FINALLY figured out how to load a video

Congratulations!

 
 
Suzy Stafford at awards ceremony; groom/owner Bev Lesher and Courage to Lead enjoy the moment.

cones obstacle pics

 

 

Lisa Stroud and Laurie Astegiano were exciting to watch; but there were several double-clean rounds for the teams so they were unable to move up in the standings.

Cones obstacles pics

 
 
Randy Cadwell and Tracey Morgan flew around the cones course, but individual German competitor David Schneiders could not be beat.

Cones Obstacles pics

 
 
Suzy Stafford and Sara Schmitt ate up the cones course

The Winner In the "It's a Small, Small World" categegory is...

If you look at the e-mail blast you received from the ADS regarding Susy Stafford's Bronze medal and the Pony Team USA's fourth place finish you'll note that the author is neither Sally nor Pat Cheatham as you might expect but Cindy Timmer. Why in the world does that qualify for the "Small World" prize you may ask. Well, instead of blogging away as we should've done, your erstwhile reporters were drinking wine with her parents (Ott and Mary Timmer - photo proof attached).

Cindy reports for HoefNet and is off to the World Pairs Championship in Kekesmet, Hungary as you read this while her parents are toting Cindy's camera equipment to the championship by car.

Who can resist ponies?

 
Lizwell Gambling Queen (aka Maude) and Tabitha Twitchet during dressage awards ceremony

Dressage competition awards

There was an awards ceremony after the dressage competition on Thursday and Friday. Suzy Stafford (with Chef d'Equip Chester Weber on board) received congratulations for fourth place in dressage. Tracey Morgan received 6th place; owner Susan Deutermann enjoyed the moment with her. Individual competitor Katie Whaley tied for 11th place.
 
 
 
 

Corrections to posts about Marathon

In an earlier post, I said "several" competitors had course penalties for being under time in section E. Let me correct that. Three Singles (Sue Denny of Great Britain, Sherri Dolan of USA and Zsolt Rimacsik of Hungary) had course penalties but apparently all for different reasons. Sue Denny apparently (I don't know precisely how the 26.6 penalty points were accessed) "stopped" several times in the final 500 meters. I did see much of that iem and she did have the slowest, most halting walk I've ever seen. Guess some of the Ground Jury thought it was too halting! Sherri Dolan's course penalties occrred when, after leaving hazard 3, she put a groom down for equipment repair (broken breeching strap) but didn't come to a complete halt. I don't have any information of the Hungarian's course penalties. Additionally, two Pairs drivers had course penalties. So...let me correct my earlier post to "some drivers had course penalties for a variety of reasons."

Katie Whaley had a good cones round with two balls down and 5.16 seconds over time. Randy Cadwell (the first of our Pair Team members) had one ball down but was almost 12 seconds over time.

Susy Stafford wins Bronze

An interim update - Susy took the Bronze in the Single Pony division after a Cones competition that had no double clean rounds. Melanie Becker (Netherlands) competing as an individual came closet with a clean round that was less than half a second over time. Several competitors in the top spots changed positions during cones - but then, a least in my opinion, that's what cones are supposed to do. More later, the pairs have begun and Yannik Scherrer, an individual competitor from Switzerland, just posted the first double clean round.

 

 

 

 

Opening Ceremonies

 

We have been remiss in reporting on the opening ceremonies show on Thursday evening. It included a dressage pas de deux, drill team, a show by stallions of a local stud farm, and ... well, too much to list. Enjoy the pictures.

Marathon Pictures:Lisa Stroud, Suzy Stafford

 

 

Marathon Pictures: Sheri Dolan, Tracey Morgan, Randy Cadwell, Laurie Astegiano

 

 

 

 

The Promised Follow-up

We promised an update on the four-in-hand Marathon scores. Laurie Astegiano placed 9th on a Marathon score of 91.95 and stands 8th after Competitions A and B. Lisa Stroud was 17th in both Marathon and after the first two phases.

Team USA is in fourth place (414.60 points) after Dressage and Marathon behind the Germans (396.35), the Netherlands (398.53) and the Belgium team (407.47).

