Notes from North Georgia, Milton

Home Team, Combined Driving
Please note how I have carefully arranged myself so that I can still see out.

Another trip on the rattly box. Another home away from home. (Gainesville GA, ed.)

Trailers is scary. Not mine. Mine is fine. Other trailers, with other horses on them.

Motorcycles is scary. Don’t like loud vroomy noises.

Other horses is scary. Sometimes. Other times, I look at them and laugh. Why use all that extra energy?

I don’t like using extra energy. Except when I need to use extra energy. Then, I have a LOT.

I like to leap away from scary things. But not too far. If I did, I’d be all on my alonesome.

I’m an old hand at bridling and hitching now.

I walked EVERYWHERE and looked at EVERYTHING. Different arenas, barns full of other horses to talk to, even walking down a big – a huge – hill, and trotting in the open.

A bucket of treats. Five pounds of carrots. Constant hay. Home away from home is not without perks.

I need to talk with the brown horse about sharing the load. (Good luck with that. Many others have had the same conversation with the brown horse over the years, ed.)

Update
[Notes from North Georgia, Us]
[In Which I Consider How Much Schooling Is Enough]
[What Happens When One Spends Five Days Sitting About In Northeast Georgia]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Road to the World Cup, Rail Work vs Patterns, Guest Post

Adventures in Saddle Seat

 

Stepping Stone Farm rider Reagan Upton is on the U.S. Saddle Seat World Cup Team. She is sharing her story. Welcome Reagan.

Part 1 [Have Saddle, Will Travel]
Part 2 [First Team Practice]
Part 3 [Three-Gaited & Five-Gaited]
Part 4 [Do I Miss Equitation?]
Part 5 [Traveling for the Team]
Part 6 [What Is Equitation?]
~~~

Reagan and Rare Friends win Adult Equitation at the 2015 Dixie Cup horse show.

The World Cup competition consists of two phases (Phase I and Phase II) that are held on separate days. The riders are required to ride a different horse for each phase. Each individual phase will consist of two segments:

1. Rail work: the riders will all compete together and work at a walk, trot and canter (the five-gaited team will also work at the slow gait and rack) both directions of the ring.

2. Pattern work: this will be executed individually. All the riders competing have received six patterns already to begin studying and practicing. At the competition, two of the patterns will be drawn at random and those will be the patterns the used for each phase.

The rail work section will run like any other horse show, with the exception that I will have never competed on the horse I will be riding. The rail work segment on an unfamiliar horse doesn’t stress me too much. I have been lucky to have many opportunities to catch ride at horse shows on horses I have never ridden before. Competing on an unfamiliar animal is something I am familiar with.

The pattern work section could be tricky. If you have read my previous post [Part 3], you know that five-gaited equitation is not present at USA shows. So doing five-gaited pattern work is not something I have a lot of experience with. I have done 100s if not 1000s of three-gaited patterns, so I am comfortable and well versed in the individual elements of the patterns. I am just not polished in the “gaited format”. Luckily, I have the patterns to practice before the competition. Two of these patterns will be used during the competition. The wild card will be the horses…

USA is required to provide all the horses that will be used for the competition since we are the host county. USA’s five-gaited horses will not be familiar with pattern work since USA does not have five-gaited equitation. So racking a figure 8 or slow gaiting a serpentine is not something the horses have been previously trained to do. At least the playing field will be even. All five-gaited riders from all countries will be riding gaited horses that probably have never been asked to do pattern work before this competition. The biggest challenge for ALL riders will be communicating each required pattern element to the horses who will all likely be thinking, “You want me to do what???”

Baby On Board

Random Snaps

 

When we go over to Stepping Stone Farm with Milton, I bring drinks to store in the tack room.

There’s a future foal in the refrigerator! Tell me this isn’t a weird time to be alive.

I know the idea was to keep the box cold. I took the photo as quickly as possible and then closed the fridge. I even went back to double check that the door was shut.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

Mr. Excitement Regards His Future


Home Team

 

We took Milton to Full Circle Horse Park to walk over the teeny, tiny Amoeba-level jumps. Despite my snarky title and the half-mast ears in the photo, Milton’s attitude was the perfect combination of stepping quietly over the little logs and marching happily around the field.

He paused in front of one jump, as if to consider whether he could indeed step over. As I sat there considering my next move, he decided that Yes, he could and over we went.

We trotted about the countryside, we trotted away from a few fences, but did not trot AT any jumps. I didn’t want him to get overexcited and land in a rampage. He’s done that on the lunge line.

He spooked once. At the platform where the dressage judge sits. After which, he crawled around the dressage ring at a snail’s pace.

Likes XC. Hates dressage. Looking more and more like an event horse.

My first time on cross-country in … I don’t know … how long ago did they stop having penalty zones? My first time on cross-country with Milton. Our first time passing through red/white flags together. Our first time standing in a start box.

Baby steps.

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott

You Can’t Handle The Trot

Tack Box Tales, Adventures in Saddle Seat

My favorite Alvin story bears retelling.

We were at Midsummer back in 2013 [Show Report]. I was still in Academy Walk-Trot. First and second place riders from the regular classes rode in the championship. Since Alvin & I won the first class, I had the opportunity to hot dog in the second class. I was feeling full of myself.

Picture us at the ingate. Alvin calmly waiting to start. Me bouncing about excitedly.

Me: Let’s go! Let’s do this thing! Rock and roll! Saddlebred sizzle time! Show ’em what you got!

Alvin: No. If I gave you what I got, you couldn’t ride it. I’ll give you what you are ready for.

Me, meekly: Okay, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

2013 Sandra Hall Photography

“For this (the championship) victory pass, I remembered to stay upright when Alvin kicked it into gear. I was rewarded with a few steps of real Saddlebred motion. His shoulder lifted about six feet in the air, the whole front of the horse got light & fluffy, and suddenly I had this contained explosion going on in front of me. It felt as if he was on two wheels, but in a good way. Wheeee-ha.” [Show Report]

Other Alvin Adventures
Show & Tell with horse, [Alvin Goes To School]
“Channeling a fantasy life wherein I was jumping-off in the Dixon oval.” [Show Report: Fun Show 2016 #1]
“If dirt wasn’t hitting me in the face, we weren’t going fast enough.” [Show Report: Team Awesome, Pro-Am 2016, Photos]

Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott