July 5, 2014

Last weekend we had a team practice.  I had been overly excited about it all week.  Team practice Saturday afternoon, and a trail ride Sunday, woo whoo!

I worked that morning at the farmers market, and then rushed home, hooked up the trailer, changed into my riding clothes, grabbed the dog and ponies and headed over to Carol Ann’s house.  We spent some time chatting and when Linda and Kim arrived (Averi was too far away to take part) we tacked up.

Linda was trying Carol Ann’s pony Ginny out, since her normal pony, Blue, is out of commission.  We spent some time warming up and Linda seemed comfortable on Ginny.  She is a well trained little pony, all of Carol Ann’s doing, and Linda is a skilled rider, who is used to riding different ponies, and they seemed to be getting on well.  I give Linda props for being willing to jump on a new pony and make it work for the team.

During warm up I grabbed a mug off a pole I was cantering past, and attempted to place it onto another pole a few down the line.  When I leaned out, Poe moved under me, putting himself into a bend.  I pulled him back over, but it was too late and the pole was smack in front of us, so he stopped.  And I did not.  I summersaulted over his head, pulling off his bridle, and landed on my head, on a metal bending poles base, then bounced onto my shoulders and upper back, before rolling to a sitting position.  That is at least how I remember it.  Linda said I hit harder on my left side, which I can attest is much stiffer.

I was still on my butt, with my legs splayed out in front of me, and my chin to my chest, and I did a body check.  I immediately realized my teeth were compromised.  There was blood on my face, but my head felt fine.  and my shoulders and neck felt jarred.  Linda was there in an instant, and Daisy was all over me.  Linda asked if my head was ok, and I slowly looked up to tell her yes, and realized I was totally and completely seeing cross eyed.  I have had concussions in the past and I was not been cross eyed.  It was a weird experience and I realized I could not get up for a few minutes while my brain sorted itself out.  I told her my teeth were broken and she pointed out the blood was from biting through my lip and not from out of mouth.

I eventually did get up, and moved around some.  Linda gave me water and napkins to wipe my face, and I went to my truck mirror to see the damage.  My two front teeth did get chipped, and a bottom tooth had broken.  Yikes.  I had dental bill images going through my head.  oh no.  I also did bite through my upper lip, although not badly.  And my upper back and shoulders started to hurt from the impact.  I did climb back on Poe for a few minutes and walked around.  I was feeling dizzy and it hurt in my upper back and I had to admit I could not practice.  Which is when I cried.  So I got back off and untacked, feeling horribly sorry for myself.

Mean while Carol Ann had packaged up some ice and Kim vet wrapped it to my back.  Total team work on all this too.  I stuck around for a few hours, while everyone else practiced, and enjoyed the social time while my head got straight.  I do think the walking around really helped loosen me up.

One extra exciting part of practice was Carol Ann getting a running vault on Ginny! This is an amazing feat for an adult games ride to learn and accomplish. And carol ann is a tad vertically challenged. It was very impressive. I even got a few photos as proof.

After practice I was able to drive home and put my ponies up.  I decided not to trail ride on Sunday, and pretty much spent the day doing nothing.  Such a waste.

Monday I got an early dentist appointment to assess the damage and I went back Wednesday to have them fixed.   I have to say, it was hands down, the best dental experience of my life.  Rocktown Dentristry, Dr. Joan, she is flippin fabulous.  I also got on Simon Monday and Tuesday, and rode at a walk.  I did a lot of equestrian yoga, and stretches and my back felt much much better afterwards.

Thursday, my back still feeling ouchy, and still being short of breath, I headed to chiropractor. He crack my neck and back and instructed me to not lift anything or exert myself. That I bruised my lungs and ribs.

I am feeling much better now although my back is still very sore but I am no longer short of breath. I have been riding at the walk and lunging my ponies and tomorrow I’ll try putting on a little more speed in the saddle and see how I feel.

Fun fun.

July 3, 2014

This year I am organizing MGAA Nationals.  It is the organizations premier event of the year and includes 3 days of competition, a party and lots of special prizes and activities.  It involves a LOT of planning and work, even in comparison to a normal competition.

