My riding buddies Brita and Rachael have all been to Windurra a number of times, but not yet this year. I've had pretty serious FOMO about it, and have basically been plotting our next outing here ever since touring the facilities last summer.
beautiful, albeit hot, day for cross country schooling at Boyd Martin's storied farm Windurra
Finally, the stars aligned and we planned our day. Sunday was supposed to be the USEA recognized show at our home farm, but it got cancelled due to the insane amounts of rain we've been having. The tracks (esp T and M) were supposed to run through the woods which was absolutely not going to work, plus some of the main cross country fields don't have the best drainage and can become boggy.
This all meant, tho, that we all suddenly found ourselves with a Sunday free from obligations! So finally: to Windurra we went!
somewhat amazingly, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves on a sunny sunday morning
Honestly I expected a couple things from the day: that the ground would be muddy and probably very very cut up from heavy usage, and that it would be crowded and potentially a little chaotic.
Turned out tho, we had the place almost entirely to ourselves except for a few folks using the galloping track for conditioning, and a Windurra-based group of riders quietly moving through the course for their own lesson. Plus the ground was fantastic. Excellent conditions and not at all super cut up. Honestly it was pretty close to perfect, except for the somewhat oppressive heat. Luckily we had opted to go in the morning to avoid the worst of the heat.
didn't catch our earliest warm up logs, but we started pretty quickly over a small house
It was a net positive day for me and Charlie too. Very much a learning experience, tho. Charlie's such a good boy, so honest, and so generally unimpressed by things, that I kinda have it in my mind that it should be reasonably easy to just hit the road and jump giant jumps and generally gallivant around like the easiest thing in the world.
That is..... Not realistic tho. Especially not for where Charlie is in his training right now, and for what I am as a rider (read: mediocre).
to a simple table
So I ended up making a series of poor choices in presenting Charlie with obstacles, and then had to do a little bit of clean up. Not necessarily a bad thing, we both learned a lot. But not really ideal either. And it meant that we spent the day working through different sorts of challenges vs just galloping big fences.
and roll top. all easy peasy
For starters, I made a critical error in judgement during our preliminary warm up circuit of the property. I casually pointed Charlie at a baby ditch while on the buckle and without a lot of support, fully expecting him to fart along over it like he has with literally every single ditch ever that he's ever seen. And...... Yea. Critical error in judgement.
We had our first ever ditch meltdown. And it was extensive. I had regrets, realized too late that I could have done literally anything differently leading up to that moment. Alas tho, experience is that thing you get right after you needed it, and so we ended up working through a serious meltdown of my own creation.
cruised through the water a couple times, then caught this little feeder bc nothing else looked super good for where we were
It ended fine, and with the help of Brita and Rachael providing leads etc, we worked through it and Charlie resumed his previous attitude of "No Shits Given" re: ditches. But..... We ended up blowing through a not-insignificant chunk of emotional capital before the ride even really began, and Charlie had already begun lathering up with the stress sweats. Not... Not ideal.
Oh well, next time I'll do things differently.
water water everywhere!
After that, tho, the ride more or less got back on the right track. I opted to tackle some itsy bitsy logs first and Charlie gamely trotted the first, then cantered the second. Then I looped around to a small house with not enough leg or commitment to riding Charlie straight (another theme for the day) and we kinda futzed it a little the first time. Represented and he was great, and cruised right on around in a nice circuit to a reasonably sized table to N roll top, both beautifully out of stride. Bingo.
nice N corner to work over. skinnier and more technical with the tree than what charlie's seen before
We moved on to the water next (partly so Charlie could get a drink) and I kinda just had a little bit of a mental block about the complex.
What I was learning about the way jumps were set on this particular day at Windurra is that there were either jumps a tad too small for us (BN and below) scattered around on flat ground as singles. Or the jumps that looked about right size-wise were positioned with higher degrees of technicality than I felt we were ready to tackle. Especially after the ditch debacle.
he was a very genuine boy our first time over when i changed my mind at the last second
So while the water had plenty of reasonable jumps around it, they were mostly right at the edge of the water. Not something I really felt ready to do with Charlie, considering he just did his first little cross rail into water the week before and was feeling a little green in general.
