Yvette Seger had a wonderful weekend at Waredaca, competing in the Novice 3-Day Event. Read her previous entries: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.
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Waredaca Novice and Training 3-Day Event Diary: Day 4
Isn’t Waredaca just beautiful?
From Yvette:
Hey EN! Before I get too far into my stream of consciousness regarding the last day of my Novice 3-day experience, I want to make a correction to my last post in which I attributed cross country course design credits to Tremaine Cooper. Now, while Tremaine has designed some pretty slick courses, he can’t take credit for this one, which was actually designed by Robert Butts. Sorry about that, Robert – every once in a while I have a blonde moment like that…
While I spent most of Friday night reveling in my successes on cross country (check out these great videos by Video by Patrick – here for Finders Keepers and here for Roger Rabbit), I was also a little stressed about making sure those eight legs would be sound for the jog bright and early on Saturday morning. Super Pony runs barefoot (yes, pick your jaw up off the ground – he’s very surefooted and has hooves of steel), so I invested in some Rebound Hoof Pack (a sponsor of the 3-day) to make sure he was extra comfy to show jump the next day. Roger had his standard icing and poultice routine for his legs and pretty much a full body coating of Sore No More to make sure my 23 year old partner in crime would be ready to fight another day. Me, I took a few ibuprofen and at a bacon cheeseburger from Five Guys. Hey, it takes a lot of energy to ride two horses in a full format – girl’s gotta have bacon!
Anywho…I arrived at Waredaca at 5:30 am to feed and assess the damages (actually hoping that there weren’t any). Roger – who is a normally fussy eater – was like, “woman, bring me my GRAIN!” The pony was also excited for his cup and a half of low starch pellets, but…he’s a pony, so not such an exciting development. As expected, the old man was a little stiff, but worked out of it after walking a bit. All of our morning prep led to both boys being accepted by the Ground Jury, and we moved on to show jumping.
The show jumping course was designed by my favorite, Kathy White, and was yet another one of her thoughtful tests of riding. With Roger, I would need to keep him forward (always interesting, as when Roger gets TOO forward, he likes to start bucking and leaping like a rabbit – hence his name), and with the pony, I would just need to focus on keeping him straight and “on the balance beam,” per Stephen Bradley’s advice. Since my boys were close in the standings, I would be the first horse on course with Roger, and then go in regular order with Twix. Roger warmed up great, but I quickly realized I didn’t quite have the same horse once I got in the ring. Luckily, we know each other so well that my gritty and far from pretty round still resulted in zero penalties. Hey, to be 23 and finish a full format 3-day on a dressage score 32.0 ain’t too shabby, right? Roger proceeded to snooze in the sun by the ring while I rode the pony. This round was a bit more polished, but a bum rail early in the course added 4 penalties to his dressage score of 28.0, resulting in…32.0! My boys were technically tied – how’s that for consistency?
Our 3-day experienced closed with a mounted awards ceremony, which is really cool because we don’t have many of those opportunities here in Area II as most of our events run in a one-day format, and a lot of times, we will just leave a couple bucks with the show office to have our ribbons mailed to us rather than sticking around. Roger was a bit annoyed to be awoken from his nap (“Really? Haven’t I done enough Mom?”), but he had to go collect at least one special award – Oldest Horse – which I was thrilled to find was a nice big jar of Cosequin! Roger and I were also surprised with another award – Best Conditioned Novice Horse (thank you GRC Photo for sponsoring the award of a farm photo shoot!) – and I burst into tears. Anyone who has an older horse, let alone competes an older horse, knows they are a labor of love (and Adequan), but my old man (who never had a temp above 101 in the vet box) has been worth it, rewarding me with 31 recognized USEA starts in the past 5 years when all I ever wanted was for him to last a full season back in 2008. Oh, and I should also note that his 32.0 represented the last score necessary for him to receive his USEA Gold Medal at Novice (we have a habit of getting great scores at the Maryland Horse Trials or the Seneca Valley Pony Club Horse Trials, but have had trouble getting one at a third venue). I can’t forget the efforts of the Super Pony, who got to join the victory gallop by finishing 10th and ALSO earned his gold medal! I was so delighted with my boys!
There are so many people I want to thank for making this experience SO special, and I hope I don’t screw it up…first of all, I need to thank Gretchen and Robert Butts (co-organizers) and the entire Waredaca team for making this experience available and opening it up to novice riders this year. If you’ve never been to Waredaca, it’s a pretty amazing facility, and I’m lucky enough to have it within 40 minutes of my itty-bitty apartment (hey, I totally passed Metrobuses every morning on my way to the event!) Cindy Deporter also deserves a special shout-out as Gretchen’s co-organizer for the 3-day and for giving me sass to keep me on top of my game throughout the 3-day experience. Cindy Wood deserves a prize for managing the stable area for the 8th year (hope I got that right!) – she was so patient and helpful, not only in the stable area, but also for keeping time in the vet box and letting us know how much time we had until D start. Dr. Julie Augustine provided great support and advice throughout the competition, and brought a great team of veterinary students to assist in the vet box (she also didn’t give me a hairy eyeball when I told her Roger’s age during the in-barns at the start of the competition). To all the clinicians – Stephen Bradley, Tremaine Cooper, Natalie Hollis, Melissa Hunsberger, Max Corcoran, Valerie Vizcarrondo, Phyllis Dawson, Steurt Pittman, and Jessica Morton of Southern States (Roger LOVES their Legends Performance feed!) – thank you for providing your time and invaluable expertise! Pam Wiedemann (TD), Sue Smithson (President), and Mindy Friesan made up the wonderful Ground Jury (and yes, Pam, I’ll be filling out my Rider Rep report today – promise!), and I can’t forget to thank announcer extraordinaire, Brian O’Connor, who truly made Roger’s last run special. Brian – bring your helmet to an event next season, and I promise to let you take a spin on Finders Keepers! Finally, a big THANK YOU to the Area II Adult Riders and other volunteers for making this event happen! I’m really grateful that you all took the time out of your week to volunteer!
Roger Rabbit bids a very fond adieu to Waredaca by keeping an eye on the BN horses running XC in the regular weekend horse trial
I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Dee Cook and her very special family. Dee offered me the ride on Roger Rabbit 5 ½ years ago, mainly because she needed to wrangle about 20 decent training level event horses for a Pony Club exchange, and Roger needed to get into shape after about 2 years of semi-retirement. Little did she know that that decision would lead to years of adventures around Area II! She and her family have been so supportive of Roger’s and my efforts, and I can’t thank her enough for all the trailering, moral support at events, and a second home complete with dinners – I am truly lucky to have the Cook family in my life! Same goes for Karen Tilley and her family, from whom I purchased Finders Keepers after a 2.5 year “trial period” this summer. He is a special little pony, and I have a feeling he’s just getting started!
Finally, I need to thank my parents, Larry and Diane Seger, who dutifully drive from my childhood home on the west side of Cleveland, OH to support me at nearly every event. I’m sure every once in a while they regret having sent me to the Girl Scout camp where I first caught the horse bug, but I think deep down they are happy that I found a way to get horses back into my life after a 9 year hiatus. They are probably also happy that I pay my own bills now.
I’ll leave you with a video of Roger’s first order of “retirement business”.
Go Eventing (Classic Format Style).
