All posts tagged mounted games

Busy Being Awesome – 2013

June 5, 2013

I have a lot of things to blog about but honestly, Simon and I have been so busy being awesome, I just have not had the time.

Last week my friend Rachel P came out and rode Simon and took a bunch of photos of him and Linus.  I have been gearing up this week for the MGAA Mid-Atlantic Mounted Games Series #2 competition this weekend.  I am getting a lovely round bale delivered next week to the barn yard for the ponies to chow on.  My first round bale actually.  And I broke down and ordered Simon a grazing muzzle.  Actually, I mentioned to a friend that I was going to order one and the next day she called me because she saw one on Facebook being sold for $15/free shipping.  So we jumped on that.  Thanks Lindsey for saving me cash.  And I still have not blogged about Simon’s full switch to the hackamore yet.

Oh, and there is a cute little POA I am sort of interested in, although I really do not want to bring on another pony until then end of the summer and I am back from the UK (which is yet another exciting horse topic I have not blogged about yet).  But it’s still tempting because he has that build I want and I have been shopping for a year.  But he is a cribber.  Which has led to a very interesting discussion about cribbers.

So, I hope to get my blog back on next week.

Photo: Rachel P Terrible picture of me, but lovely picture of Simon.

Photo: Rachel P
Terrible picture of me, but lovely picture of Simon.

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by riderofchaos on June 5, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Pony Stuff
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Posted by riderofchaos on June 5, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/06/05/busy-being-awesome/

Good Practice

May 29, 2013

Yesterday I had a really good individual games practice on Simon.  We rocked it through eight rounds of litter, picking them all at a canter.  I credit this all to Simon’s improved turns.  We also did some flag drills, worked on our end turns, and practiced our bottle placement and picks for both positions in the race.

Simon really has improved, and he really seems to ride smoother in the hackamore.  Which I plan to elaborate about in another post.

He is such a joy to ride.  If he only had a little interest in going fast.  But I’ll keep him even if he is slow.

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by riderofchaos on May 29, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Mounted Games
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Posted by riderofchaos on May 29, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/05/29/good-practice/

Pony Shock Collar Training

May 2, 2013

You already read about the overall experience at MGAA – Mounted Games Across America’s Mid-Atlantic Mounted Games Series #1 competition.  You already read about how I locked my keys in my truck, and now you get to read about Pony Shock Training. 

Now before you scream abuse, keep in mind the shock was less than an electric fence shock. 

As is typical at venues that allow portable paddocks, I popped up a paddock in the camping area for Simon.  He loves being in the middle of the action, and being free to move about, and I love the savings I get on the cost of a stall and shavings.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find my portable paddock kit before I left.  Ironically I packed the portable fence charger, portable spool of fence tape and the gate openers away for the winter in a place that I “would remember where the kit was come spring”.  Apparently my memory is not in tune with that thinking. 

I managed to scrounge up some loose pieces of tape and figured I would give it a go.  I normally forget to turn the charger on anyway, and had not even bothered to hook it up all last year since he never challenged the perimeter. 

I should also preference this with how annoying Simon can be.  I cannot leave a bucket in his paddock or he throws and kicks it around endlessly.  This includes buckets of water.  He knocks them over, and then kicks them around.  So I remove his buckets, offering him water at frequent and regular intervals, and keep them waiting a few yards from his pen. 
Saturday morning, I woke up at 5am, prompted by my bladder.  I could see Simon was still laid out snoozing away on the ground, and I slipped back into bed after doing my business, but not before he caught sight (or probably sound) of me, and nickered good morning.  I ignored him and crawled back into bed.  About 20 minutes later I heard him beating a bucket around.  The stinkin pony had pushed his chest into the fence and stretched his neck out so he could get hold of one of his buckets and had it under him, rhythmically kicking it with all 4 feet.  I climbed out of bed and took it away from him and decided that I might as well get my day under way. 

