It's Over...Now What?

We spent 6 minutes (or what feels like an eternity) riding through our dressage test on Thursday followed by  6 minutes and 13 seconds galloping around the cross-country on Friday, and today for the final phase, stadium jumping, we spent only 85 seconds cantering around a big and technical course.  It seems somewhat anticlimactic after the cross-country, but can be very influential in the final standings.  That was certainly the case today.  The top 10 in my division swapped places all over the board because of rails, stops, and time.  Only 5 people went double clear (no jumping, no time), one person had no jumping and a few time, and everyone else had jumping penalties added to their scores.

Lady took a number of rails today, seven to be exact, but 3 of them were due to an unfortunate stumble.  In the middle of the course, there was a BIG triple bar set six going strides away from a BIG triple (a vertical-to-vertical one stride, then two strides to an oxer).  I pressed Lady up to a nice forward deep distance at the triple bar and landed going for the 6, and at stride 5 Lady took a strange step with her hind end.  She took a stumble step to the base of the first part of the triple and picked her feet up and over as best she could.  I sat up, put my leg on, and told her to just keep going.  So like the awesome/amazing/fabulous/perfect horse she is, she kept picking her legs up but with the added strides we pretty much cleaned out the entire triple combination...but we did it in style!  As for the others, I will have 14 hours in the car to think about the round over and over to come up with what I could have done/should have done...but I won't over-analyze the course now.

I allowed myself a few moments of disapointment, because no one goes into stadium thinking "it's fine if I take  rails."  But only a few, because (1) my horse literally turned herself inside out to get through a really bad situation and kept both of us upright without taking on any refusals, and (2) as I left the arena I got a little course completion prize.  Walking back to the barn I grinned ear to ear because I had just accomplished something I never thought I would: competing at and completing the USEA/USEF Advanced championships.  We finished in 16th place.

More XC photos from USEA

I ordered tons of pictures from this weekend, and there will be video later too =)

So Worth the Trip

Let's just say that Lady would be ecstatic if someone came up with a sport that consisted of three days of cross-country!  The Advanced course at Chatt Hills was 3540m long with an optimum time of 6 minutes 13 seconds (riding at 570 meters per minute).  It started off with a series of quick and technical turning combinations, and then opened up for a chance to really gallop.  I went out to re-walk a number of the combinations a few times because there were a lot of very skinny fences set on bending lines.  As usual, after I got Lady out into the warm-up any worries started to fade away...and they disappeared completely as she burst out of the start box and over the first fence.

Here are a few pictures of the course that I took.  My computer doesn't want to cooperate so I cannot seem to rotate a few of them, so I apologize for the sideways shots! 

Fences 10 and 11...big angled tables one stride apart.

That brush was as tall as me!

The front side of the big brush at fence 6.

The Sunken Road

Jump, one stride, down, one stride, up, bounce, jump.

Sorry it's sideways but my computer is being a pain...the is 4B.

Another sideways view of 4AB.



And a sideways view of 15A, and you can barely see the flags for the drop to the chevrons (BCD).



15BCD

15ABCD from the back side...look at that drop!

 Lady ate up the course, and absolutely loved the turns and the skinny questions.  The course through to fence 15ABCD (the Bit of Britain bank complex) was so rapid-fire that I didn't bother checking how I was on time until after the sunken road at 21ABCD.  With 4 fly fences to go before the finish flags, I glanced down and saw that I still had a minute to go!  I couldn't believe it!  I let Lady reach out into a real gallop, and made it over the last few big tables to cross the finish flags just 1 second over the optimum time!  And Lady wanted to keep galloping through the flags and go around again...I love that horse.

I want to take a second to thank everyone for the texts and messages today.  It's really awesome knowing that I have a cheering section back home!

Eventing Nation has video of the entire Advanced division over bits and pieces of the entire course if you're interested in seeing how it rode.  They only caught me jumping over fence 17...one of the "small" tables heading to the final loop of the course.

Thanks for reading, and think clean thoughts for Lady and I around noon tomorrow...that's when we'll be doing the final phase, stadium jumping.

Tact and Diplomacy: Dressage Day at AECs

I usually focus so intently that I don’t hear much of what is said over the loudspeakers while I’m competing, but today something caught my attention: “…Now entering the arena for the Advanced Championships is Sara Gartland riding Always A Lady…”  As I cantered across the Grand Prix arena towards my dressage ring, I took a deep breath, smiled, and soaked it all in.  It was a pretty awesome feeling, especially because 12 hours earlier I wasn’t sure if I would actually be competing…

Wednesday was supposed to be my easy-going, get-organized day between the drive and the start of competition, but Miss Lady gave me a pretty good scare.  All day she seemed a little drawn up, but she never drinks well while shipping so I figured she was just catching up on her fluids still.  Then while I was bathing her after riding, I noticed that she was especially tense across her back and was even more drawn up.  Also, as I ran my hand across the underside of her belly she I found a large bump that she reacted very strongly to me touching.  With the combination of concerns, we made the decision to call the vet, who ruled out the possibility of colic (YAY!) but thought that she had been stung or had an allergic reaction to something.  In the morning today, everything looked much better, but those who know Lady know that she doesn’t need much of an excuse to give me a hard time in the dressage ring.  So I had to ride very “diplomatically” and definitely gave up a few points because I didn’t push her quite as much as usual.  However, given the circumstances, I was very pleased with my test and felt that certain parts were much improved from my last ride at Millbrook.  My mom tried to record my test with the new camera and got some of the trot work and some of the canter work…hopefully I uploaded it correctly!

