Instead of riding at Paradise Farm HT this weekend, my mom and I headed over this morning to check out the XC course that was supposed to be Katchi's first prelim of 2012. Last fall, before I sent in my entries, I asked Phillip about it - he said, "It's a tough XC" - and then he realized what he'd done, and he quickly followed it up with "but, that's okay, it will be good for you - we'll have you ready". So, of course, I spent the next 2 months wondering what PD considered a tough prelim and whether we could in fact do it - and then I had to scratch. So, instead of getting to ride the course today, my mom and I walked it while prelim was running so I could see how it rode. It had some good questions and lots of places to make mistakes - but it looked like great fun and very do-able! I tried to get video of at least 1 horse at each fence, but I unfortunately missed a few. Everything seemed to ride quite well over all - out of 38 prelim horses: 1 retired (after 3 stops - 2 being at the A of the water), 2 rider falls, and 2 with 1 stop - and a lot with time penalties. We saw one of the rider falls and it was a heart breaker. The poor girl just popped out of the tack when her horse took a peek at a ledge with a double row of barrels sitting on it - he took a peek and ended up scrambling on the ledge, and she just popped off. And then had to wait about 10 minutes, with her poor horse wondering what the hell had happened - while the EMTs drove all the way over from the far side of the course to ask her what jump she fell off at and send her on her way. ANNOYING. Interestingly, the 2 horses after her very nearly did the same thing. My theory is that what seemed like a very straightforward galloping fence with a solid/protruding groundline, became a very different jump when placed right after the trakehner. The horses seemed to be really unsure of that groundline. I got video of the 2 after the fall, but unfortunately not of the fall.
An added benefit of being a spectator is having plenty of time to say hi to horse show corgis!!!! I'm so totally a cat person, but I love corgis - probably because they're about the size of my cat!!!! This is Margaret Thatcher. A 9 year old cute as could be corgi that apparently herds the cat she lives with! When the cat does something bad, they tell it "the enforcer" is coming! I can only imagine what my cat, Schmoe, would think about a corgi trying to herd him in his own house!!
The kind of horse show scenes I'm always too busy to enjoy - porta potty dogs!
You and Katchi could have kicked that course's tail :)
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