Instead we kinda just cantered around through the water, and caught a little BN feeder a couple strides out from the water. Again, first time over the feeder I was wishy washy with my leg but the second time we jumped it much more nicely.
second time was better
There was a great N corner right in the same area tho, and considering Charlie's actually jumped a fair number of corners already, I felt eager to try it. Again tho, the technicality was maybe a titch higher than he's seen with the tree right there creating a visually narrower jumping space, and we kinda squirreled over it the first time. Second time was, again (say it with me) better.
lots of time spent watching friends and trying to catch our breath in the heat too
By this point, even tho we hadn't really jumped much at all, Charlie was HOT. It was pretty abundantly clear that I've been a bit absent in recent weeks. Being a thoroughbred, Charlie can put fitness on pretty quickly. But he can lose it just as quickly. And where just a couple weeks ago he was extremely fit - on this day he was .... not.
green dotted line reflects terrain - this was a large mound down to a skinny
Plus it took me a minute to realize that the terrain of Windurra would naturally take a toll. Again tho, it was all good stuff. The work on terrain was much-needed for both of us. But I was just a little slow to recognize that we possibly needed to break things down into smaller incremental pieces given how our ride was going, vs just throwing Charlie in.
mayyyyyyybe i should have given charlie a chance to practice the mound on its own first before putting together the line to the skinny..... #noted
Perfect example was our next attempted combination. Windurra is FULL of mounds of various shapes, sizes, and steepness. One in particular looked pretty good for us: with an N brush table positioned on top, dropping down the mound to a small but very skinny brush roll top.
I had it in my mind that we would do just the mound to the skinny first, then maybe add in the table. But... probably I needed to make it simpler than that to start, since Charlie has very little experience with mounds. What I should have done was go up and down the mound alone, and maybe tackle the skinny alone, then put it together.
so then we just practiced the mound by itself and the skinny by itself
Instead I tried the direct line first and Charlie bless his heart jumped the skinny, but jumped it pretty badly and with a bit of confusion and surprise. So we repeated just the skinny by itself, and just the mound by itself (in the video) then put the line together and he nailed it. Attacked the mound and was very positive to the skinny. Good boy, we both learned something there.
Tho yea.... I opted to save adding in the table for another day.
then charlie put it together well
Next up was a combination that probably should have come before the mound to skinny. In fact I kinda went through the entire day a little bit backwards - starting out a little too ambitiously then by the end being a little more practical and pragmatic in what I asked of the horse.
realistically, we probably should have practiced this baby roller coaster *before* the mound to skinny...
Bc jumping up and down hills is very new to Charlie, and he's not super confident about it (tho I fully believe the studs are helping and this ride ultimately I believe gave him more confidence). So next we went through a long line of very small jumps, set on a "roller coaster" section of terrain with a gravel basin in between.
he handled it well tho, with some extra leg
Charlie eyeballed the black pipe that was set on the down hill, but cruised right on along through the gravel to the small house. And even tho I got him there a little bit long and under powered, he made a very good executive decision and left the ground well. Again, good boy.
Part of my problem is that I see these exercises as somewhat simplistic. Except, ya know, they have to be practiced. The horse has to be introduced to questions like jumping up and down hills in a way that he can easily understand and figure out how to arrive at the correct answer himself. Which he did in this case. So I'm happy with it.
double banks up! with bonus puddle lol
Finally we hit up the last element of cross country's holy trinity: banks (having already looked at ditches and water earlier in the ride). We had gone up and down a couple little banks already in the ride, but this tiny double bank up looked perfect. I cantered Charlie up the second half first on its own, then put it all together.