Also, I finally got the pictures from the various devices onto my computer, so here’s a glimpse of Chattahoochee Hills (which is now an incorporated town, and also was the site for one of the Zac Brown Band music videos).

Our set up in the permanent barns!

They're really nice!

A view of the grounds.

I want one of these!

Some of the competition arenas.

Lady's opinion of dressage...

We made it through!

Also also, check out the pics on the USEA website... http://useventing.com/blog/?p=19658

Tomorrow is cross-country day, so wear a little pink for me!  I ride at 10:10am, so hopefully I will be able to report back some good news!

We're Off to See the Wizzard...and don't forget the Pop Tarts!

Well, I'm certainly not in Kansas, but I didn't start out there anyway.  There is a tornado warning issued for the part of VA where we're currently stopped to get some breakfast though!  The drive has been pretty rough to this point (the VA-NC line), because it's been on and off pouring rain since we left PA.  However, we're still making pretty decent time, and I still love driving south!  I didn't get to go to Aiken, SC, this winter so all year I've felt like I forgot something...but I'm getting my I-95 trip in!  When I was travelling with a friend of mine years ago, she said something about the fact that when you listen to the radio south of the Mason-Dixon line before sunrise you will listen to them talk about one of two things: church or aliens.  While I've never quite proven that theory to be true, I do enjoy playing radio roulette as I head into rural VA.  At least it keeps me awake!

If I had better internet connection than the McDonald's in Skippers has available I would start posting some of the pictures I have on my phone.  But I guess you'll have to take me on my word that both Lady and her travel partner (Emma Hartley's horse Topper) are happily munching on some hay.  I know in a few more hours Lady will start giving me the "Are we there yet?" look every time I peek my head in the trailer.

Thanks to a few good friends of mine: Karen, Cayla, and Jeff Rubin for sending me off with a FANTASTIC basket of goodies!  It's already half gone!  I took a few pictures of what it looked like before I tore it apart, so I'll be sure to post some of those later too.

We left PA at 3:36am and our estimated time of arrival in GA is 5:30ish this evening.  I'll probably post something more when we get to the hotel!  There's a lot I haven't covered but it's time to get going!

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Well, 17hrs, 4 torrential downpours, 3 traffic jams due to accidents, 2 tornado warnings, and 1 wrong turn due to being blinded by the rain later....WE MADE IT!!  Both Lady and Topper are happy to be in their stalls with big piles of hay in front of them.  We managed to get stalls in the permanant stabling, and Lady has an end stall in a barn on top of a hill with a view of all the comings and goings...she is in heaven.  Since it was dark by the time we pulled into the venue, I cannot wait to see what the place actually looks like, because judging from the gorgeous barns we're stabled in it's going to be pretty amazing.

I'll definitely have pictures up tomorrow!  And at some point I actually have to do some homework...

Almost There!

Hi everyone!   Welcome to my AEC’s blog!  I decided that instead of exploding your Facebook news feeds with more horse pictures, I would try blogging.  I am three short days away from pulling out the driveway for the 14 hour drive down to Fairburn, GA, where the 2011 American Eventing Championships will take place at Carl Bouckart’s Chattahoochee Hills Equestrian Center.  To me, it feels like just yesterday I found out that Lady and I had qualified for the AECs, but I’m sure to those who have spent a lot of time around me since that day in May, it feels like I’ve been talking about it for ages.  Knowing that I obtained a qualifying result at the Plantation Field Horse Trials last September, I hoped that one of my Advanced runs this season would provide me with the second qualifier I needed but did not expect anything.  There are a lot of chances and “if’s” in this part sport, part game of luck we call three day eventing, so I didn’t want to be guilty of planning my trip before I earned it.  But, at the MCTA Horse Trials in May, Lady and I secured our place in the Advanced division at the AEC’s, and as soon as I saw my name on the list I made the decision that I would be skipping a whole week of classes so that we could go to Georgia.

Lady post-gallop at Fair Hill

 My “road to the AECs” has been slightly unorthodox (much like most of my career to date) but not much different from those leading to any other competition I’ve gone to this season, because my amazing mare, Lady, is 20 years young.  Every week, I build Lady’s schedule around keeping her as loose and as supple as possible while also maintaining an appropriate level of fitness.  The occasional jump school at home consists of a few low turning exercises and about 5 times through a gymnastic exercise.  She shipped over to True Prospect for 3 or 4 big jump schools over the course of the summer, and over to Fair Hill for gallop sets and hillwork.  I try to sneak flatwork exercises into my conditioning work in hopes that Lady won’t notice.  To keep up my own fitness, I continued to exercise racehorses at Ashwell Stables where I have also gained new insights on conditioning and a new level of comfort with galloping at speed on terrain.  To practice dressage, cross-country, and stadium more than I can with Lady, I kept a string of young horses going at home who also started going to events over the course of the summer.  Lady and I did one “prep event” this summer; I ran the Advanced up at Millbrook Horse Trials at the beginning of August and had a great, confidence-building experience.

Millbrook Advanced, Photo Credit: Hoof Pix Photography

Lady’s last few days before we leave will consist of a long hack, a dressage school to make sure I know my test, and a mini prix at the Ludwig’s Corner Horse Show as a final jump school.  My last few days will consist of a “day of zen” out with the River Hills Foxhounds followed a lot of running around to pick up odds and ends between my rides on Lady and packing.  Be sure to check back on Tuesday, because I’ll use some of the time I’m not driving to post updates on our travels!

Also, because driving to Georgia makes me think of all the quality time I’ve spent on I-20, and because driving on I-20 makes me think of the Zac Brown Band’s “Highway 20 Ride,” I’ll leave you with this random-link-of-the-day .

Thanks for reading!