Poplar Place HT recap… the truck is in the hospital… and the mother is on her way!
Well, this post is a little overdue, but there is definitely lots of news to share with those of you who take the time to read this!
Ollie and I were up at Poplar Place HT in Hamilton, Georgia last weekend for our last Advanced HT of the 2010 Spring Season! The goals going into the weekend were to nail the dressage test, and to repeat our usual clear showjumping performance. We didn’t committ to actually running the cross country phase until Friday afternoon about 12 hours before our scheduled xc time. David feels pretty confident about Ollie’s cross country, and we werent’ sure what the footing was going to be like, so we were waiting for a game-time decision so that we could make the best decision for his health and soundness. Fortunately, Central GA has had a lot of rain recently, so the clay footing had tons of give to it. So much, in fact, that certain parts of the property were actually a little on the deep side. So, after having a bit of a disappointing dressage test ( 8 points higher than our most recent time out, due to a bit of nerves and a slight training roadblock) we walked the course and got the go ahead from Coach to ride xc. I was really happy about this, because the terrain at Poplar is more than just a little hilly, so we got a chance to put some great fitness miles under our belt. So, I picked my way across the wet parts of the course, worked pretty quickly up the many hills, and put Ollie through the exercises on the course. He felt confident and very rideable into the water and through the sunken road and coffin complexes, and I was in a MUCH better mood on Saturday afternoon than I was on Friday afternoon!! Sunday, he put in his trademark clear showjumping, even though I added strides in 2 of the lines and came in kind of quiet to the triple combination. He is pretty fit, and I was having a bit of trouble figuring out if I could let him carry on through the course, or if I needed to keep things a little quieter. The good news is that a) he still jumps great when I’m making things more difficult for him, and b) that I have a jumping lesson this afternoon to help with some of the technical stuff so that we can learn to work together a bit better!
On the not-so-good news list, the trusty Ford had a little overheating episode day before yesterday, and is at the dealership getting sorted out. I suppose when you’ve accumulated almost 200 000 kms in 4 years driving all over North America, its probably pretty reasonable to need a little extra help. But, seriously??!! Why couldn’t we have waited until after Kentucky. But, there’s probably no good time for truck trouble, so fingers crossed for a speedy recovery of the trusty Ford.
Ollie, Shelby and I are Looking forward to seeing our mother at some point in the middle of the night tomorrow!! She arrives in Orlando late friday night and will be buzzing up I-75 in her rental car to help us get ready for the trip to The Fork CIC 3* at the old homegrounds. We haven’t seen each other since the end of October, so we are definitely going to have a good visit. Look for more updates through the next 10 days as we get ourselves sorted out for Training Sessions and the trip to North Carolina! Take Care