aaaaaand a little bit of fuckery lol, still made it up tho
....Probably, again, with too little support and commitment. On this day, Charlie just plain old needed me to ride him. And with the hackamore my steering is not quite as good and I tend to ride a little too casually with my contact. Plus. Ya know. The horse has never seen a double bank before and even tho it was small it was maybe overwhelming. Nbd tho, he still went up the second bank even if it was very crookedly.
second time, again, was better. twas the theme of the day
And again, as always, the second time was better (plus we trotted in this time). Sigh. Emma. This is very much a "Me" problem. I need to take the way I ride the second time and just make it my first instinct. Like, at some point I should stop needing to make mistakes in order to whip me into shape. Should just... Ya know. Ride the first time haha. Maybe one day lol. #goals
finishing with a little confidence boosting spin over the same N roll top from earlier
Regardless, tho, I was still pretty happy with Charlie. Aside from the ditch meltdown, he was very honest and genuine to everything even when I put him in bad spots. He stayed present and went forward (when I bothered to put my leg on) and honestly made a lot of good choices, or seemed to learn from some of the lesser choices.
We finished up with one last gallop over a simple N roll top just to reaffirm that confidence and let him attack a fence. Which he did just fine, despite being very very hot, very very sweaty (true story, he was lathered up his entire face underneath the hackamore plates lol) and being kinda generally ready to be done for the day lol.
well-deserved naptime on the trailer
We rode for just over an hour, with much of that spent watching Brita and Rachael tackle their own more advanced jumps and combinations. So a pretty reasonable ride time - Charlie just needs more fitness work.
All in all, it took some work to sort through my takeaways from this ride. On one hand it would be easy to be disappointed in myself for making some bad choices or maybe having some expectations that weren't in line with where Charlie is in his training.
Ultimately tho, I'm not disappointed. Quite the opposite: I'm pretty happy. I would love to just gallop around and take endless pictures of us jumping impressive things. But.... That's really not where Charlie is right now and not at all what we need to work on. We need to be working on all the little pieces in between: Riding forward (and straight) to each fence, and maintaining balance and pace on changeable terrain.
except for busy busy Bird, who apparently never naps lol
With that in mind, I think it was a really productive ride. Charlie got a TON more experience on terrain, and felt more confident with every pass. Especially that last time down the mound to the skinny was excellent, and he was fully locked on even as he descended the mound. Perfect.
Plus, even tho I was uneven in my focus on riding forward to everything and keeping Charlie on a more ground-covering stride, when I *did* ask for it, Charlie answered every time. That's another biggie for us.
So that's another schooling experience under out belts. Another net positive, chock full of learning moments. And it felt very much like the horse also walked away knowing more than he did when we started. Hopefully we can both retain some of the lessons learned during this ride lol.
It's all good tho bc with my renewed focus on the "now" vs the "long term plan," nothing relied on the outcome of this ride and it's becoming easier for me to just take each outcome as it arrives without worrying about what happens next. It's especially easy now bc we just have a lot of schooling opportunities coming up: like next weekend at home, and then again at the end of the month at a low key twilight schooling event. Should be good times.
In the meantime, am I the only one that has to go through some mental acrobatics after a ride to figure out how to find the silver linings and positives? It's so easy sometimes to want to feel down about a ride, or feel like the small details take forever to work through when we just want so badly to be there already, wherever "there" is.... But in my experience, it usually is possible to find some good from every ride. Usually lol. What do you think?
Well. It finally happened. I bought my first trailer, a Calico 2-horse bp stock trailer, new in the spring of 2014. Then my second trailer, the Cotner (also a 2-horse bp), new in the fall of 2016 to accommodate Charlie's bronto-dimensions.
There are a lot of pros and cons to consider when shopping for a new vs used trailer, the details of which will depend very highly on your own personal preferences, resources, experiences, etc. For me, buying new worked well for my purposes bc I could:
a) get exactly what I wanted;
b) finance (tho this is an option at dealerships that sell used trailers too); and
c) get something that would be reasonably reliable on the road without me needing a ton of know-how when it comes to maintenance, upkeep, or DIY repairs.
yep, that there is a big old hole in the sidewall, plus another large laceration by the rim. baby was FLAT
Tho as we all know, being on the road will always eventually mean running into some sort of issue.
