Posts Tagged ‘uspc
USET and Olympic Dreams
I posted the other day about my trip last Sunday to the site of the United States Equestrian Team Training Facility, Hamilton Farm, located in Gladstone, NJ. I decided I had to go back and talk about this location, because its unlike any other horse training center I have ever been to. I have been to this particular facility several times before, and its beautiful every time I go.
First a little history (taken from the USET website).
The United States Equestrian Team Foundation supports equestrian athletes, promotes international excellence, and builds for the future of equestrian sports.
The eight High Performance equestrian disciplines supported by the United States Equestrian Team Foundation are dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, para-equestrian, reining, show jumping and vaulting.
More about what the USET Foundation does can be found here. Now although they don’t specifically help the equine sport of Mounted Games, USET does allow us to use their beautiful facility for competitions. Hopefully someday Mounted Games will be added to the list of recognized Olympic Sports (steps are being taken to do so!) and will be supported by the USET Foundation.
So anyway onto the facility. I was able to sneak around one (yes one) of the main barns where some of the competition horses for our event were stabled and the site where we rode was. This particular barn is actually two floors – yes two floors – with stalls on both levels. There is then a third floor that has a glass floor you can see down into the barn from. I think the third floor is mostly used for award ceremonies/etc. They even house several trophy rooms in this particular barn.
Standing in the isle ways made me wonder if any famous horses had walked these halls – or stayed in these stalls – or rode in the ring. Many of the stalls had dedication plaques on them, but I ran out of time to look through all of them. I’m sure many were for past Olympic mounts – many of the greats.
I hope to one day see this barn filled with Mounted Games ponies – ponies that are destined to be Olympic horses. Not many ponies can say this as most of the Olympic disciplines are reserved for the bloodlines of horses, although some exceptions apply, Theodore O’Connor (Teddy) comes to mind – even though he was never really in the Olympics. The 14.1 hand pony who competed at the highest international eventing level with Olympian Karen O’Connor (although Teddy was from horse lineage). Teddy was an ambassador for ponies everywhere as he shed light on the fact that ponies weren’t just fuzzy backyard pets relegated to be children’s sidekicks and babysitters. Some are destined to be great.
I don’t doubt that someday Mounted Games will be among the list of Olympic Sports. In fact this year a petition was sent to have an exhibition of the sport in the World Equestrian Games for 2010. Although the petition was denied (I have suspicions why) the beginning is in place. My guess is that until there is one recognized organization and rulebook for mounted games than this cannot happen. Currently we have several organizations within the US (all with their own set of rules) instead of one main organization – we need to have one lead group…like the USDF (United States Dressage Federation), one governing body that sets the rules nationwide. Difference in opinions caused a split in our one organization – The United States Mounted Games Association, now we have two, Mounted Games Across America and USMGA. Not to mention that the United States Pony Clubs even has their own set of rules separate from MGAA and USMGA. Its sort of a big mess right now – so I think until thats all figured out there is no way we will be permitted in among the Olympic arenas.
But I do think that someday it will happen, hopefully I live to see it. The first modern Olympics to hold equestrian events were in 1900 in Paris, France. Only three disciplines were contested: Show jumping, high jump, and long jump. Several horse sports have made their appearance in the Olympics since those beginnings. You can see a small photographic history of Equestrian Olympics here. So there is hope!
All About Mounted Games
Kyley and Chincoteague Minnow
At the suggestion of a reader (thanks!) I’ve decided to make a page on the blog all about Mounted Games! Mounted Games has been my equestrian sport of choice since I was 14 years old (11 years!!). Although I have a deep passion for Dressage among other disciplines, Mounted Games will always be my true love.
But it came to my attention that most people don’t know what Mounted Games is – I didn’t either 11 years ago. So in order to make all my posts about mounted games here on out easier to follow please check out the new Page on Mounted Games. Be sure to leave comments and suggestions….because it honestly is a hard to explain sport if you have never seen it!
How falling off taught me to ride – grand prix style
Yesterday after work I headed out to the Devon Horse Show to watch the Grand Prix Jumping. I admit I live about 15 minutes from the show grounds – but I haven’t actually been to Devon in several years. I went a few days ago as well to watch several riders from my local Pony Club compete in jumper classes.
