I arrived late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning to the house that Merry and George Hoag are renting in Steeplechase which is next to the Black Prong Annex.
After a few hours of shuteye or rather a restless time trying to sleep, I was up early off to see Dawna Lisa. I have REALLY missed DL since she left for FL at the end of November. I was SO happy to see my girl looking so well! Larry has done a great job with my beloved pony. Her soft knickers were music to my ears. Her wide white blaze is shedding and I had more than few white hairs all over me after our mutual greeting.
Larry and I planned my lesson time for 3pm and I took off for Ocala to do some food shopping and to get more pillows for my bed. I am one of those kind of people that needs numerous pillows! Shortly before leaving for FL, I had re hurt my bad right wrist and definitely banging my right wrist on the bedpost a few time during the night didn’t help. With this important mission accomplished, I returned to the Black Prong Annex for my lesson.
My lesson went OK. DL was a little strong with me and my right wrist was aching from the get go even with my wrist support on. Larry informed me IF I am going to hurt a wrist, I must in the future hurt my left wrist since DL is much softer on the left rein. I drove pieces of my test since I wasn’t ready to put the whole test together yet. It is a new test for me since we have moved up to preliminary.
Thursday night, Gretchen arrived and the Poulins, Hoags and Novaks had a nice dinner. We also laid out plans for the next few days to make it easy for dealing with Preliminary Single Pony (me), Preliminary Pair Pony (George) and Advanced Pair Horses (Larry). I am SO lucky to have this great group of people that work together to help each other out along with the fabulous groom, Kim, who is working for Larry this year.
My much needed lesson for Friday was set for 11 am. This lesson went much better. I practiced a few cones as a warm up to let DL blow some steam. DL was a very nimble pony and we flew through the practice cone NOT knocking a single one down. Larry yelled over “You are doing advanced times on those cones! She looks great.” We put the whole dressage test together a couple of times and I was pleased with the improvement over the day before. DO keep in mind, I drive a much better test in practice than I do in the show ring.
About 2pm I went over to walk cones and to do some “shopping”. Gretchen, Larry, Christine and I walked cones. I have had a couple of major plunders with cones in my short CDE/HDT career. At Black Prong last year, I didn’t walk the bonus cones since I didn’t think I would ever go double clean. I went double clean and felt like a fool as I flounder around the bonus round. At Bromont, I g
ot the big E because I drove the wrong cone set….
The “shopping” part went great or perhaps, too great. I had purchased a marvelous new scarf that I want to use at Sunshine CDE at the end of February. Sherri Lower had a marvelous straw hat that picks up the soft warm brown tones of the scarf and I have to wear “with attitude”. Advanced Equine just got in some new whips and one is so balanced for my bad right hand that I barely knew it was in my hand. The whip “followed” me home…
Saturday dawned foggy and cold. I dragged Gretchen out of bed early so I could walk cones about 7am. My test was the second of the day being 9:08. Both Gretchen and I were frozen as we drove over with DL more than a little full of herself. I spent about 30 minutes in the warm up ring trying to get her ready with plenty of bending to the right. I drove the test with slightly frozen toes and I wasn’t totally happy with the test but… Gretchen jumped on the back of the carriage and we whizzed off to cones. Hubby had given me a BIG lecture on how to drive cones Friday night on the phone.
Cones went very well with double clean in time and no balls down. I had a couple of balls down in the bonus round but no big deal… I exited the ring knowing I wasn’t
a total blithering idiot. Gretchen hopped on the back of the carriage and we were off to the Annex. The rest of Saturday was spent walking hazards, Gretchen zooming around doing the whole course on the back of Larry’s scooter with George and getting everything ready for marathon day.
Our go on Sunday was at 10:37. DL was more than a little UP for the marathon. Gretchen did an awesome job keeping her headed and somewhat calm before the marathon. We had a blast on the marathon and Gretchen and I were mostly pleased. Yes, DL was strong in the first hazard BUT better than her first hazards last year. I missed my first choice for going from B to C in the third hazard and we had a little loss of impulsion in the fourth hazard when I tried to drive things tighter than I normally do. BUT as Gretchen said “Mo
m, you didn’t hit a single post!”.