My trailers tho have been pretty low maintenance. Sure, the first (and last) time I loaned out my Calico, it came back to me with a giant dent from getting jack-knifed (and also full of manure bc the borrowers failed to even bother to muck it out. WTF don't be like that, kids!). And sure, I broke my leg stepping out of it that one time.... Which was obvi also a moment just filled with fuckery.
So imagine my surprise yesterday when we parked and prepared to unload at the gorgeous Windurra for a low key cross country school (omg! post coming soon!), and Brita immediately says "Omg your tire is completely flat with a giant hole!"
Which did, in fact, prove to be an accurate description of the situation. Hmmm. V Interesting.
It's not even really clear when, exactly, it happened. Possibly on the highway during the ~1hr drive to Windurra? Idk. In any case, it was certainly not gonna return to the road in that condition.
Nbd tho. I figured it would be an easy fix (and it was!) so rather than freak out, we just continued on with getting ready for our ride and heading out, planning to deal with the tire afterward.
ditto the above. these two tools are basically a one-stop-shop, and are available for cheap on amazon
There are all sorts of safety lists out there preaching on all the various tools and safety supplies one must always, always, ALWAYS have handy while hauling horses. I'll be the first to admit that many of these stated experts on the subject would find my own assortment of supplies somewhat deficient in this regard.
As it is, tho, slowly over the years I've amassed a respectable collection of said supplies that have mostly sat unused in pristine condition in either the back of my truck or in my trailer's cubby trunk.
Chief among these supplies would be: the easy-up Trailer Aid tire jack, and the 4-way tire iron for removing lug nuts. Which, for the record, was the beginning and end of what was needed for this job. Also on hand had it been needed was some WD-40, but again the nice thing of having a relatively new vehicle is that there's virtually no rust anywhere.
a spotter was very helpful for getting up onto the jack
I'm gonna recount the process we went through here, simple as it was, just bc we had a couple starts and stops that were nbd but might be useful to say here for anybody else in the same situation.
First of all, upon returning from schooling (again, post soon!), getting my horse sponged and settled and studs out, it was time to switch my attention to the tire.
My plan was simple: Get the horses away from the trailer (Brita would hold them), get the trailer up on the jack, horses could then be tied on the other side, get the lug nuts of busted tire off (pro tip: a hoof pick works like a charm to pop off that little hub cap thingy covering the lug nuts - there's a small notch around the edge that Rachael spotted that is perfectly sized for a hoof pick), replace with the spare, drop from jack, boom, success.
Those of you who have done this before might immediately recognize our first error in logic here: You're supposed to loosen the lug nuts before you put the vehicle up on the jack, bc otherwise the tire just spins. Like, I *knew* this, but ya know. It was hot and it's been a while.
Nbd. I dropped the trailer back off the jack again and went to loosen the lug nuts again. But damn they were on reeeeeally tight and the wheel still kinda wanted to spin (it was so flat it had plenty of clearance from the ground) plus it was hot AF and extremely sunny to boot.
teamwork makes the dream work! and yes, that's a bottle of champagne in the foreground lol, and in the blue solo cup....
So: Change of plans. I decided to pause to relocate the trailer into a shady spot. HIGHLY WORTH IT OMG. Seriously. This made everything else so much better (ie less full of fuckery). But that wheel still wanted to spin instead of hold steady against the force needed to loosen the lug nuts.
Luckily we had a pretty solid hive mind synergy working out, and Brita thought that if we put the horses back on the trailer they'd provide the weight needed to firmly ground the flat tire.
Initially I had not liked the idea of a horse being in the trailer while on the jack, but then again had this happened on the highway there's NO WAY I would ever, ever, ever want to unload the horses unless 1,000% necessary, so they would have been on the trailer anyway. So back on they went, and again this proved perfect in getting that wheel solidly enough on the ground so that I could get purchase with the tire iron to loosen the lug nuts.
