Review from Our Past Year!

[DiamondJubilee]

Its been quiet for our driving books right now as we have had quite the winter in Ontario! Snow, rain (?? what the heck!!!), cold, rain…repeat. Its been so icy and the footing in our rings has been so bad this year! I can’t remember a winter that we’ve had that’s been so bad.

I have taken my younger coming 6 year old pony (Duke) to a boarding barn a couple of months ago so I can ride and get him out and about - just better schooled for the upcoming year. He has settled in really well and seems to just love to jump. I’ve been having a blast with him! We hope to bring him home at the beginning of April to drive again if the weather is good. Fingers crossed!

This past November I took Duke and my yearling (Taco) to a large indoor show in Toronto - The Royal Winter Fair. It was the yearlings first “sleep over” and both ponies handled it well. I had some line classes for both ponies and a couple of under saddle classes with Duke. I was very proud of the ponies and we had a great time there!

We did some pair driving again at home with Duke and his older brother Jaguar. They have been doing really well and we are happy with their progress. We have put the carriages away back in October, but we are hoping to be able to drive them again mid April - the nice thing is we don’t have much snow so it should hopefully melt quickly and we can get back in our sandring!

I plan on long lining Taco this year to get him started with his driving career. I will take him back out to some more line shows this year to get him used to trailering and showing. Will be a busy year for us!

We have a few CDE’s and a pleasure show here and there planned for our new pair if all goes according to plan in the spring (NY Breeders Show with Duke as a single - riding, jumping, line and driving classes, small Quebec CDE in June with the pair - will be their first show together!, Bromont CDE, Orleton Farm and the Hermitage CDE). I might go back to the Royal with a pony or two if I get them qualified within the year.

Here are a few pictures and videos of the ponies. Hopefully they work! Duke is on the right and is the single pony driving at his first CDE in September. He is also the riding pony

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10160945013670046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10160938445725046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161360735015046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161161543980046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161178012205046&set=pb.687200045.-2207520000.1551808317.&type=3&size=1080%2C862

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161177998090046&set=pb.687200045.-2207520000.1551808329.&type=3&size=1080%2C862

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161151263650046&set=pb.687200045.-2207520000.1551808429.&type=3&size=1080%2C1079

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161154886780046&set=pb.687200045.-2207520000.1551808330.&type=3&size=750%2C422

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10161151244590046&set=pb.687200045.-2207520000.1551808429.&type=3&size=960%2C720

[goodhors]

Our last year was almost horseless. Sounds like a sad tale of woe listing it out! The younger horses did get trained over at the Trainers, so they progressed. But did almost nothing after they got home again. Had two that hurt themselves, overextended suspensories slipping in the mud. MAYBE if they didn’t tear around so… Anyway, both are moving well with time off. Vet wants to see the mare this month , hoping for the OK to start working her when the weather gets nicer. Then family issues that had me on the road too much to keep up with farm needs, so riding did not happen. Good thing horses do not have a “use by date” or they spoil! Ha ha Never been so happy to see a year end, start a new one! Just a bad year fo us.

Winter has been yucky, lots of ice, moderate snow depths. But managable with tractors starting well, trucks usable. Then husband slipped about Christmas, hurt his knee. Did not improve so he ended up getting an MRI to find torn meniscus and ACL. Surgery went well, he healed well and is about back 100%. Bless the miracles of modern surgery! Went to visit my friend over night, and came home last night to find the young gelding had cut his side badly. Husband had called the Vet out to sew him up, she did nice work. Horse is evidently an easy “drunk”. He rested his head on husband’s shoulder, went to sleep and snored the whole time she was sewing and fixing him up. Horse must stay inside for a week, which should be exciting. I will rotate companions keeping him company inside, perhaps stay calmed down better. The cut is huge, 10 inch horizontal on his ribs, was deep too but no rib bones showing. Checking his paddock, husband thinks horse cut himself in the gate hinge pin that had hair on it. Whether he slid or got pushed into it by another horse is in question. He plays hard with the other low-status gelding, but you would THINK both could get thru a wide 14ft opening without hitting either side! Never had anyone get hurt on gate pins over many years, so we figure it is “one of those things” horses do to keep us on our toes.

On the plus side, I am hearing birds calling which does not happen much in winter. The bird feeder is getting more visitors than we had most of the winter. The horses are letting go of some hair despite the low temps! I THINK I saw buds swelling on a tree as I drove by. So Nature is starting to consider it being Spring, have to see if the weather folks agree.

[DiamondJubilee]

Oh wow! What a winter you have been having as well goodhors!

Glad your horses are doing better and hubby as well. That must have been scary when he injured his knee and needed surgery. Glad the outcome was amazing and he’s doing well.

