Elk
Creek 2008 Garden State 2008
Elk
Creek CDE 2007 June
2007Update Garden
State CDE 2007 May
2007 Update
| Andy's team had great results at Elk Creek! Congratulations to: |
| Maggie Sullivan driving Riena on their 1st place finish at Intermediate Single Pony. Maggie also won Best Young Driver and Best Intermediate Cones. |
 Laura Smith driving Arthur Dent
on their 2nd place finish at Preliminary Single Pony. |
| Carole Hunter driving Holy Helga on their 5th place finish at Preliminary Single Pony. |
| Beverly Patrick driving ESA Lot on their 10th place finish at Preliminary Single Pony. |
| View all of the results on the Elk Creek website |
| Maggie Sullivan driving
Riena placed 4th in Intermediate Single Pony. Video of Water Hazard Video of Second Water Hazard |
| Andy placed 2nd in
Preliminary Single Pony driving Laura Smith's pony, Arthur Dent. Video of Water Hazard |
| Claire Glenn
driving Stella placed 4th in Preliminary Single Pony Video of Water Hazard |
| Carole Hunter driving Holy
Helga placed 10th in Preliminary Single Pony. Video of Water Hazard |
| View all of the results for Garden State on the ADS website |
Elk
Creek CDE 2007
(don't
miss the Carole Hunter Report
on this event)
Huge congratulations go to Maggie Sullivan (in photo at right - yes, that
IS Andy in lime green!) for her first preliminary level win at the
Elk Creek
CDE! I can’t tell you how proud of Maggie and Reanna(sp?) I am. Maggie has worked really hard at improving her driving and building a great CDE pony since she first came to me a year and half ago. It was no small feat to win at this major event either. Maggie beat out 12 other competitors many of whom are well seasoned (one is even named to the US team with another pony).
Maggie established her place in front of the pack of 13 drivers early on with the top dressage score of 40.61. Cones followed dressage on Saturday, since Elk Creek is run in the two day combined driving event format. She drove her cones course quickly, but dropped one ball earning another 3 points. Sunday Maggie had a mid morning marathon time on a day that was heating up quickly. Reanna had no trouble handling the heat though, and made easy work of sections ‘A’ and ‘D’. On section ‘E’ the girls turned on the afterburners and drove almost every turn as we planned it through the hazards. They clearly warmed into the hazards starting with the third quickest time in the first hazard, then building from there finishing the remaining five hazards 2nd , 1st , 1st , 2nd , and 2nd. Over all she turned in the best marathon score of all preliminary level drivers in all classes. Her final score of 86.60 left an impressive 15.64 penalty gap between her and second place. Great job Maggie! Let’s hope that Maggie can carry this momentum through the rest of the season.
Carole Hunter placed very respectably in her second combined driving event at training level. She turned in a dressage score of 54.08 which earned her a 4th place out of 8. One ball on the cones course cost her an extra 3 points, but she maintained her place. The marathon went flawlessly for Carole and Holy Helga. Training level competitors are not scored in the hazards, so there was no opportunity to improve her placing with quick hazards. However, as her navigator I saw her driving in the hazards improve a great deal since Garden State. While we don’t have any means of comparison with the other competitors I can tell you that almost every hazard timer commented “Wow!” as we left. That’s good enough for me!
Personally, I drove Ariel Taylor’s Thoroughbred ‘Shadowboxer’, also known as Teddy, in the intermediate single horse division. This was Teddy’s second appearance in combined driving, his first event being on the same grounds for the 2006 Fair Hill International back in October. Although Teddy is an experienced three day event horse under saddle, the combined driving is a whole new venue for him. We are still trying to find his rhythm for warming up, and I think we kept him out a little too long before dressage. Our test was not as impressive as the horse can be, coming in at 65.29. This was still enough to put him in 4th place. We picked up another 6 points in the cones course, but remained in 4th heading into the marathon. Teddy really excelled going through the hazards. In the first four hazards he scored well in the pack of 9
competitors placing 3rd in number one and two, falling to 4th in the third hazard. By hazard four Teddy, Ariel and I found our groove solidly winning hazards four, five and six, rounding out the last hazard with the 2nd fastest time. All of this should have earned Teddy the best marathon award for all intermediate divisions, but there was a stinging lesson for us to learn from way back in section ‘A’. We were penalized for being 37 seconds late on arrival on section ‘A’. While this did not effect our over all placing in the standings, it would have been nice to give Teddy the credit he deserved for being the best horse on the marathon that day. In the end we did manage to climb one spot putting us in third place for the weekend. Considering this was his second combined driving event, Ariel and I are quite proud of him.
What was the lesson learned? Check your times as many ways as possible! Take a look at ‘It’s About Time’ to learn
more (article coming soon).
Garden State CDE 2007
(don't
miss the Carole Hunter Report
on this event)
| Driver/Division | Dressage ‘A’ | Marathon ‘B’ | Cones ‘C’ | Final Score |
| Prelim. Single Pony | Test 2 | 11 Entries
0 el 93.65 – 146.23 |
||
| Maggie Sullivan | 47.33 (4th) | 47.96 (4th) | 0 | 95.29 (3rd) |
| Training Single Pony | Test 2 | 6 Entries 0 el 54.1-68.5 |
||
| Carole Hunter | 54.10 (2nd) | 0 | 0 | 54.10 (1st) |
| Laura Smith | 54.86 (3rd t) | 1.8 | 0 | 56.66 (3rd) |