First Driving Show of the Year

[DiamondJubilee]

We had a very fun local to me show last weekend. It was so nice to only have to drive 2hr, as we are used to going to the US and 10+hr drives! It was at a beautiful new facility with permanent stalls all connected to an indoor. The indoor ring had the footing wet and rolled, so it was perfect for driving, even for those minis!

It was hot and humid with weather in the 100’sF, and torrential rains on Saturday. It was so nice to have everything indoors so we hooked outside of our stalls and drove right into the ring without getting wet! Plus it was a little cooler indoors with the ventilation there.

We moved in on Thursday and had a warm up drive with our new carriage. I only drove to it once before so we wanted to make sure everything was ok. We had a separate show on Friday and we did Dressage in the morning and cones in the afternoon. A slight spook in dressage (as he looked at a banner attached to the side of the ring on our lengthened walk, the judge wrote that he was trying to read the fine print!) and I just had to laugh a little at that. Totally unexpected but that’s horses for you! Keeping us humble lol. We actually ended up winning our dressage and had the second lowest dressage score out of 24 entries. We had a clean cones but 0.5 time penalties and finished 3rd in our cones. We still had a very low score and ended up Champion Prelim Pony!

Saturday and Sunday was our Pleasure Show with Turnout, Fault and Out, Working, Reinsmanship and Timed Obstacles. I also added the Ride and Drive class. I was very happy with our results and my boy was just perfect for me! We ended up 1st Place Ride and Drive, Large Pony Champion, High Point Welsh and Overall High Point of the show.

We have a little break and then we are off to Orleton Pleasure Show next Tuesday. I have a breed show with one of my 3 year olds this Sunday and have 2 line classes, lead line with a young girl and I entered in the green pony walk/trot class, so hopefully the weather holds out for us!

Hope everyone is having a good summer and you are all able to get out and drive

[DMK]

Congrats, that’s an excellent pile of show loot!

Those pics remind me how much I want to get a collar. I’ve convinced myself it will make a big difference in the quality of the trot… (And look beeeeyutiful, like your guy)

[2DogsFarm]

You & Pony look gorgeous!
Show sounds like a perfect place to drive when Outside is less than user-friendly

I skipped Fair this year.
#1-too hot & humid!
#2-new MGMT has decided minis are no longer allowed in Pony classes
Leaving a grand total of 3* classes over 3 days for me.
*1 is Championship that not only allows anyone to enter (what happened to 1st & 2nd only?) but now also requires entry in Halter, In-Hand or Showmanship
QH/WP-centric, anyone?
I joke instead of Society All Breed, show s/b renamed QH or Whatever

[Bluey]

Beautiful pictures, worthy all those ribbons.

I clicked on this thread because is 103F here and it read “First Driving Snow of the Year”.

[DiamondJubilee]

@DMK - I do love a full collar and find they pull so much easier and move better. But I do have 5 collars in various sizes (and hames, singles and pairs) as they change shape so much and often!! I waited until he was full grown to even get one and now have sizes from 19"-22" and in different widths as well.

Thank you all for the lovely complements. I don’t consider myself a driver as I don’t drive very often, and this is about my 4th or 5th driving show in the past 20 years. But I have been doing a bit this year as hubby is injured and unable to drive and I do love Pleasure shows. Reminds me of the hunter ring in a way, subjective but I still love it ha ha! Sucker for punishment I guess

The only thing I may need to add to the carriage is a foot rest as I’m too short for it! I have to sit a little forward in the seat to have my feet touch the ground. Or maybe add some blocks to my feet ha ha! That’s what you get when you’re 5’2".

Maybe I’ll get brave enough next year and try some CDE’s if my husband will let me. Get him to be my gator, which will be interesting to say the least! At least in the ring classes I can’t hear him telling me what to do every minute.

We are packed and ready to head to MA for Orleton Pleasure Show. We leave tonight and will be there by Wed before noon. About a 11hr drive for us, but we like to travel at night and stop for a few hours for a quick nap and give our guy a little rest. Then back up for 6am to finish the drive.

My 3 year old was great on the weekend and won his 3 and over gelding class (line) and qualified for the Royal Winter Fair in November. I had a junior do the leadline walk/trot with me leading, and he was perfect for her and won both of those classes as well. He was a little foot sore so I cancelled my walk/trot undersaddle class, and I was so happy with how he behaved anyway. I’ll give him a few weeks off to grow and be a “normal” pony again. I don’t like pushing the young ones too much at such a young age.

@Bluey - too funny!! Its been crazy hot here as well and in the 100’s. I feel bad driving on some of those days, and I’m glad I’m not doing any CDE’s in this heat. It did finally break yesterday and we are now in the 70’s and windy. Ponies are loving it more for sure. Me as well!

[DMK]

All my carriages have blocks and I’m 5’8!! Seriously, just check out the hard foam blocks or wedges used in PT, they really are perfect.

I use them to make it easy to use the brakes on marathon, it’s a a lot easier and more effective to just slide the foot over and press the brake rather than have to pick up the foot and use it to adjust pressure on the brake when you desperately wished you had that leg to brace against the carriage to keep you from being slung out of the seat! Even more fun when it’s the 5th wheel brake and you need to do some delicate feathering to control drift, but too much and you lock down those shafts… A lot easier to avoid that ugly outcome of you can still have your heel on that block.

And it’s also nice on dressage, makes that application of either brake less obvious to the judges on the side especially as you do diagonals or go up the center line. I attached a pic that shows it on the carriage (I have the modern European dash so it’s easy to see lol).

The marathon carriage blocks are zip tied on, I just drilled holes in the foam wedges. The presentation carriage has a single foam block cut to fit between the pedals, then I just put some of that outdoor Velcro adhesive strips on the block and the carriage to secure it.

I do you want to try Xan in a collar, I get a higher degree of bounce and suspension in his collected trot under saddle than I do in the carriage. Some of it is that true collection in a carriage is a myth, so it’s never going to be the same trot… But I have a feeling if he didn’t feel the need to go down into draft on the breast plate that maybe he could carry himself a little bit better through the collected work. But this will be a very expensive theory to test out, so I’m probably going to wait until he’s ready to do that 3* test