That evening Simon had already eaten his feed and had a nice pile of hay to keep him company, but I noticed he was watching us with mischievous eyes while we ate our dinner.  And I suppose he had had enough of not being the center of attention, and he grabbed the fence tape in his teeth and yanked it up and off the poles.  We jumped up, yelled at him and put the fence back in place.   But it wasn’t but  few minutes later that he grabbed the top of one of the step in posts and pulled it out of the ground and marched on out and into the center of camp.  I tied him up to a trailer for a while, but eventually needed to sort out what I was going to do with him for the night and decided to return him to his paddock, where he promptly started the pull-the-fence-down game back up. 

Fellow camper, Genevieve had an idea.  Let’s try putting the dog training shock collar on him that another fellow camper, Carol Ann had for her dog.  Gen got busy, and rigged it up with bailing twine and stepped back for action.  Sure enough, as soon as I let go of his halter, he went right to the fence, and Gen gave him a zap.  He looked a bit confused, probably because fences usually shock the end of his nose, not his throat, and he immediately tried again.  Zap.  It took one more go and the pony had it figured out.  He stood in the middle of the paddock and glared at us.

After a while of him not testing the fence, we took the collar off, but sure enough he went right back at it, and the collar was back on.  He did not test it again, knowing the collar was the culprit. 

So it was a bit of a 50/50.  He clearly got the message almost instantly, but he also knew it was only enforced by the collar.

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Gen applying the collar

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eeek, push the button!

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Annoyed with the collar on

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In time out.

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banging a bucket

 

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by riderofchaos on May 2, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Mounted Games, Pony Stuff
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Posted by riderofchaos on May 2, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/05/02/pony-shock-collar-training/

2013 MGAA Mid-Atlantic #1 Mounted Games Competition

May 1, 2013

The MGAA – Mounted Games Across America – Mid-Atlantic Mounted Games Series started up this weekend with the first edition held at the PG Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

I arrived Friday afternoon and set up camp. Shortly after my teammates and other fellow MGAAers also arrived and set up for the weekend. A couple of us got in a nice hack Friday evening, before grabbing a bite to eat and turning in at a reasonable hour.

My team, Old School, competes in the adult “fossil” division, which usually starts off the day as the first division. This weekend my usual team of Linda, Carol Ann and Kim was joined by longtime friend, Jon and his newish pony Jeeter. Kim was also on a new pony, Milli, who has been blogged about a few times, starting back in December. We all met up in the ring, bright and early Saturday for our first session of 12 games.

We started off pretty decently, with some hand off situations to clear up and some other new pony circumstances to accommodate for. But all in all it was a good session. Simon and I rode clean, with no mistakes, as did most of the team. And we reworked some things before we went back in the afternoon for our second session of 12 games. We must have sorted something adequately because we finished the session in second. Simon and I managed to run clean again, as did most of the team, although Simon was starting to slow down even more than his usual slow pace.

It is never surprising in this division how a single simple mistake can kill the whole race for a team. For the most part riders in the adult “fossils” division complete races cleanly, and at a pretty good clip. With vaulting not being a predominate skill among all riders in the division, teams that have even a few vaulters can annihilate in races that require dismounting and remounting. Our team does not have any vaulters, and it is pretty evident in a few particular races.

After the second session we got together and discussed the orders for Sunday. Taking into account the changes the ponies were making and how the new ponies were developing.

Saturday after the final session I had a meeting with the MGAA International Team. This is a really exciting topic that I have not mentioned yet on this blog and I am not going to elaborate on at this time. So grab that suspense and enjoy the wait until I do start blogging about it in the months to come. Be excited! I am!

After the meeting I spent the evening socializing with my teammates and friends, laughing, eating, roasting marshmallows and playing with Puppies. It was a lot of fun, and Ill talk about ‘pony shock training’ in another post.

Sunday we were back to the ring for our 15 race final session. We hit the field hard with a terrible warm up race through bending, fearing that we were showing our worst side for the day. But luckily we were just working out some bugs and got our tails in gear for the start of the real first races. We cruised through the session, with Kim and Jon both borrowing Simon for a race a piece, and a total bumble on my part in ball and cone race. I pulled up too soon for my placement and was not quite close enough to reach the cone, and Simon was being a pig about moving up to it, so I placed it lefty, which sometimes seems to trick the pony on protest. I think Simon decided to get me back though, because he flicked his tail out as far as it could go, and popped the ball back off the cone. I am always aware of his backend, and had made a point of keeping it clear, so he had to have stretched his tail to its maximum to reach the ball. Stinking pony. I officially killed that race for our team, because, as previously mentioned, a single screw up in a race can cost it all for you.

