All posts tagged mounted games

2015 Mid-Atlantic #1

May 1, 2015

The mounted games season has started! Mid-Atlantic #1, held at the PG Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland was held last weekend and I was there with my new team, Gone Rogue.

This was Gone Rogue’s first competition and we had a blast. We were laughing and yucking it up all weekend. One rider on the team, Val, who is taking the first part of the season off to have a baby, came to support the team, cheering for us and giving us her sidelines perspective. At the end of the weekend she pointed out some race order ideas that I really agree with. Great points that were hard to see from the saddle.

Clearly I am excited because I am already talking about after the competition, and I haven’t even discussed the actual competition yet! Organize….

Leading up to the competition, rider Zoe was hula hooping and rolled her ankle, spraining it. We scrambled around for a replacement rider and ended up coming up dry. In the end, Zoe healed faster than expected, and with a calm borrowed pony, Boomer, graciously offered by Stacey Calhoun, Zoe assured us she could do it. Notably, teammate Val, who is eight months pregnant also offered to fill in. She is still actively riding, and took part in a polocrosse tournament the weekend before, but felt her balance was off for all of the leaning and remounting necessary in games. Although none of us jumped on her offer, none of us turned her down either. So it was lucky Zoe pulled through.

Saturday morning dawned and we were up and ready to enter the ring in our new dark grey and yellow gear by 8am. Our division had been scheduled to ride with two concurrent heats. This is not the usual format for MGAA team events and requires heats of teams to rotate in and out of the arena before and after every two races. The idea is to ease the labor on ring crew, although I really do not feel like this helped at all at this event. It also meant that we were in the saddle for well over two hours, in and out of the arena with our adrenaline going up and down. Poe in particular got annoyed. About half way through the session he was beyond fidgety. Grabbing everything in his mouth, pacing around, attempting to crib on everything and just generally being annoying. It also meant when it was our divisions turn to work a concurrent session that took nearly three hours, there were 7 teams resetting for heats of three and four teams. Over kill much? It sucked. Out of the five heat sessions we were at the arena for four of them, riding or working, and had one session to untack and recoup. Sunday was ten times worse with more races in the session. I could complain about this aspect endlessly, but I’ll move on.

Session one went pretty well. I rode really conservatively, but ended mistake free, and was happy with myself and Poe. The rest of the team was on their game and we did very well. The second session was also pretty good, with just a few mistakes. I missed a hand off to Averi, totally my fault, and I could not get back on Poe after agility aces race. I played it smart and ran to the mounting block after two quick attempts of him dancing around. Although I feel I made a smart move it still killed us in the race.

We did well enough in our two Saturday sessions to make it into the A final for Sunday. Yea!

Sunday also went pretty well. I had a lack of trust in Poe in one race and did not put my hand out to hand Averi my balloon stick. It was so silly of me. Poe has excellent breaks. Excellent. And I should have just stuck my hand out. But I didn’t and had to circle to her to hand over the stick. I still rode conservatively, which is something I need to work on. Kristin and I talked between races and I said that I felt like I was checking up way too early for skills, and she agreed. She suggested that when I felt like it was time to start slowing down, to go another stride. I took her advice and it played to my advantage in the next race. I need to keep that up and remember how awesome and responsive Poe is. * Trust in the Poe *

It was an excellent and closely played final session. Border Patrol took the win in style. Going into the second to last race, Time Flies, Full Tilt and our team were all tied. In the end Time Flies beat us out for second, and we managed a healthy third place finish ahead of Full Tilt. Chaos took fifth followed by Black and Blue and Groppits. It was a really good division and I think this season is going to be amazing. I am really looking forward to it!

***Trust in the Poe***

The Start of the 2015 Mounted Games Season

April 29, 2015

The 2015 mounted games season kicked off with the first competition in the Mid-Atlantic series. Poe and I started are on a new team this year, Gone Rogue. Here is a teaser photo to hold you until I get the real post about the competition completed!

1 Comment

by riderofchaos on April 29, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in Mounted Games

Tagged equestrian, horse, mounted games, pony

Posted by riderofchaos on April 29, 2015

https://blueridgepony.com/2015/04/29/the-start-of-the-2015-mounted-games-season/

Virginia Horse Festival 2015

April 2, 2015

Last weekend was the Virginia Horse Festival at the Meadow Event Park in Doswell, Virginia and MGAA had a demo slot!

We have been enjoying excellent spring weather, but this day was cold and extremely windy. Way colder than I, or anyone else probably expected. It was so blustery that we were not expecting spectators to turn out. But luckily we were wrong and after the first few races our bleachers started to fill in! Yea!