There are 5 lug nuts on the rim, and another 3 on the spare (tho the spare was blessedly not so tight on) and we all divvied up the nuts. I did the first 4 and Brita and Rachael tag teamed the remaining 4. Plus 500 for teamwork, yo!
Once the nuts were loosened, we got the trailer back up onto the jack, and then it was most definitely time for champagne haha (bc doesn't everybody bring champagne to your standard xc school???? lol).
magnetic tray from my stud kit ftw!!! one of these things is not like the others haha
Fun fact: my magnetic tray from my stud kit proved extremely useful for holding the lug nuts while we worked. And once they were all removed, the tire popped right off the rim, as did the spare, and it was an easy process of switching them.
Side Note: I've had some serious issues with my regular daily driver Mazda sedan, that's had two bad flats in the last 9 years) with the tire rusting to the rim. Googling how to solve this problem yielded ideas like loosening the nuts then rolling the vehicle back and forth. This.... did not work. Neither did taking a mother fucking sledge hammer to the wheel. Ahem. But the second time it happened was at Charlie's last h/j barn, and the family of guys that did all the barn work there had my back. Instead of just applying brute force (a la sledge hammer) to a single small area of the tire, they put a 2x4 (which I use as supports for my trailer jack when unhitched) against the bottom of the tire, and hit THAT with the hammer. The 2x4 works to distribute the force more broadly across the tire, and *POP* it came right off. A little WD-40 helped with this too. It was a handy trick and one I was happy to have in mind should we have needed it for the trailer. But we didn't, the tire came right off, and the spare went right on.
Again it was useful to have extra hands here, as the tire is kinda big and heavy, but lining it up with the screws was challenging. So Brita supported the weight of the tire while I guided it onto the screws. Then everything got tightened up again.
The rule of thumb with tightening lug nuts (of which, again, there are 5) is to alternate nuts. Do 1, skip to 3, skip to 5, skip to 2, skip to 4, skip to 1, etc etc etc, round and round, until they're all equally tightened. Again, we took turns with this - with me getting them all prettttty tight, then asking Rachael and Brita to each take a turn finishing them off.
ta da!! all better! with busted spare hangin out for replacement later
So yea. It honestly was not an extremely stressful ordeal, luckily, bc I already knew how to change a tire, had the appropriate tools, plus had friends on hand to help out. Thus making a situation that could have been a major bummer actually not such a big deal.
And for that, I'm grateful. And am hopeful that maybe it'll be another four years before I have to deal with any similar situation haha.
Have you had similar experiences? Or maybe yours worked out less easily, for lack of an important tool you didn't know you needed, for instance?
Had any lessons learned the hard way that would be useful to share with the rest of us? I'm all ears - it's always nice to hear about useful tools or supplies to have on hand in the rare event of an emergency.... Or are you just impatient to hear about schooling at Boyd Martin's Windurra facility?? lol....
Hey, yo! It's Friday! AGAIN! Not having internet at home is seriously killin my vibe. And it's not looking like there's any sort of end imminently within sight. Bleh. Moving is the worst.
Except the move is technically over - keys handed over, most (sorta) of the boxes are unpacked! Things are good.
Boyd Martin & Ray Price in the Open Intermediate
So let's take a nice little look back to a few weeks ago to when I volunteered at the MDHT CIC2*/1* cross country day!!
vet box stocked and ready for the FEI divisions
I signed up to be in the vet box - a first for me. Somehow I had it stuck in my mind that these were CCI classes, not CIC. The distinction there being CCI courses are longer and the vet box is mandatory. I was wrong tho - oops - these were FEI CIC courses and therefore riders could skip the vet box if they wanted.
central location meant we had a nice view! tho the FEI stadium had run the day prior
So mostly, per our meeting with the vet ahead of go time, our biggest job for the day was to be helpful. Be an extra set of hands for any riders who needed them, and be prepared to help with all aspects of horse recovery upon completion (or, er, non-completion as the case would be for some riders) of the cross country phase.
we were nice and close to the start box too!
