Schooling
cross-country. Another phrase that can bring dread to some people, to
others it brings excitement and promise of an adrenaline rush. The Kentucky
Horse Park Foundation generously puts on schooling days at the Park throughout
the summer which provide the Eventing crowd a chance to jump fences on the
famous course. Yesterday was the first one of the season and naturally it
became somewhat of a clusterf**k as usual(which was not necessarily because of
the astronomical number of people there or the craziness of riders and horses
careening EVERYWHERE). If you haven’t been around me that much then you don’t
know my middle name should be either klutz or clusterf**k. SO since everyone loves stories here goes.
The plan: take Ransom/Catherine G, Marley/Elisa,
Ted/Maggie, and Junood/myself (with Sara/Everest out to hack) to meet
Skip/Catherine D and Eveen/Keebler
(dubbed our fun Irish friends) out to school some lower level stuff in the
evening on Wednesday. I knew Elisa was my only Preliminary person so she would
get to school some big stuff while we did the little stuff. We were supposed to meet
at the KHP between 5:30/6PM. And since I
am a bit neurotic about time (and everything else) I wanted to leave the farm
as soon as everyone got there, so I got home early and brought Ransom and Ted
in.
The actual happening: Maggie had to fit a saddle to Ted
since she is looking at him as a potential horse to buy (shameless plug here- Ted is for sale,
16.2hh TB gelding- FANTASTIC jumper, tons of potential and cheap!) so she
wanted to take him schooling with us. Well, she had to change her air vest cord
from one saddle to the other..we are now ten minutes behind. Me being the
impatient person I am I decide to go load Ransom and Ted while she is doing
this. Meanwhile Elisa pulls her rig around behind Catherine’s and tries to load
Marley. Tries is the operative word here. Marley said she wasn’t keen on
getting on the trailer today, so sorry it sucks to be us. It ended up taking much prodding and Marley
finally walked on ( in all fairness it was a Brenderup and according to Elisa
they don’t even sell those trailers in the US anymore...I could say something
snarky here, but well I like Elisa and the trailer actually wasn’t as much of a
death trap as I thought those trailers were…must be the reason they didn’t make
it in the US..) We are now 25 minutes behind.
Next we head to the park. I told Sara (Junoods
owner) to go in the campground entrance because as we all know that’s the way
to go to the schooling area start. She called me while we were driving and said
that way was closed. We decide to re-route to the main entrance. I then tell
Catherine to over the dam bridge (the one we walk over for Rolex) because that
way is faster too. She gets up there and it is also closed off because of the
hunter show that is going on. We have to re-route a 3rd time now (and
were 40 minutes behind. Catherine and Eveen have been waiting for us for over
an hour now but their Irish and good natured so they were willing to wait) and
come upon the state vet. I always hate meeting the state vet. Most of them
don’t know anything about horses, all they do is check the dates on your
paperwork. God forbid they hire a horse person to do this, that would be beyond
the State of Kentucky’s thought process.
We get through and head on up to the schooling area (on the other end of
the park). I get a phone call from Catherine as we go to park (she wasn’t right
behind us… her coggins on Ted has expired and she forgot to check it. They
won’t let her through.
Now we are in
open panic mode (with me telling Elisa every five seconds, "wouldn't it be funny if?"- she was not amused...she asked why it would be funny, I said because its better than saying, "I'll be *!^%@^. pissed off if..")<-- another aside here..people get really frustrated with my neurosis..I know I say things like, "house on fire" and "wouldn't it be funny if" among other things..its what makes me who I am. :)
We are an hour and a half behind and we now have to take
Elisa’s rig back to the front of the park to pick up the pony so that Catherine
can school. Maggie has volunteered to take Ted home. Catherine is upset and
feels really bad, but we get everything moved (with the state vet dude staring
at us the whole time) and finally head back up to the schooling area (did I
mention it was at the other end of the park?).
In the end we finally get on and go schooling. We picked up
a new person who came with our Irish friends, Miriam and her adorable shire
cross, Baby. Elisa had a brilliant school with Marley (sometimes all it takes
is a bit change) and Ransom pony jumped brilliantly, even over some training
level questions (Catherine really NEEDED that). Eveen and Miriam jumped some
stuff I think they would never had tried if I hadn’t been there and we
corrected some habits of Catherine D and Skip so their schooling went from
a bit frantic at first to absolutely lovely by the end. Junood was out for his
first cross-country school and bless him it was a MADHOUSE out there! I think
everyone and their brothers’ mother came out to school! He handled it extremely
well and other than a severe dislike for the ditch (we have to work on that
more, I am not keen on camel jumping) ß
don’t ask me how I know what a camel looks like when it jumps, he ended up
being extremely brave and jumping everything else, including the banks and
running through the water. In the end he had settled mightily and I got a text
from Sarah later that evening that for the first time ever he was not stressed
on the trailer ride home…maybe we need to stress him with hundreds of horses
galloping around more often.
So now you know how our clusterf**k of a school went. I am
extremely proud of the whole group. We had such a positive outing. I look
forward to what it means for us for the summer.
For now safe travels and good luck to all.
Signing off~
Mandy
