2006 HORSE ACTIVITIES
Rather than show events separately this year, I think I will begin to show them all on a single page. So, here you can see what has happened this year in the various CDE's, ADT's and clinics we have been involved in.
First a note that this was a little different year for us. This spring and summer Mary Jane was not able to compete as she was in the process of having cataract surgery in both eyes. Also, the long running Tucson CDE ended with last year's competition, so our driving year ended a bit early with a trip to the Shady Oaks competition in Lodi, CA in early October.
So, here is an overview of some of the fun from 2006.
The year started with our own Arizona Combined Driving Event. As you have seen both Mary Jane and Peter are the major organizers of the event while Allen Funderburgh directs the construction of the course itself. So by the time of the event, it is a bit anti-climatic. This year was an exception.
Winter 2006 was totally dry in the low deserts, the traditional winter rainy season never arrived. Until Dressage day of the Coolidge CDE, that is. Yes, we had the entire winter's rain during our CDE. On Friday the winds blew dust and dirt as well as drivers, tents and everything else until judges (who had retreated into pickups by that time) could not see all the dressage field. But that was prelude to 2 1/4 inches of rain on Marathon day. Now in some parts that might just be a strong shower, but in the desert with little ground cover, that means that in addition to the misery if driving in it, everything turns to wet mud. Most carriages and drivers came back to the barns with as many pounds of mud on them as they weighted themselves. On Sunday, the sun came out for cones, but drivers plowed up the now soft grass field. Of course Bob Goree's tractor spent the afternoon pulling rigs out of the mud to get them onto the road and home.
But in driving the show goes on and most stayed the course. No photos from the marathon, unfortunately, but here are some from dressage.
Here are Mary Jane driving Melodie and on the right
is Gary Gang driving Sterling. At this time we had sold him to Roz Ashby and Gary was driving him to get him back into condition for competitions. Sterling and Roz are now living in California and he is winning new friends of Roz and her daughter.
Diane Kastama had hoped to compete as a pair as training for her upcoming trip to the world Driving for the Disabled championship. However her pair carriage didn't arrive in time for Arizona so she switched her entry to a tandem and used her old carriage. Turns out she had a spectacular dressage test with them hitched this way.
We hosted the traditional early June ADT at our place and had a combination of minis, ponies and horses with a total of 25 entries. On the left is Barb Sims while on the right is Barbara Butterfield. Barbara is competing at the Intermediate level, the first time anybody has done that in Arizona since the ADS adopted standards for this new, higher level of competition for minis.
We were fortunate in having a couple of the country's best driving clinicians come to Arizona this year. In July we hosted a clinic conducted by Lisa Singer which attracted people from all over the state. Here is Walt Rector driving his pair with Lisa watching and commenting from the rear seat.
Pat, Yvette and Brynn came up for the weekend also and are here relaxing under the shade structure while doing more chatting than watching the lessons.
The last ADT of the 2006 season was at a new location, Barbara Butterfield's. A large turnout responded and Barbara's course was great fun to drive. Above is Dana Moore in the cones while on the right is a gathering of minis. Actually the club's mini members almost always turn out in good numbers for each ADT and seem to have a competition within a competition. To the left is Jessie Zamboni who is the current "hot rod" mini driver and great fun to watch compete.
The Shady Oaks CDE at Lodi, CA has become one of the major Advanced level competitions in the country and this year it was for the National Pairs championship. Several Arizona drivers competed and Mary Jane entered in Intermediate. She had a lousy dressage test, but was competitive in the Marathon and had the second best cones test in her class. So all in all she had a great time. The course course featured eight hazards (only Advanced did all eight, Mary Jane in Intermediate did seven) including three water hazards! Here you see the four in hand coming out of the water pit that was just the entrance to the first of the water hazards. Yes there was water in the bottom of the pit and you went from there into another pond. On the right is Carol Funderburgh. Carol did spectacularly, taking second place in Preliminary single horse, out of a field of 16 competitors. Mary Jane and Bliss Knight took third in their classes, while Deb Roberts took a second in Advanced single horse.