I’ve been scared that I would slip on all the ice or even worse, the ponies slip and injure themselves. At least I can complain about it if I got hurt and would hopefully be able to fix it with care. Always so hard when animals hurt themselves and we can’t quite figure it out.

Thats crazy about your one guy needing the stiches! They always seem to injure themselves on the weirdest things! At least you were sort of able to figure it out…

I see our weather is to get a bit nicer next week. A lot of the day times temps just above freezing. It was -21C this am. We’ve been having some really cold weather the past week and we have about 1ft of snow, which really isnt that much for us. The ice is still just hiding under that bit of snow…

Can’t wait for the warmer weather! Here’s to spring!!!

[DMK]

With horses and injuries, they are the very description of “where there is a will, there is a way” and boy oh boy, do they have a will for that sort of thing!

@DiamondJubilee while our winter (GA) has not been nearly so awful, it’s just been awful for us. I had grand plans for our first year competing. A couple HDTs, a couple CDEs. Driving over to Aiken for lessons.

Yeah, that was Noah and his ark that just floated past me, I think…

Turns out if you are practically axle deep in mud it is rather hard to get a horse fit for an HDT, never mind a CDE, and that is assuming it isn’t actually raining (which it was. All. The. Time.). Sigh… Plus the carriage/barn/arena are at the bottom of a hill and that hill path rapidly turned into one giant red clay slip and slide. I decided that I really didn’t want to risk a totally unnecessary soft tissue injury just to get up the hill to another field or out on the dirt road. So every time I needed to go up on the road, I ended up towing the carriage up the hill with the gator and walking the harnessed pony up there to hitch him up and drive up and down the road (that would have been a nice solution overall, but I only trust that road on weekends, not during weekdays after work in my 30 nondark minutes).

There’s something counterintuitive about having a vehicle to pull your carriage. Pretty sure that 's why a have a fjord.

I think my finest moment was 9.7km, average speed 11kph, all done in an arena roughly 30Mx70m. Turns out horses in search of injuries aren’t the only ones with a will.

That led to the second problem. I started to notice that although my arena is AMAZING at dealing with 73" rain last year and 25" or so since December… when you add weight on the back step, it might not be good for the long term health of the arena. Fortunately it is finally getting warm enough to keep the mud at a dull roar, so I can use my fields for fitness and most days the hill has good footing. But the CDEs quickly got changed to HDTs. Oh well, that was probably not the worst idea for a pony who skipped training and went straight to prelim (we did one training marathon last year with prelim cones/dressage).

But I do really love this sport, and I’m super proud of him. We are consistently right up there in the top scores in dressage and in his 2nd DT last month I started to ask for some more aggressive paths through the hazards. There was one driver who won all the hazards but was 20+ points behind in dressage… we’re not going to beat that and we aren’t trying, if you know what I mean… but we were 2nd in 2 hazards and in fractionals of 2nf in 2 hazards. The last 2 was driver error (I overshot A and I was STILL close in time) and a planned long path through his first water hazard. So I think we can be competitive there as well. And cones. Sigh. I will get better. Eventually. I did cut my measuring stick down to intermediate as punishment for my sins.

Also, pro tip. If you spend all day Friday volunteering as a ConeHead for the Intermediate and Advanced division, and you say to yourself no less than a half dozen times “do NOT confuse 12 with 16 when you come off 15D”… you know what you will do? Confuse 12 with 16. Because phrasing stuff in the negative is a stone cold solid rookie move and I know better. 4 skinnies, 2 weaves and 2 oxers. No problem. Changing your mind about where you are going to go at the last minute? Problem. (We also had 2 more balls down, one was a fluke, just as the wheels were entering the cone plane a team passed on the road in front of us, and Xan was just so focused and in his own world that it startled him. That was enough. The other was pure carelessness on my part as I was making up time on a big sweeping curve.)

But one more DT (and the Southern Drive) left in our season and all I can say is why didn’t I start doing this years ago? I knew I wanted to do it, now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long!

[DiamondJubilee]

I don’t know what everyone else’s spring has been like, but its been the pits here in Ontario! This cold weather just seems to be hanging on and we had a mini snow storm 2 days ago. Then up to mild temps, and today cold and rain.

We have our first mini CDE with our pair this weekend at an indoor show in Quebec (about a 9hr drive from our farm) and we’ve been trying to drive around the rain and snow. We were even packing the horse trailer while it was snowing out. Now this is a first for us!!

Our pair is green but they have been trying hard and been going very well. The format is more of a “derby” where the dressage and cones are on the Saturday and they have a mini derby on the Sunday. Most horses in Canada arent quite fit enough this early in the year to do a full CDE, so this should be just perfect for them.

Our plan of course is to go slow and steady, and since its an indoor show, we think it will be the perfect venue for the pairs first show. The facility is brand new, and has only been open for a couple of weeks. Its quite the place, sporting 3 huge indoor arenas (the stabling is attached to the warm up indoor, and then you go through another chute directly into the large competition ring, so we don’t even have to go outdoors!).

