October 21, 2013

Its been nearly a month, and more than enough time for me to have posted about Mid-Atlantic #4 Competition.  It was held in Centre Hall, PA the last weekend in September.  It was Poe’s first team competition, his first two day competition, it was basically his first real competition.

I arrived on Friday afternoon, after a fun stop at the Hagerstown ribbon factory and lunch with my parents in Maryland, and got my ponies settled in and my camp set up.  The Lockyer family showed up and Emma and Sophie helped me take the ponies for a short hack, and then we headed out to dinner.  This was the Lockyers first US games competition since their recent move from England.  Emma was riding with Whiplash in intermediate and Rob was riding with my team!

When we got back to the grounds everyone else was arriving, there was a lot of socializing and before long it twas time for bed.  Saturday morning comes early when your ride at 8am.

I got tacked up early, and was in the ring with Poe before most of the other competitors in my division.  This was going to be his first time in an arena with around 30 other ponies at the same time so I wanted to give him time to adjust.

The first session went well.  Poe improved his handoffs from race to race, moving out more and more when he was taking them.  He is fearless.  Our end turns were still a little slow, but I was not asking for more.  He continued to improve from session to session.  I eventually asked him to move out more, and move out he did.  I hung my mouth open at one point, in excitement at him picking up his pace.  It had been a while since I went that fast! I never actually got to the point of kicking for more speed, but he was certainly getting the idea.

The other thing I noticed, we needed to put some work into was our whoa.  Poe stops and checks, but he did not quite have the “games whoa” yet.  So when I had a skill that required me to pull up, I had to prepare more in advance than I would have liked.

All in all, Poe was fantastic.  Even better than I expected.  He really loves this job.

I honestly cannot remember all the details of our ride, which is why I need to be more on top of these posts!  But we did end up winning our division by about 20 points with lots of hard competition from our fellow teams.

Simon got to be part of team Antiques Roadshow, ridden by the lovely Stephanie, and they looked great together.  I was so happy for him to be there and for someone getting to have fun with him.

This was also my first time as chief referee of the Masters division at a regional competition.  I started a little bumpy with a rough start or two, but I think I got my timing and technique worked out.  I hope the riders agree.  I really enjoyed the job, and hope I get to do it again.

So, great weekend all around.  And here are some photos, from Genevieve of EquiStar Photography.  Sorry, its all Poe on this post.