MGAA turned out mixed division teams. Each one having an array of Masters, Intermediate and Fossil riders taking part. It was really neat to ride with riders from different divisions. I think it would be fun to do this again. My team had my usual teammate Zoe, myself, intermediate Rider Steph and Masters riders Mackenzie and Jordan. We played about 15 races, taking turns sitting out. For my riding I was pretty pleased. I was certainly slower than I needed to be but I went mistake free. I was also reminded of how much I love Poe. He was awesome. And dang he enjoyed himself. I was pleased with both of our performances.

No points were kept, and everyone just ran the races having a great time. Stacey did an outstanding job as chief Ref, and everyone played well. Kathy and Dave did tag team commentating, explaining what we were doing in each race and talking about the different riders and ponies. Speaking for everyone there, I think we all had fun. After our demo there were a lot of questions and interest was shown and our riders stuck around to talk to anyone interested. I think we might have left an impression on a few. I even found some photos taken by spectators and put up on Instagram last night. That was cool.

Photos: Shelby A

Games Practice – 2/8/15

February 12, 2015

This is what games practice looks like on GPS.

We had another awesome games practice on Sunday. This one was very laid back, slower paced, and refreshing. It was our base group, Zoe, Val, Becca and myself, so a nice small group. We set up three lanes of races so we had ample space and we leisurely worked on skills as we went through a few races.

We warmed up with speed weavers, and then moved onto ball and cone. I felt my ball and cone was particularly strong this week, both picking and placing. Then we moved to two flag. Which again went very well on my part. Val was a little off on this race, I think its her having to adjust for her changing balance. We went onto 3 mug, which was nothing special on my end, but Zoe was whipping through those on Petal like she was a race car. We spent a good bit of time working on pony pairs, which went unbelievably well right from the start. This was Becca’s first time playing this race, and although she kept Jiggy at a trot, he made excellent turns and her pick-ups and drop offs were outstanding. Zoe, Val and I all went well together regardless of order, but in the end we found that Krista to Zoe to Val went really well (noting that for us later). We laughed a lot through this portion of our practice. We also did ball and bucket, which believe it or not was my pick. I went first and was so sloppy. I slowly got a clean dunk and then had to tighten my girth to remount. Sloppy. So I went again and was very pleased with myself. We finished with litter and I was very happy with my performance in this race. We worked on the pickup and correction skill for litter a little and we all finished with successful runs.

After practice we grabbed a bite to eat together at the Kabob place in Winchester. It was good food and good time spent chatting about games. We are all clearly looking forward to the season!

Games Practice 1/25/15

January 26, 2015

This practice was awesome! My riding was well on, and we got through a lot of races and teammate Matt, joined us! It was a triple winner!

Our usual group, Val, Zoe, Becca and myself all showed up. We were also joined by Matt, who was a good sport and rode Simon. We were also joined by three pony club riders. There was little pony swapping while equipment was being set and changed which I think the girls enjoyed.

We blasted through speed weavers, 3 mug, mug shuffle, bottle, litter, flag fliers, two flag, balloon, joust, ring, sword, ball and cone, agility aces and pony express. I was personally happy with my bottle. I got my flying pick on the way home confidently and squarely. This put an extra big smile on my face. My litter was also on, and my turns in all the races felt great. Oh and my two flag was beautiful. Go me!

The last practice Poe was a bit strong, and was not checking like I have trained him to, nor was he giving me his excellent woes like I have learned to love. I decided I would try throwing a bit back into his mouth and see if I could *remind* him of how important his breaks are. The only bit he seemed to work well in previously was a rubber D snaffle which is what I put in his mouth. He went and he stopped, but there was no enthusiasm about it. After about a half hour I put his hackamore back on, the little S hackamore to be specific. I could feel him kick it into go gear. He was digging into his turns and jamming into his handoffs with no prompting from me. He was checking and stopping like a pro, and he put his game face on. Poe is one pony that loves his job.

Matt, being the good sport he is rode Simon. He was actually a good fit on Simon, and he got to practice his skills and enjoy some fun with us. Matt rode excellently, showing good form and strong skills. I would expect no less from him. Zoe and Petal were looking good too. Petal seemed especially on and into the job. Their 3 mug looked outstanding. Val and Sprite are always awesome. Val’s ability to compensate and adjust to changing shape is amazing. Last of our usual crew is Becca and Jiggy. This was their third practice and it was clear that something clicked for them. Their improvement is showing. This week we played balloon and joust, both of which I thought would be games Becca would really enjoy. I think I was correct!

Until next practice!