Young Rider Camp

GMHA has a way of feeling like home whether its your first trip or your 20th...
It seems like I've been there hundreds of times, but this was Wesman's first!

Since we were going for Young Rider Camp, and Jerry was one of the coaches we decided that going up together would be a reasonable idea. So Jerry arrived at my house-about 5mins before we were suppose to be at camp...
Everything was packed, including Wesman, and we were off...
The ride up was strange- first I had to run out of the truck at a red light because it had started raining and Jerry's shoes were going to get wet... but the light turned green and he started to drive away! So I ran back to get inside and left his shoes in the bed of the truck to drown! But with some snacks everything was forgotten and it was smooth sailing.

When we arrived at GMHA it was about 8pm. Most everyone was up finishing dinner and talking about the next few days and what was to be expected. I was left to my own devises out at the barns. Wes soon found that there were tons of other horses that he could become friends with and settled in fine while I unloaded "Hanabil" and the rest of my things into the tack stall. By the time I had finished the bus was pulling in and everyone was checking their horses one last time and piling onto the bus. Jerry stopped by and gave me a piece of cake- dinner I suppose. Then it was off to Ascutney!

The first day of riding was upon us and we were all anxious to find out our groups and get to riding. I was in the pink group...
The first day, like every day, we were to ride twice. Once in the morning and then again after lunch. And on the first day the pink group only rode with Jerry. Awesome. Fortunately the very first thing we did was cross country. I tacked up and headed out a little earlier than we were suppose to just in case Jerry had extras planned when in fact he didn't even bother to look at his schedule. So we started with some small stuff- we figured our group was for the green horses or special ed horses like Wes. And eventually came to the water! It's GMHA, water is unavoidable. To get across a little tiny stream the first time it took some coaxing-- By which I mean Jerry fwailing a rain coat around to get Wes to go forward. But seriously after that he was fine with water for the whole span of camp! After that conquest Wes got to be the LEADER horse over the ditch and teach his new best friend, a pony named Gilligan, all about them! A bank in and out of the water mixed with a few of the training jumps and that was that.
So later that day we did some Dressage... with Jerry again. He made a small dressage ring in the dust bowl. The concentration was on being accurate in riding dressage, not just getting the movement done. It was pretty good. Lots of endless 10m circles. Dizzy.

We didn't ride with Jerry again for the rest of camp, which I suppose is good. We rode a few times with Stephie Baer in the Dressage ring and worked a lot on beable to keep conection the entirety of the ride, and be able to handle the sitting trot a little more gentlemanlike.
We went out again to the cross country with Carol Kozlowski and since we went out the first day with Jerry, little Wesman was quick to point out that he did infact know what he was doing. It was hilarous.
The final day we were with Stephie again, but this time for show jumping. We did a bit with gymnastic lines and ended with a couple courses. Wesman was so well behaved that Stephie had a very hard time believing that we couldn't make our way around a simple novice course come show day- frankly I couldn't either.

The ride home was much less exciting- unless of course you count the unofficial gossip that escaped from the two of us in the anything but silent truck.

The Story of Stoneleigh...

Stoneleigh Burnham...

Wesman finished there last year at their fall Horse Trials with Jerry riding... they finished with like 900,000,000 points. So we were on a mission to perhaps finish again... and maybe with a reasonable amount of points...

It was a terribly eventful day.

The morning started with a bloody head... Wesman, um, isn't super fond of having his forelock/ear area touched which makes life difficult when you need to braid him. He was super good for the whole mane and then we were left with two choices... 1. Get the forelock braided and look handsome. OR 2. Wail our head on the ceiling and bleed a little.
We went with #2.
So we went to the show grounds with a beautifully braided mane and a not so beautiful forelock...
Life goes on.
We go to the show grounds with plenty of time to set up camp. By the time I had returned from getting my packet the tent was up and pancakes and sausage awaited me... Wesman had already eaten two pancakes...
When we pulled him out of the trailer we tried again to get the forelock braided but had no luck. So we tacked up and headed down to Dressage warm up where Jerry was waiting.
It was wicked muddy in warm up and in the rings... Its only been raining for the last 95 days in a row nonstop. Warm up was good and our test went well- I remembered to think almost the whole time we were in the ring! Our score was less than desirable but all agreed our test was much better than the number.

Jerry and I were off to walk the course! Mom stayed behind and took Wes for a nice little graze- though he much rather make friends and watch everyone else go than eat- and Dad started to cook lunch- I believe chicken sandwiches were on the menu.
As Jerry and I walked the course we planned out how to handle everything from Wes running to the jump, backing off to the jump, and backing up away from the jump. I only had to run a little to keep up with Jerry this time around.
We got back to the trailer, ate a quick bite then got ready for Stadium.
Warm up was fine- tons of horses, tons of mud. We were all ready to go into the ring, the bell rang and we were off. The tracks to the jumps were soggy and deep but Wes was handling them like a superstar....

Jumps 1-5 went beautifully and we were on the turn heading to 6...
Well we had a little run out problem... No big deal, right?
Yeah well... we ran out of the ring... right back in to warm up... then proceeded to go backwards up the hill towards the trailer...
Apparently leaving the ring is call for elimination...
We didn't get to ride cross country...
{This is where I would put a picture of Cross Country if I had one...}
Heard that for Training they had moved Stadium into a different ring- with sand instead of grass... and a legit fence the whole way around the ring...and a gait! Perhaps we should be running Training.



Young Rider Camp at GMHA then off to Apple Knoll H.T.

The cats think they are beautiful...