Le Trec

Today was the final competition for the season at Moorfield Riding Center. The girls and I have had a blast putting our new found 'skills' to the test. The competition today was to complete an obstacle course with 12 different stations in the fastest time possible but the points actually came from the difficulty level chosen to complete each obstacle (walk, trot, canter, etc). We had two goes at the course with two different horses.

List of Obstacles:

1. Mounting horse without help in 15 seconds (very difficult for an old, fat girl but I did it)
2. Bending pole ~ walk the horse through two bends without touching the poles
3. Canter through zig-zag but must keep the horse at a steady pace. If you lost the pace you started at, then there was no score
4. Slow walk ~ again, if the horse did not stay at a steady pace you did not score any points
5. Move block from one barrel to another ~ this seems easy enough but some horses don't like going near barrels
6. Canter along a path while keeping horse in steady pace; if pace changes or horse stops cantering there are no points scored
7. Walk across a bridge without stepping off the sides
8. Open a gate, walk through, then close the gate while mounted on horse
9. Zig Zag poles in a circle while in canter ~ steady pace or no score
10. Bring horse to full stop & then back horse up without stepping out of bounds
11. Go through limbo poles while mounted on horse ~ the old woman actually did this :-)
12. Zig Zag poles at steady, fast pace to finish line

Picture summary of Brittney's day.... she did fabulous!

Ben was her first ride of the day

Then Timmie

Sitting tall & proud on Timmie

Open that gate

Gate is closed - success!

Cantering on Timmie

Backing Timmie up

...after finishing the Limbo Poles Timmie decided to take Brittney on a full-out run. No Worries though, she got him under control, brought him back, and finished the race.

Do you know what happens if you don't compete in these events? Just ask Kevin, you get to be the parent lead reign runner :-) So here is Sophie's store:

Sophie gettting ready to go

Sophie loving on Rickie

Mounting Rickie without help

And...she is up

Kevin doing the lead reign dance :-)

Preparing for the next obstacle, but do you see how tall she is sitting in that saddle

Slow & steady walk

Closing the gate while on Rupert

Backing up Rupert

Do you see the judge in the background? She should have given Sophie extra points for her next move...a front flip off of Rupert when he decided to stop & eat grass.

But never fear, Sophie got right back up on that horse with tears streaming down her face. She was determined to show Rupert who was boss :-)

No pictures of me, but that is ok. I had a blast riding Lulu and Cindy. I was able to get both of the horses to canter when necessary but neither horse were too keen on the idea of backing up. Oh well, you can't win them all...