Amberlea Dressage Show

Wow....three days without internet and I surived! For those that don't know, the storm late Saturday night took out the internet tower (as well as damaging our property and taking out two greenhouses just up the road). In a way it has been a little liberating though!

Last Weekend was also the Dressage "Fun" Show at Amberlea. Wow was it hot when we got there, and again when we rode on Saturday. Amanda was lucky to have two of her classes in the morning, but she had her Eq class at 4:30 when it was 30 above. Clare and I had our Level 1 classes in the early afternoon and they nicely waived having to wear our riding jackets. Even so it was painfully hot. The heat didn't seem to affect the horse's much though, all three still had energy, it was just the humans that did not!

Saturday night I rode my first Freestyle too! It went ok. Dexter was very forward compared to home (lengthen canter turned into hand gallop!) so we got ahead of the music; luckily I had a built in buffer at the end just in case that happened. Part way through I felt like I was going to faint I was so hot! I wish someone from Hillside had been able to see it or even video though so I had additional feedback for next time.

Sunday was a lot cooler and breezy...which was in a way nice, but then it got TOO breezy, so they moved the classes inside. Hard to ride a dressage test when the ring and letters keep blowing over!

In the end Ri was the super star with a stall covered in ribbons. He and Amanda were reserve champion walk/trot Adult Amateur. Dexter was reserve Freestyle. Whisper was good too, with her best accomplishment being getting Clare over her fear of showing in that indoor arena!

The "vintage" ribbons were very well done. Amanda imagined getting ribbons with old dates and such, but Jan Simmonds removed the old print, and so all the ribbons had the correct print and placing on them, just the colours weren't right for the placing and the buttons varied. It was very well done.

Aside from the weather, the show was great. Everyone was so friendly and positive. People we didn't even know would comment on how well the horse looked, or how much it improved from one test to the next. Ellen Drews in particular gave me a nice compliment on Sunday morning...the timing was perfect as I was completely exhausted after showing and stacking hay on Saturday, and dealing with the storm Saturday night! It is amazing what a few nice words can do to the spirit.

Poor Rob on Sunday had to deal with clean up from the storm though...I guess the power was out longer than I expected, and went out during the day as well, so he kept busy making sure the horses had water. Thanks honey!

A little while ago I posted concern for what the rain would do to the show grounds at Amberlea during their Jump for Hope show, and although they managed to get a ring ready for the Dressage show, their big sand ring, and a corner of the smaller sand ring was pretty much ruined and they are having to redo them. This is just after getting new sand in too. They are going to scrape all the new sand back, dig up and level clay, seal the clay, put a layered base, and then put the sand back. All in all it is going to cost about the same as a luxery car. So when you wonder why stabling fees are what they are when you show at Amberlea, this is why; maintaining a show grounds isn't cheap.

Karen