Sunday, March 13, 2011

Arabian Highpoint

Spring Into Dressage celebrated it's 20th birthday this past weekend with ice cream sundaes and brownies on Saturday afternoon. The show was held at the Mount Hood Equestrian Center on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We hauled Baythoven in on Thursday night. The DH helped set up the dressage arena while Sarah got Bay settled in. We had four horses from our barn in the show. Two of them were showing for the first time ever. I volunteered on Saturday in the warm up arena. I did four hours in the morning and was scheduled to do another four hours in the afternoon, but Sarah came and relieved me about 4 o'clock (bless her heart). My feet were killing me, and I was cold!!! I did 3 more hours on Sunday as gate person. The show was full with a waiting list. We could have used a few more volunteers, but isn't that always the case? I wish more people would give a couple of hours of volunteer time when they come to shows. Even if they are to busy to do so themselves it would be nice if they would have family or friends do so on their behalf. It seems like I see the same faces doing the work at the shows, and I worry about how we will keep the show going when those faces retire.

Things went very smoothly, and the show stayed on time if not a few minutes ahead of time on both Friday and Saturday. The judge, Lilo Fore, was excellent. Sarah and Bay rode four tests in two days and her scores were consistent and fair. They did Training Level, Test 3 and received a 68.000% out of 6 riders on Friday morning. A score that earned them a 2nd place ribbon. On Friday afternoon they rode First Level, Test 1 and received a score of 64.828% out of four riders. This also earned them a 2nd place ribbon.

On Saturday they repeated the tests and received a 68.400% out of 5 riders placing 2nd and a 65.862% out of 3 riders placing 1st. The best part was they bettered the scores from the previous day. At the end of the final day Baythoven had earned the Arabian Highpoint ribbon. I am really proud of both of them. Competing in open dressage shows against fancy warm bloods isn't easy, but they did it and they did it well.

7 comments:

  1. Great results .....bet you are so so proud!!!

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  2. Congratulations to them! Warmbloods seem to always have the judges eye.

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  3. Wonderful! Congratulations to both.

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  4. Congratulations to Sarah and Beythoven! Pretty darn cool.

    You're so right about the volunteers. I wonder too what will happen when those people retire. There just are not enough volunteers for all the work so burning out the volunteers a show has can happen all too easily.

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  5. Wow! Very impressive scores!! You must be very very proud - of both of them!!

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  6. It's so easy for volunteers to burn out, for those who give once, come back often to give of themselves. You're right, we do need more volunteers.

    Congrats to Bay and Sarah! Well done!

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  7. They're doing really well! Congrats to her, and they go to state too with OHSET...I'm sure it's not easy competing against the "big guys" but they're holding their own!

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