It Really Does Take a Village

All competitors require a support team of some size even if it’s not more than a Navigator for Marathon. At this level however, it’s truly a team sport. The amount of teamwork and sheer grunt work support that goes into competing a team at a Championship is amazing. Philip Needs and Judy Fryer (with help from Diane and Burger Bob Koopman) keep the team fed while at the venue. Chef de Equip Chester Weber and Assistant Jennifer Matheson attend meetings every day. In fact, Jennifer told me that they had been so busy that she had managed a total of 25 hours sleep from the previous Saturday until Friday the 14th! The Team – Coach Boyd Excell, all the competitors, grooms and the Chef de Equips – meets daily for schedule information and instruction. For Marathon, we had someone videotaping each Pony Team USA competitor in each hazard while another person timed splits (time each competitor as the go from gate D to gate E and the route they took). This information isn’t just to give us Yanks something to do. Coach Boyd Excell uses the information to tell our competitors which route may be more difficult than expected or, conversely, which option to a particular gate is consistently faster. Likewise, our competitors share information to assist the team’s effort. Each competitor, especially those with an “early go”, is debriefed for information that may help teammates with a later start. All in all, it’s much more of a team sport here than the CDEs we go to at home.

Speed has a Quality of Its own

fF

Fast is fast whether it's fast and smooth or just fast and not so pretty. Some of the smoothest drives in the hazards today weren't near the top of the leader board at day's end. At the risk of repeating myself; fastest wins whether pretty or not. This does not mean the fastest drivers jerked their ponies around, they didn't. The best of the bunch told their ponies well in advance what to do, where to go and at what speed. It's just that the leaders often looked more like Ricochet Rabbit than like a dressage pony.

We don't have the four-in-hand scores as we post this so we'll add them later. We can tell you that Laurie Astegiano was driving a fabulous marathon with some very fast times – we'll see how they hold up at the end of the day. For our Singles, Susy Stafford was 11^th (82.11 points) while individual competitor Sherri Dolan was 25^th. We need to see if Sherri had penalty points on course as she had very competitive times in the hazards we watched. Several competitors had course time penalties as they finished much too early. For example, Susan Denny of Great Britain had over 26 penalty points, a quarter of her Marathon score, in penalty points for being too early to end of E. Unfortunately, Sara Schmitt eliminated in Hazard 2 by missing gate D. Otherwise, she had a very good marathon by placing well in all other hazards.

After dressage and marathon, Susy Stafford stands in second place going into Cones tomorrow while Sherri Dolan is in 22^nd place.

Out Pair Team members placed 7^th (Randy Cadwell on a score of 80.16) and 16^th (Tracey Morgan with a score of 86.75) while individual competitor Katie Whaley was 25^th on a score of 95.43. Through two phases, Tracey Morgan is 9^th while Randy Cadwell and Katie Whaley are 24^th and 25^th, respectively.

Randy Cadwell dressage pics

 

 

Katie Whaley dressage pics

 

 

Viva le Difference

FEI, or at least European events are different than what we often experience back home. A couple of things we’ve noticed have more to do with the nature of the local culture – dogs are all over the place all well behaved but seldom on a leash – than the competition. We’ve noted previously that the hazards are fantastic and we did not exaggerate. Many have features built of brick and mortar or stone. All have some sort of rub protection against sharp edges for the horses and, at least for this event, the hazards are very close together. I’m not just thinking of the location of the hazards – that is to say they are all in a central area for easy spectator viewing but also the length of track between obstacles. I’d guess a driver has about 30 seconds drive time between hazards 5 and 6 on this course. So if you aren’t real sure of your route, you don’t have much time to go over it. Having hazards in a spectator friendly, central area also means close quarters with the same spectators and other competitors. For this event there’s lots of two-way traffic from one hazard to the next and lots of activity along the route. You need to have your team thoroughly focused on the task at hand.

Of course we’ve all known that driving is much more a spectator sport in Europe than in North America. That’s evident here too although it’s difficult at times to tell who is a ‘real’ spectator as opposed to the large national team contingents. Whichever they are, they seem both informed and interested – groaning at a break of pace and “oohing” a nice extension. The food vendors offer a fairly wide range of choices from pizza to fresh pasta or crepes (with Nutella is my choice) and the ubiquitous beer tents.

Suzy Stafford and Courage to Lead dressage pics

 

 

 

Pairs Scores

Scores for pairs are in! Tracey stayed in the ribbons with a 53.5 score, putting her in 6th place (out of 34), WHILE TEAM MEMBER Randy Cadwell had a disappointing test of 71.68. Individual competitor Katie Whaley tied for 11th place with a 57.34. The Germans took both the first and second spots with Stephan Kock leading the field with a 40.83 while hist teammate Steffen Abicht stands on a 44.42.