Now the Grand Prix Jumping is something I find to be utterly amazing. We all know (whether we care to admit or not) that the real crowd draw is the crashes. Secretly everyone watching is hoping to see a horse and rider crash through a fence or a horse throw its mount. As morbid as that sounds thats why watching the Grand Prix Jumping is so popular. You hold your breath as horse and rider jump fences at heights you wouldn’t dream of yourself, all the while in the back of your mind wondering when the first “incident” will happen. We’re all in it for the shock value.
My little sister jumping our childhood pony, Oopsie Daisy
As a youth I developed a distaste for jumping – mostly because I owned a stubborn little pony named Oopsie Daisy (makes you wonder where his name came from) who clearly disliked to jump. With each year that passed he hated jumping even more. I crashed and burned more times than I can count. I think I was the only rider jumping an 18″ hunter course that ever knocked down all the fences with their own body. Pretty pathetic. But despite all of my falls I think those tumbles made me a better rider.
When I was about 13 years old I decided to join my local Pony Club. I was dreading the initial rating because I hated to jump – and all riders were required to do a stadium course as well as a cross country course. I was set to take my D-2 rating with a group of other riders – that lets face it – had point and shoot ponies that would jump anything. I on the other hand had a ride him with everything you got – hold on for dear life and close your eyes pony. I successfully made it through most of the fences without a fall – but had pretty much a refusal at every fence – some that I had no luck getting Oopsie over at all. As I waited for my pass or fail results the instructor doing the testing approached me. She explained to me that even though I had a pony that clearly hated jumping and I struggled to get over the courses, I was the only rider in the group that could actually ride. My difficult pony had taught me how to have a strong seat and leg, and most importantly how to overcome challenges (we all know that image of the kid getting dumped and bursting into tears immediately). She told me that I not only passed my rating but that I was receiving a higher rating of a D-3.
Oopsie went through the years of Pony Club with my little sister and I – he even passed both of us up to our C-1 ratings (barely). Oopsie passed away last summer unexpectedly. Over his 30 years of life he accomplished so much.
I give Oopsie a big hug after competition
He was an eventer, a dressage pony, a show pony, a lesson pony, a pony club mount, and in his later years a mounted games pony. He taught my sister and I how to ride. And he introduced both of us to our passion in playing mounted games. Oopsie took both of us to a combined total of 5 USPC Championships in mounted games. He excelled In the Junior, Senior and Advanced level. In his later years he even entered into the fossil division with our mom. Oopsie was just a once in a lifetime pony. And he will always be missed.
Nitro successfully clears a fence during my C-2 Rating
I later moved on to my 16.3 hand Dressage horse, Nitro, who seemed to enjoy stadium jumping but when it came to cross country fences became emotional and nervous. He eventually passed me through to my C-2 rating but with a very huge effort. He dumped me about 10 times at a ditch jump and panicked over the tiniest step down fence during schooling. But when I cleared the last big log as Nitro hopped from side to side trying to evade it during my rating the tester yelled out to the group “now that is how you ride a horse through a course”.
Minnow was the pony that followed Nitro and at this point in my life I was winding down my enthusasium for ratings (and jumping for that matter). So I tooled around with teaching Minnow to jump (which he had no prior knowledge of before) but he too would rather dart around the fence than clear it. And honestly Minnow had so many other issues to overcome that my jumping him sort of took a back seat – although I did successfully take him cross country schooling once.
Now if you are noticing a pattern here…I think you are right….I have never owned that “made horse”, the one that will do everything without so much as blinking an eye. But through all these years, and all these horses, I think I gained knowledge in riding and training horses that most young adults don’t have. I wouldn’t trade my crashes for anything – or my horses. Each one of them has had something valuable to teach me and with each new horse that enters my life I am surprised at how much more I can learn.