After a few hours of shuteye or rather a restless time trying to sleep, I was up early off to see Dawna Lisa. I have REALLY missed DL since she left for FL at the end of November. I was SO happy to see my girl looking so well! Larry has done a great job with my beloved pony. Her soft knickers were music to my ears. Her wide white blaze is shedding and I had more than few white hairs all over me after our mutual greeting.
Larry and I planned my lesson time for 3pm and I took off for Ocala to do some food shopping and to get more pillows for my bed. I am one of those kind of people that needs numerous pillows! Shortly before leaving for FL, I had re hurt my bad right wrist and definitely banging my right wrist on the bedpost a few time during the night didn’t help. With this important mission accomplished, I returned to the Black Prong Annex for my lesson.
My lesson went OK. DL was a little strong with me and my right wrist was aching from the get go even with my wrist support on. Larry informed me IF I am going to hurt a wrist, I must in the future hurt my left wrist since DL is much softer on the left rein. I drove pieces of my test since I wasn’t ready to put the whole test together yet. It is a new test for me since we have moved up to preliminary.
Thursday night, Gretchen arrived and the Poulins, Hoags and Novaks had a nice dinner. We also laid out plans for the next few days to make it easy for dealing with Preliminary Single Pony (me), Preliminary Pair Pony (George) and Advanced Pair Horses (Larry). I am SO lucky to have this great group of people that work together to help each other out along with the fabulous groom, Kim, who is working for Larry this year.
My much needed lesson for Friday was set for 11 am. This lesson went much better. I practiced a few cones as a warm up to let DL blow some steam. DL was a very nimble pony and we flew through the practice cone NOT knocking a single one down. Larry yelled over “You are doing advanced times on those cones! She looks great.” We put the whole dressage test together a couple of times and I was pleased with the improvement over the day before. DO keep in mind, I drive a much better test in practice than I do in the show ring
About 2pm I went over to walk cones and to do some “shopping”. Gretchen, Larry, Christine and I walked cones. I have had a couple of major plunders with cones in my short CDE/HDT career. At Black Prong last year, I didn’t walk the bonus cones since I didn’t think I would ever go double clean. I went double clean and felt like a fool as I flounder around the bonus round. At Bromont, I g
ot the big E because I drove the wrong cone set….The “shopping” part went great or perhaps, too great
Saturday dawned foggy and cold. I dragged Gretchen out of bed early so I could walk cones about 7am. My test was the second of the day being 9:08. Both Gretchen and I were frozen as we drove over with DL more than a little full of herself. I spent about 30 minutes in the warm up ring trying to get her ready with plenty of bending to the right. I drove the test with slightly frozen toes and I wasn’t totally happy with the test but… Gretchen jumped on the back of the carriage and we whizzed off to cones. Hubby had given me a BIG lecture on how to drive cones Friday night on the phone.
Cones went very well with double clean in time and no balls down. I had a couple of balls down in the bonus round but no big deal… I exited the ring knowing I wasn’t
a total blithering idiot. Gretchen hopped on the back of the carriage and we were off to the Annex. The rest of Saturday was spent walking hazards, Gretchen zooming around doing the whole course on the back of Larry’s scooter with George and getting everything ready for marathon day.Our go on Sunday was at 10:37. DL was more than a little UP for the marathon. Gretchen did an awesome job keeping her headed and somewhat calm before the marathon. We had a blast on the marathon and Gretchen and I were mostly pleased. Yes, DL was strong in the first hazard BUT better than her first hazards last year. I missed my first choice for going from B to C in the third hazard and we had a little loss of impulsion in the fourth hazard when I tried to drive things tighter than I normally do. BUT as Gretchen said “Mo
m, you didn’t hit a single post!”. What a great way to start off 2009! Gretchen, DL and I had a blast. We won our tiny division Preliminary Single Pony division with the decent final penalty score 128. It was our first blue ribbon in Preliminary division. Considering I haven’t driven my pony in three months, I feel really good that DL is such a great pony and Larry is the BEST in the training department. I can’t wait for Sunshine CDE when both DL and I can have more time together. Yours, Claudia
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