs from her winter clip job. I put her harness saddle on and left Les in charge as I went over to check in and get my number. When I arrived back at the trailer, other people were arriving including my daughter Gretchen who was my navigator for cones and hazards. I quickly changed to my driving clothes and finished harnessing.
DL stood perfectly as we hitched and walked off when I asked her. She calmly walked past the chicken house and through to the warm up dressage arena. I think we were both relieved to be in a some what familiar setting. I was very pleased because DL was giving me both a good left and right rein and totally paying attention to me. I was not pleased with the rain that started spitting on my brand new black straw hat.
We entered the comparatively dark indoor arena and walked around a bit before taking up the trot taking full advantage of the free working part of the test. Our judge for the day was Andy Marcoux who is well known in NE driving circles. The bell rang and we started our test at A around to K and then across to X for a slightly wobble halt on the bright fresh shavings… The rest of the test went OK and I did chuckle as DL’s head came up when she SAW herself in the mirror. After the test, Andy told us our basic scores of 5, 6 and 7’s and where we could improve. Dawna Lisa stood like a rock as Andy talked to us. Standing with patience has been an issue we have been working on. We drove it again and DL went much better. This time Andy told us we had 6, 7 and 8’s. I was very pleased with her improvement.
As we headed back to the trailer, the rain got more serious. I whipped my NEW hat off and handed it to Gretchen to put in the truck. Keep in mind that this was a cold raw rain with the temperature about 42 according to my truck thermometer. I have become resigned to the fact IF I drive dressage, IT will rain.
I unharnessed and put DL back in the trailer with a cooler on and covered up the driver’s seat of my vehicle with my waterproof apron. DL was happy to be dry and munching on hay UNTIL we started to have fowl flybys… One such ‘flyby’ covered the hood of my truck with you know what. I think we might have been parked in a favorite haunt of the guinea hens. Poor DL is now desperately looking out the windows of the trailer awaiting the next ‘bombing’. After some bribery (Quaker Carmel Corn Rice Snacks), she settled in again.
Les went over to entry booth to find out when our cones and hazards were going to be. The lady kindly told him about 1pm but might be closer to 1:30. My husband is pretty quick with math . I was not hard for him the figure out we would be sitting around in the rain and cold for three to four hours… It was only 9:30am. We were all rather cold and I knew things were not going to get better.
I made the executive decision to pack up and go home. Yes, I wimped out. The byline of the little event was “Having fun was mandatory.” The fun had ended when the raw rain had started. The ‘fun’ started again when I cranked the heater up in the truck and my frozen fingers and feet started thawing out! I do admit the words of praise from my husband didn’t hurt either. It was the first time he has seen DL and I compete in harness. He was impressed and said that “Dawna Lisa REALLY looked like she knew what she was doing.” What more could I want. Yours, Claudia