I am now onto my 5th horse (I didn’t mention my very first pony, Oreo Cookie, because at 5 I have fogged memories of her), Boomerang, and I think I can honestly say he is the only horse I have ever had that does not come with “emmotional baggage”. He’s got a long way to go in his training but his very willing attitude is something I am very not accustomed to. And Boomer is the only pony I have ever owned that truely loves to jump, he clears an 18″ log at a height of 4′. Now I don’t think Grand Prix Jumping is in our future, but I’m looking forward to seeing just how much this pony loves to jump. Perhaps he will be the pony to renew my interest in jumping again, but if spills happen along the way I know that this will only further my riding ability.
Here’s to the high jumpers of the world! It takes nerves of steel and a horse to get you there!
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Minnow gets ready for the beach
I had a very enjoyable memorial day weekend with the ponies. I did some riding, worked on a few tricks and I even went to the Devon Horse Show with my puppy Ammo (where I saw Bruce Springsteen and his wife I might add – plus I watched their daughter win her division). I mainly went to the show to watch several riders from my local pony club compete – they certainly held their own against many top riders!
So over the weekend one of the main tricks I worked on with Minnow was teaching him to roll out his beach towel (in preparation for his trip this summer to Chincoteague Island). You can watch the video below. This time when teaching Minnow I took a slightly different approach then I normally do. My main thought was to roll treats up inside the blanket and as he unrolled it the food would appear. But before I did that I decided I would see if he could learn how to do it by watching first.
So I put Minnow into his trick halter – I use a specific halter when trick training so that my ponies know that its time to perform, that way I don’t have my ponies offering tricks to me when I really don’t want them to. As soon as that halter comes out Minnow knows its time for tricks. I led him out into the isle and brought out a blanket I had bought for him. The first thing I did was to get his attention and asked him to watch as I unrolled the blanket. I then rolled it back up and placed it infront of him. Minnow looked at me for a second then with one big push he unrolled the blanket. (of course then I clicked and rewarded him). And thats all it took – I swear he simply learns by watching me first. I taught him to paint in a very similar manner. I showed him how when I touched the paintbrush to the paper that a mark was made – and when I handed him the brush he simply mimicked my actions.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Polocrosse
I’m so excited that I have another long 3-day weekend (I claimed my casino rewards early and decided to close my shop saturday through monday for memorial day weekend) to play with my ponies. Who knows – maybe I’ll be really bad and sneak out early today. 🙂
On Sunday I am trying to plan a Polocrosse Scrimmage for the local Pony Club that I coach. I don’t really talk about Polocrosse much because I’m not as active in the sport as I once was. My sister and I were actually very competitive in the Intermediate Pony Division a few years back – earning rights to compete at the National Level, as well as my sister’s horse winning best horse at several tournaments. For those of you that don’t know – Polocrosse is:
A team sport that is played all over the world. It is a combination of polo and lacrosse. It is played outside, on a field (the pitch), on horseback. Each rider uses a cane stick to which is attached a racquet head with a loose, thread net, in which the ball is carried. The ball is made of sponge rubber and is approximately 4 inches across. The objective is to score goals by throwing the ball between your goal posts.
Minnow playing Polox
I used to compete with Chincoteague Minnow in the #1 position – which is essentially the scorer, and my sister played as the #3 which is the defender. We then would have a #2 player which acted as a mid-fielder. Most of the time we played under the team name The Flying Cadets. Minnow unfortunately was not extremely fond of Polocrosse. I think because he is so short he didn’t like having to get close to all the other horses that towered over him. Frequently he tried to run off of the field with me – and he actually succeeded once, dumping me to the ground near the sidelines. I ended up bracing my fall with my left arm – which resulted in several weeks of physical therapy and an elbow that still isn’t quite right. But despite Minnow’s protests to Polocrosse, he was actually a very good #1 because he was fast (even with his shrimpy legs) and he could spin rather quickly to get away from the defenders.
I am hoping to bring Boomer and Blitz along so that they can both play Polocrosse in the future. Both ponies have been exposed to the rackets and seem to do quite well, and hopefully sunday I will referee off of Boomer. We’d have an all family team then – me, my mom and my sister – The Flying Cadets shall return again! 🙂
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
For more information on Polocrosse please visit these websites:
American Polocrosse Association
Bucks County Polocrosse