The basic gist of what happens in the vet box, mandatory or otherwise, is as follows:
When horses first arrive on the grounds for the event, they all get checked out by the vet. This includes a preliminary documentation of the horse's baseline Temperature, Pulse, and Respiration (TPR) and I believe even the CICs do jogs, tho that might not be the case.
plus we had a clear view of the warm up from the vet box
Then, after running cross country (even if they don't complete), vets and assistants are on hand to log the horse's TPR again. First immediately upon the rider arriving in the vet box (which is located just after the finish line - all horses are funneled through the box, even at the CIC where some chose to not stop).
gotta be honest: this was prime fangirl real estate lol
If the riders opted to get their horse's numbers at this time (which, again, for CIC was voluntary but many chose to do so anyway to ensure the horse was recovering well and safely), they would stick around for some duration while we would recheck the TPR numbers on intervals until the horse appeared stabilized and ready to return to the barn.
after coming off cross country, riders had the option of getting TPR readings as their horses recovered
My particular job for the day was Temperature Girl. So, uh, yea. I had the pleasure (?) of getting up close and very personal with quite a few famous horses. Which, ya know, is one of the more dubious distinctions of my illustrious career as fan-girl-extraordinaire-bordering-on-actually-maybe-emma-is-kinda-stalkerish-#creepstar3000. Ahem. Cough cough.
many riders had a big team of grooms!
Anyway. In between TPR readings, riders and their team went about all the other steps of helping a horse along in recovery. Obviously this included stripping tack - usually step one. Then a never ending cycle of sponging, scraping, sponging, scraping, sponging, scraping and walking walking walking, plus some time spent in front of the big fans and misters under the vet box tent.
like Lainey Ashker, whose team all had little bits of green somewhere in support of Jonty Evans (who woke up!!!)
It was interesting to me to see the differences between how some riders prepared ahead of time for this. Obvi a lot of the pros had a well established system, kits and team of grooms to facilitate this process. Others were completely alone - just them and their horses.
other riders were flying entirely solo tho. we vet box assistants were happy to pitch in a hand to help whoever wanted it, like when i got to spend some quality time with this sweetie while his rider ran back to the trailer for supplies. i was surprised by how many rope halters i saw in the vet box tho!
No matter what tho, we vet box assistants (there were something like 8 of us plus the actual vet) were there to lend a hand wherever needed. And most riders took us up on that! It was funny tho, we usually had to offer to help more than once before riders were like, "Actually yes plz!" bc the first time they'd sorta be like, "Nah we're fine" but then we helpers were still just kinda there so, ya know, why not accept a hand, right?
at our busiest, the vet box operated like a well oiled production line, with horses circling through under the tents and fans while grooms attended to them with sponging and scraping
So in this manner, the couple hours of FEI classes passed by mostly pretty quickly. We usually had a reasonably steady stream of horses coming through, but it never really felt overwhelming. Honestly it was often kinda quiet - plenty of time to hang out and just absorb the environment, and watch the horses go by (we could see a couple cool features of the course, like the warm up, start, a water, and the coffin).
it was cool to see which riders and teams turned to which products to help the horses recover. i've always been fascinated by this blue material that stays freakishly cold when wet
For folks who like a volunteer job spent on your feet, but maybe without a ton of walking, this would be a good job. Especially if you're comfortable with tasks like taking a horse's temperature or helping untack and de-boot strange horses. The interaction with the competitors was fun too, and especially getting to listen in as they would all immediately start debriefing with their teams about how the ride went.
even riders who didn't complete the course still took advantage of the vet box amenities for their horses
Personally, this wasn't actually my favorite volunteer job and I'm probably not likely to sign up for it again. It's kinda hard for me to describe why - there's no real reason, honestly, except that it felt kinda crowded. And possibly prone to the "big fish, small pond," name-dropping type atmosphere as far as volunteers were concerned. Which is obviously a good thing for a volunteer job that needs more experienced horse people for tasks like measuring pulse and respiration.
like Lauren Kieffer who retired on course with Veronica, i think bc she thought the horse took a funny step. fortunately nothing seemed obviously amiss after a cursory vet check!
