Metamora CDE - Cones & Final Results

[DrivingNewsUSA]

Cones & Final results for the Metamora CDE held 19-21Jun2009 are available at
http://drivingnews.us/results/results2009/MetamoraCDE

Mike Arnold
http://drivingnews.us

[goodhors]

The weather was NOT friendly to the Metamora Event. Heavy rains were really hard on the grounds and caused course changes because of deep mud and standing water.

Temps jumped from the last weeks of 70+F days and mid 50F's nights to HEAT and HUMIDITY, which was hard on the horses during Marathon.

There were a number of retirements during marathon for various reasons. Enough water was used to cool horses at the Vet check and again at the finish of section E, to make a good-sized creek! All horses and ponies were closely monitored until they were fully recovered by our very competent Vet people. Humidity is hard to condition for if you have not had any while getting your animals fit.

I had a lot of fun watching, seeing the various turnouts and animals in competition. Some VERY spectatular collected gaits on the more advanced animals. Quite a few of the Dutch Harness horses present and obvious with their high action. They did quite well. A number of very nice ponies with various breeding. Just amazing the gaits on some of them when the drivers asked for the extensions!

With the full 3-day format, everyone seemed to be a bit more relaxed, plenty of time to be prepared. Not as big a turnout of the Advanced folks as expected. Great viewing of the expectations you need to have in place as you move on up.

We volunteered, learned some new skills in jobs I had not done before! From my point of view, everything ran real smoothly and on-time. And we got these VERY cool lime-green shirts so we were visible to all!! They let people ask us questions, gave us instant authority. AND were added to my T-shirt collection, which is kind of a written history of where and what I have been doing previously.

[DrivingQueen]

yep, it was wet! but it was a great event! we had an awesome time and came home with a couple of ribbons. have been every year possible for the past ten, would recommend it to anyone!