November 10, 2014

A couple of us from team Gone Rogue decided we want to practice this winter.  So we found an indoor that is about half way for all of us to meet up at.  Its one of those big white tent indoors on farm right on the edge of Berryville, just outside of Winchester.  It took me just over an hour to reach it, and it was an easy few miles off the main road.  Rocking M Acres, has some boarders, long-horned cattle and they host roping events.  The owners are extremely nice, and so are the two boarders we met.  It is a down to earth place.

This Sunday was our first practice, which we are planning twice a month for the next several months.   We have also invited a few other people to come and join us at their convenience.  Mainly an adult games rider crowd, we figured it would be an  opportunity for us to get our ponies out and work out some games skills and try some different techniques while having a fun social event.

For this first practice it was only three of us, which worked out great.  Val, Zoe and I met at the indoor, and got our games on.  We enjoyed playing at our own pace, and spent some time working on different skills with each of us.  Personally I want to improve my bottle placement on the B line barrel in position 1/3.  Val is perfect to work with on this because she has the fastest bottle placement I have seen on this side of the ocean.  She spent some time coaching me through it, and I think I have the idea down now, and just need to work on changing my approach to see if it will work for me.  We also worked on Zoe’s flag pick up.  She was unsure how she wanted to pick, palm up or palm down, and tended to approach the flag switching her hand.  I think She got it, and found the position that best suites her.  Val worked on her tool placement in toolbox, although I think she already knew she needed to just “place” the tool instead of putting it into the box with force causing it to bounce.

We played about ten different races, using up more than our two-hour session.  It was nice to get the hang of each other in a small group.  We found that our handoffs were nice and smooth, and we all three use much of the same techniques with the different equipment.  It was also decided that Petal much prefers handoffs from Poe over handoffs from Sprite.  Val and I also determined that we must reclip our ponies before the next practice.  Zoe was smart with a freshly clipped Petal.

After practice we stopped for pizza and got in a few more good laughs and reflected on our practice.  Hopefully next time a few more riders will join us, but if not, the three of us had an awesome time on our own!

They had this giant mounting block.  We tried it out and you had to LOWER down onto your pony from the top.  We thought it was hilarious.