This spring we had two small but fun activities at Win Green Farm in Rhoadesville, VA. We started on March 28th with a fix-a-test format including a dressage phase and a cross country jump phase. It was a pretty but chilly day fitting for March and we were all happy that we got past the snowcrete of the winter. We had only 4 riders all from the same barn but they all had a good first outing of the year. Thanks to our dressage clinician, Halley Bell, and our XC clinician, Kate Rakowski, all the riders took away a few key points to boost their scores and confidence.
Then we moved on to a Combined Test, again with dressage and cross country phases, on May 2nd. For this event we had 10 riders doing a total of 5 different levels from dressage only through Novice. There were lots of learning opportunities in the dressage and our judge, Melissa Palmer, gave everyone a few notes and comments. Out on course in levels from intro, to green and starter and finishing with Novice, most riders got to use portions of the courses recently set for the Lucinda Green clinic. Again this was most folks’ first outing of the year and they tackled the challenges with positive attitudes and persistence. Congrats go to Matt Hatcher and Sky Hebert with the top two dressage scores and our winner, Laurey Branner, and second place, Carol Brickey. Laurey also gets thanks for volunteering to pick up the ribbons and bring them down to the event. Skye was also the winner of our lottery for a future free entry for entering on time and completely. Petrina Thomas also finished on her dressage score and gets a thanks for helping to put away the dressage ring and clean up.
My two biggest thanks to Jenny Lamb and Carolyn Briggs who have become my superstar setup and show day volunteer team. Carolyn was busy for our CT but we couldn’t have run the Fix-A-Test without her. Jenny could do the setup on her own by now and always comes to help for both set up and running the event even though she’s a dressage only rider with a secret eventer at heart. I also need to send a huge thanks to Kelly Adams for having and maintaining such a wonderful facility and for jumping in and helping and even recruiting another friend, Amy Denn to help for half a day to jump judge. Even when we have small schooling activities, they can’t run without volunteers.