This year is no exception, and I am really working to make it the best Nationals ever.  We have 130 riders coming, making up 6 intermediate teams, 12 masters teams and 8 fossils teams.  We have a team coming from Australia, one rider from Wales and somewhere in the 20-25 range of riders coming down from Canada!  We have 3 preliminary sessions and two final sessions for each team to take part in.  This is the first year we have had two heats of fossils at this event and I love seeing this growth.  Our intermediate division is lacking some, mainly because Pony Club Championships is in Kentucky, and starts the day after MGAA Nationals.  Although some hard core games families are taking part in both, and leaving for Kentucky right from Nationals in Pennsylvania.

Each year we have sponsored races during the final sessions.  This is something unique to Nationals and also super cool. Anyone can sponsor a race for $50 or $75 dollars.  This money pays for gift cards to be awarded to the team that wins that race.  So no mater how that team places in every other race, if they win that specific sponsored race, they are getting gift cards.  Generally the gift cards are to places like Subway, Panera Bread, Chipolte, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Target and Amazon.  Some sponsorships are for products instead of money.  In this case a company sends a set of 5 items that the team will win.

This year, Wendi and I have been sponsorship getting crazy people.  I managed to secure sponsorships from the equestrian apparel company, Kerrits, tack shop, VTO, small dog toy business, Mootugs (what horse person doesn’t also have a beloved dog?) and equestrian gift company, A Horse Box.  Wendi kicked butt by bringing in sponsors like Horse Loverz, Southern States, Hillcrest Farms, and a couple others that are evading my memory at the moment.

Nationals also requires extra special prizes for all riders, and includes a perpetual trophy for the winners of each division.  I have been getting boxes and boxes from UPS, FedEx and USPS for the past month and I realized yesterday that my usually overly kind UPS lady is starting to get a bit miffed.  When I got home I found 20 something boxes of prizes dumped in my yard.  oops.

I would love to list all the AWESOME prizes here, but incase some MGAA people read it, I do not want to spoil the surprise.  Maybe Ill be able to post some photos and such after the event so everyone can see the awesomeness.

Saturday night at Nationals is the night we have a party.  Some years we have done a formal dinner and dance.  But this year we are going for a good ole back yard bash.  MGAA is providing DJ Shorty Rock, who has DJed at several of our events in the past.  He is one cool dude.  We also have a mechanical bull coming, are having an ice cream bar, door prizes, a funny photo booth type of thing with dress up items and lawn games like corn hole and giant twister.  Ashley is in charge of this part of Nationals and I can’t wait to see how much fun she makes it.

Needless to say all of the planning has been taking up several hours of my day for the past few weeks straight.  Not only is there the general planning, but there is a high standard for everything to be held too.  Chief Referees for example.  I did not want any CR to be over seeing a division with a family member in it.  I also wanted CRs with a certain amount of experience and knowledge.  Assistant Refs also are a tough one.  Again I did not want family members overseeing family members, and I wanted to have the most experienced people at the job.  And I did not want to end up with the same group of people working extra hard while others did nothing. So lots and lots of work manipulating all that.  And the planning went on, stall assignments, riding schedules, mechanical bull contracts, a vet for jobs, on call ferrier, shavings, camping, a special shirt to mark the occasion, and paperwork galore!

But you know, I really enjoy all this.  I think my ideal career would be to organize and host large equestrian functions.  I wonder how many of those positions are available out there?

Just some of the boxes of prizes waiting to be loaded.

 My view driving up my driveway yesterday. 

All prizes.  Yikes. I am starting to get concerned about how I am going to fit all this stuff in my rig along with my ponies, myself, Daisy and all the stuff Ill personally need.

June 28, 2014

I mentioned a few posts ago that my flag fliers pull, which is generally a very clean pull, bunched the flags at MA2. I have been practicing the crap out of it at home, and every pull is as perfect as could be hoped for.

We have a team practice this Saturday, and that is something I want to work on as a group. Maybe I am doing something different at competition, or maybe I am just being sloppy. I need eyes on me. I also wonder, if perhaps, the ring crew is not setting the flags properly. I do not intend to shrug the blame from myself for my mistake, but we have had a large portion of inexperienced ring crew at the competitions this year. And while I applaud that we have new faces learning the trade, maybe how to set flags is something they are unaware of.

That said, I am still going to continue to practice the crap out of this race. I was very off at the last competition, and my usual good skills were lacking. That needs fixing!

These photos are from an early morning ride before work.  what a great view to start the day off with.

The cone by C line, after I ran the four positions for Flag Fliers, leaving the flags leaning properly away from the turning pony.