We are all packed and start our drive tonight and will rest after about 5hr and then continue the drive the next morning.

Here are a few pictures and videos of our guys from yesterday:
https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161798264630046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161798256680046/?type=3

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59342844_10161798251455046_7280926601397665792_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=d54e9ae19e872e8cb6a797abc835bbf0&oe=5D674E4B

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/58462474_10161790088315046_21639419626782720_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=ca5a92acb2ca471f5d080b9de62834e6&oe=5D2C0FBA

[showjumpers66]

They are looking good!

I am so envious of those who are able to drive roads and year round. I am just now getting my mare going again, but it is still slow going … every time it seems to dry up enough to drive, it rains again. I have a 3 day clinic in 10 days that I am not ready for and then a breed show the weekend after that. I lunge a day, drive the next day or two and then I have to wait 4 or 5 days to repeat. I do feel like I am making some progress. Even though I am not able to drive regularly, we are starting to build a foundation on the lunge line. I lunge her in full harness with my tie backs buckled into the breast collar so that she has some tightness to her breeching as if she is going to be goosey about anything it will be the breeching. She has a rock solid whoa. She is very good off walk, trot, and cluck commands. We are starting to build a frame and three distinct trots, doing some cavalettis. I would like to long line her, but I just had total knee replacements in December and in July, so don’t feel like I can handle a melt down over the long lines yet. She may be fine now that she is driving, but I am having flash backs of how horrid she was before she went to the trainer’s last summer. Driving, she is very forward and willing, but I don’t feel like I have real contact with her mouth yet or good engagement. I have to be careful … I am having so much fun and she never quits, that I think it would be easy to over do it with her. We just got a marathon carriage which has been a treat to drive … I had no idea how rough going a cart was. LOL

[DiamondJubilee]

@showjumpers66 - thank you! We are thrilled with them!

And I know how you feel. This weather has been the pits for sure! Glad you can do a bit and even though it may not seem like much, I’m sure it really helps each time you go out, even if its just lunging. We can only do the best we can with this weather!

What type of marathon carriage did you get? And I’m sorry if you have already posted this, but what do you drive? A pony or horse?

We just got back from our indoor show with the pair and are beyond thrilled with them. My husband received his lowest dressage score ever in his 16 years of competing (a 40 and a 44.2) with a brand new pair and their first time in the ring togther! He was champion dressage with them, having the lowest score of all Prelims, and had the lowest score out of all 27 entries. He was beaming from ear to ear as he usually does not score well in dressage but used to make up for it in cones and marathon with our older pair.

We had cones directly after the dressage and just wanted to go slow and steady. Unfortunatly the outdoor ring was not ready yet as Quebec had a terrible winter and the outdoor rings were not completed (this is a brand new $15 million dollar facility - complete with 500 indoor stalls that are not only heated, they are air conditioned too! Same with the 2 large indoor arenas - one is 100’ x 220’ and the other is 120’ x 250’). There is a huge outdoor Grand Prix ring and 6 other outdoor rings as well, but its still very much under construction.

Anyway, Ray had 2 easy balls down and did have time penalities as the course was tight and he wanted to keep it smooth and steady - trot only with just a little canter at the end. He finished off 6th place in cones and 3rd place with his dressage score added in. Very close as 1st place was only ahead by less than 3 penalities! Very pleased with the results.

The derby the next day was just a course of cones with 2 hazards at the end of each arena. We again just wanted to go slow and steady but did end up cantering most of the course. Ray just let the ponies tell him what they wanted to do. The first round he stared the first few cones at the trot and our young pony went into an easy canter so he just went with it. The older of the pair has done single CDE’s for 2 years so is not new to cantering or galloping a course. They had a few bobbles and broke them down to a trot in a few spots to keep it nice and smooth, but we were really pleased on how they worked as a team!

He ended up 6th place for the derby and was one of the only people who went double clear on both rounds. The times were fairly close as well so that was a pleasant surprise! Out of the 9 entries (we were the only pair, but there were 8 other single prelim ponies and horses) we ended up in 4th place. Over the moon with these boys!!

Lots to work on but we are back at the same facility for a 2 day outdoor CDE in 5 weeks. Hopefully we can set up some of our hazards at home so we can work on some things as we havent really been able to with this pair. They have both seen hazards as singles, just not hooked as a pair.

Here are a few pictures and video from the show this weekend. Sorry for the poor quality, hopefully the pro photograper got some better photos!

