July 28, 2016

MA3 was back in June, up in Centre Hall, PA at the Grange.  It was a larger competition, with full divisions.  I had a minor scare while I was loading up to leave home when I pulled the ponies out of the field and Poe had this nice little cut on his ankle.  It wasn’t a big deal but certainly made me pause before I left.

I always have fun at competitions and this one was no different.  But it also wasn’t as much fun as usual.  I felt like our division was constantly rushed, and really pushed between races.  we also did not get to ride our final on Sunday which was a huge let down.

I also felt like the over all attitude of everyone was off.  Like the whole general attitude could have used an improvement.  I felt like people were being yelled at over the PA, people were snappy, and it was just sour in general.  Nothing like super outstanding, but just a general undertone.

I personally was also a little disappointed at some of the riders.  The last team into the A final requested to ride in the B final instead since the B ran a heat earlier.  The team said they wanted to get home earlier.  Which, ok, I just don’t get that.  Getting home an hour earlier to ride in a lower final, what?  My first thought was; how unfair is that to the teams that are in the B final, that an A final team would be stepping down to ride against them?  But my main thought was; if the riders don’t care enough to stay an hour later to be in the A final, then why bother at all?  So they all spent money on entry, stall, fuel, wear and tear, etc to go to the competition.  Plus around 4ish hours to get there, hotel Friday and Saturday night, ride twice on Saturday, and then would rather leave an hour earlier on Sunday?  And that’s assuming they don’t put in time practicing, training and conditioning.

Now this is on me, I just don’t get it.  If that team is happy just riding in whatever final gets done first, then that is what that is. It should not bother me.  Not everyone is as into it.  Not everyone gets the same thing out of the sport, and thats cool.

Anyway, moving on, the race list was awesome and I really enjoyed my riding.  Gone Rogue rode an easy two qualifying sessions, we mixed up a few orders and tried a few races we do not normally do.  Which was fun.  But sadly, we rode to get into the A final, and not to WIN the A final.  So when the A final was canceled for thunder, and the order of finish was decided by the points going into A, we were second by 1 point.  a very frustrating end of the weekend.  We so wanted to ride.  Of course the sun came out about 15 minutes after packing up and leaving so the drive home was lovely.

And that is why we do so many competitions, so the next one can always be better!