From time to time we get event reports from our readers and sometimes we publish them, sometimes we don’t. We almost never publish any reports that we get after Monday, but today we have an exception. Thanks to Cheryl from the Davis Creek Pony Club for sending in this fun report from May-Daze, and a shout out to FEIPony who requested May-Daze coverage.
From Cheryl:
Greetings from Kentucky Horse Park! The May-Daze at the Park Horse Trials held over Memorial Day weekend gave us an opportunity to see the changes made at KHP for WEG in the month since Rolex! It appears that all arenas (warm ups and competition) are now sporting the OTTO sport footing – wow! The horses obviously just love it and float on that surface. I saw many a Mom kick off their sandals or shoes to accompany a daughters’ SJ course walk in their bare feet! It feels that good!
Rachelle and “Willie” float across the OTTO surface entering Stadium Jumping.
I don’t know if they’ll get enough time between events and WEG to be able to re-paint and replace some of the boards in all of the stabling at KHP, but that would sure make it look nicer!
While the horses don’t care what the walls look like and actually like peeking at their neighbors thru the gaps in the boards, photos this weekend show how rough some of these older stalls now look. They run so many events at KHP that it probably is hard to block off stabling to do these repairs. Memorial Day weekend hosted the May-Daze horse trials, a large Dressage Show and a High School Rodeo. The HT stadium warm up was near the rodeo warm up with swinging lassos and all! We saw one cowboy rope another cowboy’s leg as he tried to run away. Did it twice! We were impressed! Bet that kind of stuff gets you into a lot of trouble at school!
We took the time to sit in the seats we’d reserved in the Main Arena for WEG – and are now feeling pretty good about the money we’ve spent to get them! We looked inside the new barn stabling next to the new indoor arena and were surprised to find the stalls were more like temporary stabling – but were nice, new 10 x 10 stalls with sliding doors and big wide aisles. Even in the 90 degree weather this weekend, those barns with their nice high ceilings were nice and cool.
All stabling has asphalt floors at KHP and this time, we took the advice of another pony club Mom and invested in some lightweight interlocking mats as a base for the bedding on top of the asphalt. They were so worth it. You know how it is, no matter how many bags of shavings are dumped in, they’ll paw it all off in the middle and roll and sometimes take all of the skin off their withers! Ugh! Not to mention the fatigue of standing on asphalt.
While I’ve drooled over those MightyLite portable stall kits for a 10×10 stall with their 5 yr warranty and all, I just couldn’t justify the $400 per stall to make that happen. Another PC Mom in TN found 2×2 interlocking mats at Big Lots and then I found the same mats at a Lowe’s in WV (Lowe’s also had them online). They’re intended for human exercise areas or kids playgrounds, and of course don’t have a 5-yr warranty but for a few events/year with asphalt stabling, we got 4 pkgs of 4-2’x 2′ mats to make an 8’x8′ area under the shavings (left about a 1′ edge on all sides in the 10×10 stall) for a total of only $68 + tax. After the weekend was over, we just pulled those mats up and stuffed them into one contractor garbage bag (yes, they smelled!) then we power washed them after we returned home. So while it took a little more time to snap together 2’x2′ mats, I couldn’t have gotten the larger mats in a garbage bag! We did have one little tear in one mat, but at that price I can easily replace a mat or two. They could be soaked and washed in a plastic kiddie wading pool too to remove that smell! We didn’t use as many bags of shavings on top of the mats and did not worry about their knees as they dropped to the floor to rest. No price tag on that peace of mind!
This was the last Horse Trial to run XC at KHP before WEG, and May-Daze at the Park hosted 467 competitors from BN thru Prelim. The XC courses avoided sections of roped off tracks that are preserving the footing for the WEG track (and have been doing so since last year). Course designers for May-Daze created courses that utilized three sections of the park and gave even the BN horses and riders a nice gallop between fences (and Mom’s and Dad’s a LOT of exercise trying to keep up with that video/digital camera!).
Kisses and pats to a special horse that ran a safe and fun XC round with her daughter at May-Daze!
Although it appears that the XC colors in this picture at May-Daze were specifically created for the Memorial Day event, they’re actually worn just like this no matter what time of year it is! It’s funny how much more something is worth when it comes in your XC colors! It’s like an omen to buy it, be it a car, a shirt, a new dog collar, a saddle pad because simply it’s in my XC colors!
White Woof boots look great XC, but how do you get them bright and white again?! Use that pressure washer! All the dirt and hair, poof, gone! And admit it, playing with a pressure washer is fun.
Thank you Maggie for hosting such a nice event!