That might just be me tho - and my own preference. For instance I really like stewarding warm up rings, with all the chaos and nerves and riders all across the spectrum. But I was chatting with a volunteer later in the day who said she loved the vet box and hated doing warm up rings. So it probably just depends on personal preference.
i gotta say tho, it was very cool to be up close and personal (ahem, as temperature girl i was very personal with some of them!) with these elite horses. the above is Boyd Martin's Tsetserleg, after Boyd left the horse with his grooms to immediately scurry off for his next ride
I would definitely say if you're curious about seeing this side of the competition, definitely sign up. I have exactly zero regrets doing it - it was a cool experience and I got to see a whole new side to some of these world class horses and riders. There's a lot to learn, but you don't need any prior experience to sign up - the vet and organizers were fully prepared to explain and educate any willing volunteer.
this is Daniela Moguel's 4* horse Cecelia, who came off this CIC 2* course relaxed enough to be walked around by a small child
Anyway, there were only the two FEI classes for the day. No other classes required a vet box so we were disbanded fairly early. I had learned during the morning cross country meeting that one jump judge there with her young kids would have to leave before the last two classes of the day (prelim and training) so I had offered to fill in her spot at that time.
obvi this kid knows horses... but still, i think it says a lot (in a good way) about the life this horse must lead
That left me with an hour of free time between when the FEI 2*/1* classes finished, while the Intermediate (approx ~2*, sliiiiightly easier track) ran, before needing to jump judge for Prelim and Training.
really tho, the cycle just repeated itself again and again. here we see Lauren Kieffer again with her third FEI ride of the day, anglo arab Vermiculus
And naturally, as your resident dedicated eager-to-please obsessive media junkie, I spent the hour hoofing it all across that Intermediate course, trying to get video of as many jumps and combinations and horses and riders as humanly possible.
i really enjoyed watching each team's process with the horses too - esp seeing the similarities between them all. lots and lots of ice everywhere haha
I started at one end of the course and systematically worked my way across, and honestly guys the course was AWESOME OMG.
then it was spectating time!!!
Not least of which because this Intermediate class was CHOCK FULL of WEG horses out for a relaxing canter across the country to stretch their legs lol.....
i'll spare you all my zillions of screen shots from every single fence - so enjoy these gifs instead
And imho the resulting video is prettttttty baller. #justsaying #youshouldtotallywatch #fridaysareforvideosright?
there's a lot of really great footage here tho - esp considering how many WEG horses were out and about to stretch their legs!!
And yea I mean, realistically, spectating is probably my favorite thing to do at an event. Bonus if it includes tailgating lol. And extra double super special bonus if you get to spectate with a radio, which I had handy. So I got to hear all the details as each rider went through the course. Mighty handy!
then what better way to round out the day than with some low key jump judging?
But pretty soon it was time to report for duty as jump judge for the last two divisions. Both of which were also full of all sorts of recognizable names.
i was at the finish line for prelim
Started at the last jump for prelim, then moved to the first jump for training. Both relatively easy jumps obviously haha - no issues at either throughout both classes. Tho, uh, yea you could kinda tell at the first jump which riders might be fixin for a rougher rider....
and jump 1 for training. not bad!
Anyway tho, it was a great way to spend a day - volunteering, spectating, and even a couple complimentary drinks with complimentary dinner after the show wrapped. Not bad!
Think you'd ever sign up for the vet box? Or maybe jump judging is more your preference? Or are you mostly just on board for the spectating / tailgating? As far as I'm concerned, there's really no wrong way to enjoy watching all the pretty ponies go haha. Especially when it involves some crazy impressive combinations lol.
So hopefully if nothing else you at least enjoyed the video as a nice Friday distraction ;)