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59981104_10161817684680046_4670926085729288192_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=f03f8ce52602ee5d631f5b47296f5452&oe=5D32DC95

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59286143_10161817684925046_8101264053558575104_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=9ef679a2322ca79675dfb3de25afac63&oe=5D2B6AD7

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59453827_10161814044400046_3838368678517145600_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=00ff3ce35732f477692df9f1ac1d2513&oe=5D76DE0C

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59079007_10161808375425046_8903203394831777792_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=095c1f9ef7c69c3fcabafde940aa1dfc&oe=5D641854

https://scontent.fyyz1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/59347715_10161808375065046_1478236458048290816_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent.fyyz1-1.fna&oh=9dd99c1122d741cfc85516307cf86ba0&oe=5D3051EE

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161817698490046/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/alison.plumbtree/videos/vb.687200045/10161808466590046/?type=3

[DiamondJubilee]

Very nice! I drove a homebred Section C cob (black with 4 white stocking and blaze) for a few years. He was a blast to drive! You guys look like a great team. I just adore cobs! I’m sure you will have a ton of fun with her over the years!

And our colours are navy blue with some light grey and a hint of yellow Sounds like you have a very similar taste in colours lol!

A few better photos:

[showjumpers66]

Thanks! We hope to do our first trial in August. Love your team!

[DMK]

They look lovely, I look forward to a summer full of pics to motivate me to get ready for our season! Also, you should come join us in Florida for the winter…

I’m done until Fall, I’m thinking about a trial in September and then start the season proper with Katydid, so it is on to ridden dressage for us for the summer. But we finished up the year with a great last trial at Black Prong, and every competition we lowered our dressage score, so I couldn’t be more pleased.

A couple weeks ago I got back from the Southern Drive which was so much fun. Driving people really are the best people, aren’t they? But best of all, I had a dressage, cones and a hazard lesson with my favorite instructors while I was down there. We started on some of the intermediate movements in dressage, putting together a few collected trot steps and playing around with stretchy/working trots followed by working/collected trot circles. I got some solid pointers on cones and feel a lot better about that, plus I am setting everything at intermediate AND I have the pneumatics on for summer so that should make it seem as wide as a 4 lane highway in prelim next year, right? The icing on our competition cake was the last day of Southern Drive. They do a drive-a-test, scored but not placed. It was P6 and we rocked it. Last year when we were just starting out driving, I was thrilled to break into (barely) the 50’s*. This year we knocked almost 17 points off that so I’m kind of in awe with my fjord.

• ok I wasn’t thrilled at first because I didn’t understand about driven dressage scores at that time so I was trying to put a 59 in the context of dressage or eventing scores. But I get it now.

Here’s some scenes from our winter

The best part of this picture (aside from me nailing the zig zag) is you can see my hat on the ground behind me

KON_0728 by dklinger62, on Flickr

dressagin’ is serious bidness

Xan dressage3 by dklinger62, on Flickr

Sunday is FUNDAY

power hazars by dklinger62, on Flickr

IMG_2660 by dklinger62, on Flickr

last gate last hazard by dklinger62, on Flickr

[DiamondJubilee]

@DMK - funny you should mention Florida. We are actually planning on coming down with 3 of our ponies not this winter coming, but the winter afterwards. I’m just waiting for my 2 year old to grow up and start his driving career and then we can bring the pair down for my husband and a single pony for me. We have researched some places and decided that we would probably stay at Black Prong (spoke with them on the phone the other day) and we would stay for 3 months fitting in 3 - 4 shows. We are really looking forward to that even though its pretty much 2 years away lol!

Your show season sounds like you have had a great year so far! Congrats to you! Very exciting and you guys look great! You should be super happy and proud of the progress you have made in a short time

Our season has just been crazy. I have never seen so much water on our fields and have had this cool weather so nothing is drying up. We still can’t put our ponies on pasture nor can we get any miles in around our fields. We have been stuck to our sand ring driving around in circles and luckily enough for us, we have 2 hazards (incuding our water hazard) right off of our driveway, so we are able to “practise” some hazards. But its really hard to condition when we don’t have the hills or miles to drive around. We still have cool, wet weather in our 2 week forcast so I have no idea when we will be able to get out and about. Its been a tough year for us for sure!

[DMK]

I feel your pain, that was the story of my winter! Trotting up and down our dirt road on Sunday morning to get fit for competition and just hoping it all came together. It was a lot of learning this year, which was the plan, but I think it came together better than I could have hoped for. Next year I’d like to be in it to win it so we are going to do prelim and some CTs at intermediate in 2020 and make our 2021 plan from there.

I’m extra glad the Nagles are talking about taking reservations two years out. They seem like great new owners and I understand some of the early fall events are cancelled because they are working on improvements, so while I am super bummed about Camp Black Prong not being on the schedule, I’m excited about the work since we never made it into a water hazard this year and the bridge/gulch one was also off limits (but as wet as it was, I don’t think anything was going to make that driveable). We will have to meet up when we are all down at Black Prong in two years.