This message is from: PHILLIP Odden n...@norskwoodworks.com
This message is from Phillip odden in Northwestern Wisconsin where it
has been mighty hot and muggy.
Else and I returned Sunday evening from a hectic tour of events after
completing the Iron Horse CDE in northern Illinois. The tour started
with Hickory Knoll CDE and my first attempt at intermediate level. A
Combined Driving Event is a three part competition starting with
Dressage, then cones and marathon. Iron Horse was a three day event so
we did Dressage first then marathon and on the third day we drove
cones. Drivers and horses start at training level, then move to
Preliminary level on to Intermediate and then a few talented driver/
horse combinations reach advanced.
I drove my pair Herger and Marcy at Hickory Knoll and we ended up in
first ahead of a pair of German Sport ponies at Intermediate Pair
Pony. Everyone says the jump from Prelim to Intermediate is much more
difficult than the move from Training to Prelim. I have to agree. The
dressage movements ask much more from the horses and the driver. One
needs to drive very fast in the hazards to stay competitive. At
Hickory Knoll we planned to go as fast as we could and we did. Howard
Fiedler, my navigator, did a great job in keeping the carriage right
side up as we galloped many of the distances to and through each of
the five gates of the complex obstacles. Bob Long rode with me on
cones and for the dressage while Else kept us on time, polished
harness and vehicles and most important took wonderful photos. It
takes a good team to do these things. Peggy Spear won Prelim pony with
Prisco at Hickory Knoll and Chet Thomas had the best dressage score at
Prelim among all competitors. So our fjords had two division
championships and the coveted overall best Prelim Dressage test at
Hickory Knoll.
I took my tired CDE ponies home Sunday evening and Monday morning
early loaded up a couple of green geldings Oddens Frode and Bob Long's
three year old gelding Solvar. We arrived at Blue Earth about noon
with not time to get the young geldings settled in to their first show
ever. We were awarded a few nice ribbons during the show even though
we did not expect to be competitive with the green ponies. However
both these geldings have lots of potential so down the road with some
experience under their harness they will be competitive driving
ponies. Heike asked me to ride her carriage for a CDE demonstration at
the talent show at Blue Earth and that was kind of fun.
Blue Earth was finished on Wednesday and we drove from there home and
back down to Decorah Iowa to show our carvings and furniture at the
annual Nordic Fest. This being our 31st year showing at the Norwegian
American Museum at Nordic Fest. When we returned home on Saturday
evening late and we were exhausted. We had three days to pick up loose
ends on the farm, pack for Iron Horse and try to rest up a bit.
I was able to drive Herger and Marcy one time before we left for Iron
Horse and I had not yet learned my dressage test Intermediate test 2.
Iron Horse offered Prelim, Intermediate and Advanced. It was the last
competition to qualify the four- in- hand turn outs for the World
Equestrian Games to be held in Kentucky come October. So there were 11
four-in hand teams there and several of the best drivers and best
driving horses in North America competing at Advanced and Intermediate
level. At this show there were only three turnouts involving fjords.
Penny Stuckey from Southern Pines, North Carolina drove the 7 year old
Fjord stallion Karolina King at Intermediate pony. Karolina King
withdrew during the marathon after a nice dressage presentation. Janet
Robbins from Arkansas drove her 4 year old gelding BDF Ran Rienstein
to an impressive second place finish at prelim level single pony.
With all that had come before I struggled to learn my dressage test.
This test is done in a 100 x 40 meter arena and we do not currently
have an arena that size on our farm. Having driven my ponies only two
times after Hickory Knoll before the test I felt unprepared and it
showed on dressage day. I finished with a 69 ( 56 % ) and in second
place among four at Intermediate Pair Pony. The judges were quite
strict. There were 17 competitors at Intermediate level. Eight of them
had better dressage scores than we did and eight of them had worse
dressage scores than ours. So our dressage test was respectable but
not good. I finished the marathon in second place but fell to third
place overall. We received 3 inches of rain the night before and the
challenging course became more difficult as the day wore on with the
heavy mud. At the vet check after section D the vets said my Fjords
had the best recovery of any of the horses they had check up to that
time. On section E the seven hazards came up very fast with little
recovery time
