MayDaze – Saturday

I didn’t bring my “A” game to the horse park with me today, I made so many amateur night mistakes, I’m almost too embarrassed to admit to – forgot to charge camera battery last night so it died at around noon, didn’t bring the memory stick for the video, inexplicably left my wellies in the boot of my car this morning and so have had wet feet (better than cold, I suppose) all day – groan. Luckily, plenty of competitors were far more on the ball than me. Here’s a link to all the results and here’s what I did get.
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It seemed like every time I turned around Robin Walker was going cross country. I was glad I saw his Florida CCI * winner Florenz go, that’s a pretty nice horse. I tried a couple of times to find a quiet moment to catch him for an interview, but no such luck! I did talk to his wife Connie at some length, and she kindly introduced me to the dozen horses they’d brought down from Michigan for the weekend. Robin also rides jumpers, (which Connie admits to preferring – ouch!) they have some breeding stock, and instead of collapsing in a heap and demanding a swank holiday when their two children went off to college recently, Connie decided to take on a new project – completely gutting and re-modelling their house!  Connie was a mine of information on all the breeding and background of the horses, several homebreds, and several related, and although her and Robin actually only own a leg of one of them, they are all for sale. 
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I was happy to see Leslie Wylie (above) post a competent clear round, as I really enjoy her blog.
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The preliminary course rode really well; I saw almost all the divisions go, with very few problems. Cathy Weischoff has designed all four courses this year, and also the show-jumping for the sake of continuity, and I spoke to her yesterday, on video for your pleasure. (but neglected to press record, what is wrong with me?!) I can remember the gist of what she told me – that Maydaze is traditionally a move-up course, that she was enjoying applying her riding and teaching experience to the course building, that she takes advice from David O’Connor on design, and that the weather hadn’t been as much of an issue as I’d have expected, I think they ended up moving one fence. The footing was close to perfect by midday today. I saw a lot of the training go, again with only a few problems, and saw less of the novice later, but noticed much more discrepancy in ability in the lower levels, in all three phases.  My son, Harry, watched some of the Beginner Novice show-jumping with me but didn’t notice much at all,
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Thank Goodness for the National High School Rodeo taking place in the old indoor arena,
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 right next door to the show-jumping warm-up, because with an hour or so before a friend of mine did dressage in the Novice, I had something of a mutiny on my hands, but that was before we discovered the music, the bling, the big hats, boots and barrel racing – they could have sat there all night entranced by it all. 
We did actually see one barrel racer ride in a helmet, and she rocked it; it was blue and sparkly, it actually looked more like a bike helmet but I’m sure it wasn’t. If you read my post yesterday about the George Morris helmet, I have a correction and an update: Dave sold two of the them today to jockeys, and the helmets are made/marketed by an englishman, hence Dave’s confusion, but are not for sale in England.  We have our Western friends to thank for a couple more safety tips too,
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How to lead your horse correctly – perhaps a new trot-up trend?
and
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Share and share alike, or always help out those less fortunate than you (unless you apply that to the horse)
I was pondering the difference between the two disciplines as I watched a couple of the junior cowboys cantering down the road into their warm up, wondering if they think the eventers are stuck up and “OCD”, and ridiculous for wearing our dark hunt coats because of tradition, despite the heat, feeling a tiny bit smug about our (as a discipline) skills, horsemanship, knowledge in general, and turn out, and then I saw this,
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Hairnet crisis! Nobody’s perfect!
I’ve been so spoilt over the last couple of months, going to some of the “marquee” events here in the States, and of course Badminton, that it felt strange to walk a cross country without stringing! It was lovely to be back at a local event though, even if does happen to be at the Kentucky Horse Park, and watch all levels, and all shapes and sizes of horse and rider!  I sat at the last fence for quite a long time because it afforded the best view of the whole course, but also because the joy on riders’ faces after finishing, and as they explained certain jumps to friends and family who were waiting for them as they walked back together, was infectious, and wonderful, and a reminder of why we do it.  Big pats for the horses, whoops and hollers, lots of thank-you’s to the kind volunteers collecting numbers and handing out cups of waters to the riders – it verily warms my nagging mother’s heart! A huge thank you to all the volunteers and jump judges, who were bundled up this morning at 7am, then trying to find shade to avoid roasting in the sun as the temps rose well into the eighties, and were still going strong when we left shortly before 6pm. If I can convince the children to load tomorrow morning we’ll be back for more, but they’re beginning to show signs of napping and resistance, so I can’t make any promises. Thank you, Maydaze and the Horse Park, thank you for reading, and for going eventing! 
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