Also by the final session Simon was totally carousel-ing out on me too. Plodding along at his happy merry-go-round pace, with no urge to race what so ever. He knew what he was doing and I am giving him the virtual stink eye as I type this. Smart evil pony.

I started the final race, flag fliers, and I was rockin on through it, and actually getting a decent simon-pace out of him, and somehow, my flag pull went to pot. As in, it didn’t leave the pot! I felt it slide between my two middle fingers but I wasn’t able to grip at that angle enough to keep hold of it and it slid back into the holder. BOO. Luckily it didn’t come out and I just needed to circle back for it, but wow, does it suck to mess up in the last race of the weekend. Genevieve of EquiStar Photography (who so awesomely allows me to use so many of her fantastic photos on this blog) just happened to get a great shot of me “pulling” the flag and you can totally see it popping up but not in my hand. I wonder if she can photoshop a flag into my hand?

In the end our points from all three sessions added up to a third place finish. I suppose a yellow ribbon does match our team gear. SO pa-za! But Blue matches our gear too.

I already posted about how I locked my keys in the back of my truck in the cap in a previous blog post, which sort of capped off the packing up on Sunday. Otherwise it was a wonderfully uneventful drive home and a great start to the 2013 MGAA Mounted Games Season!

001

me placing the bottle in the bottle shuttle race
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

002

Placing a flag
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

02

Simon and Jeeter
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

003

Linda and I
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Adding to the stack in association. I believe we were moving faster than we appear in the photo.
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

04

Team Old School: Kim and Millie, Linda and Blue, Krista and Simon, Jon and Jeeter, Carol Ann and Zeke
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

005

We just busted a balloon in the balloon race
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

07

This is my oops pick in flag fliers. You can see the yellow flag is bouncing back into the holder.
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Daisy testing out our bed after I made it up on Friday.

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Kim and Daisy in the campsite.

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Daisy watching the intermediate division while I assistant Reffed.

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Nancy and Marley, kicking butt
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Joy and Chloe in hug a mug
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Carol Ann and Zeke in mug shuffle
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Averi and Schwagger in Balloon
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Jon and Jeeter in association, topping off the stack
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Linda and Blue rockin the two flag race!
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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Kim, always smiling, and Milli, lovin her new job.
Photo: Genevieve of EquiStar Photography

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by riderofchaos on May 1, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Mounted Games
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Posted by riderofchaos on May 1, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/05/01/2013-mgaa-mid-atlantic-1-mounted-games-competition/

My Keys!

April 30, 2013

At the end of the MGAA Mid-Atlantic #1 competition weekend full of ponies, friends and fun, it was time to pack up camp and hook the trailers back up. I got all of Simon’s stuff packed into the trailer and all of my stuff packed in my truck and then accidentally locked my keys into the cap of the truck. whoops. I do not normally lock the cap at competitions but I must have hit the locking mechanism when I was packing or something and it locked when I closed it.

I took it in surprisingly good order and called my insurance company. And yea, I have road side assistance. So they sent out a locksmith guy. Sadly, he was not able to get the cap open. He did not even seem to know how the lock on it worked. sad.

My insurance called back to inform me it would require making a new set of keys which would cost me $300 out of pocket. ouch. Of course I denied that.

My next course of action involved trying to pry the side window open. The keys were sitting just on the ledge by this window. But There was no way a hand was going to fit into that tiny gap. Luckily my friend and fellow games rider, Dave, had a streak of genius. He bent up a marshmallow roasting stick and hooked my keys out of the truck in about 30 seconds. SCORE!

Dave won the “favorite person” award for the day. THANKS DAVE!!!!

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Whoops, the keys are in the locked cap.

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This is the tiny side window Dave fished my keys through.

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Yea, and I am driving again!

 

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by riderofchaos on April 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Mounted Games
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Posted by riderofchaos on April 30, 2013

https://blueridgepony.com/2013/04/30/my-keys/

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