48 – Straight into the Deep End with Tigger
It is December so this is Kuratau, 100km. There are always those rides that are on the calendar every year and this one was quickly becoming one of our favourites. It was a new base this year, now we’re kind of getting used to the fact that there is so much awesome land out there and that the base changes quite often giving us access to yet more great country, but this was the first shift. The paddock was lumpy to drive over, there were pylons overhead that were doing weird things to electric fences and heart rate monitors, but the course was still great.
So Emma and I head out down the road on our pre-ride wander the evening before, as you do, Tigger was pretty good, only mildly dumb and over-reactive. And so I got to idly thinking about why it is that they’ll shy violently at one particular patch of grass that, to us, appears identical to every other patch of grass. You know the one, you’ve been riding through a pine forest all day and they suddenly put in a massive shy at a log!??? WTF! So I put my hypothesis to Emma, perhaps there’s a mouse in that bit of grass and they can hear it but we can’t? One of those days, great amusement for some time. Emma was skeptical about the random presence of mice in the middle of grassy paddocks, however we have since done research and have both observed mice not only in paddocks but also in paddocks in the rain! Much texting, hypothesis still valid! However about a year ago when I was riding Tigger down the road there was a very clear squeak as we trotted along – he had actually trodden on a mouse! And he was totally unfazed by it, yes mice are out there, but Tigger doesn’t care about them! Hypothesis disproved.
So on to the ride – we had a plan, we were going to aim for 17km/hr. Mark also had a plan, to win the ride – we didn’t actually discuss this with him, but it became pretty clear as the day progressed. For some reason known only to Tigger he had developed a dislike to the part of the course approaching the finish and so every loop for the last few hundred metres would shy at every clump of grass after being pretty good for everything else, he really is a bit special! It was a lovely day, Emma and I were out there doing lots of cantering on the beautiful, golf course-like grassy paddocks that are such a part of Kuratau, sometimes catching up with Mark but mostly just doing our own thing, chatting away and waving to a buyer from Australia as he stalked us when we were next to the road. We stuck religiously to our plan, 17km/h would win us the ride or it wouldn’t, that was not important. Mark won and we did our speed and everyone was happy.
So now we were training for the North Island Champs. Because Tigger had been at Armstrong’s place for nearly a year it was decided to leave him there for the rest of the season. This meant I was in the weird situation of just turning up to ride. Very convenient at times but in general I do prefer to do more myself, there was absolutely nothing wrong in any way, just different and not what I was used to. Kerry was still doing some of the training and so there seemed little point in recording only some of his work so I have no training data for that period, my data obsession was suffering!
Waikato was running the NIs this season, and we were lucky enough to have the Kuratau course. This meant I was in charge of the results and vet-gate, but of course now we had Mary running things in the caravan, so it would be a lot easier. This was her first championship level ride though, so her first 160 – there’s nothing to really prepare you for the first vet-gate of a 160, the biggest ride of the competition and it’s always the first event, so if anything is going to go wrong or isn’t quite set up right this is when you’ll find out. Add to that the fact that the toughest vet-gate of the weekend is the first one of the 160 – With a 1 am start it’s the middle of the night still (emotionally, actually about 3:30 am) and all the horses have often done the first loop in the dark together, so they arrive together and they’re all trying to get into the vet ring as quickly as possible. It’s important and you have horses coming in only seconds apart. Is the printer working? Is it turned on? Do we have back-up bits of paper in case it doesn’t work? Are we ready???
As always the plan for the first loop – survive. This was Tigger’s first 160, so not planning to go too fast, but first loops are tricky and to keep him calm and happy we ended up getting dragged along a bit, 17km/h, hmmm.
Second loop it was still dark so as usual the same track as the first loop – we stop at the last trough, 3km from base, there are a group of horses so I take Tigger around to the other side where there’s room, and a Tigger moment occurs. Yes, it IS preferable to shy away and bang into the trough than to step in the puddle next to the trough – sigh. Hopefully he’s ok. He trots up sound, Lisa finds a small scratch on one hind leg. Third and fourth loops appear to go ok, but at the end of the fourth he’s lame behind. 60km after the trough collision and it’s now a bit sore.
Emma and Shimar went on to have a fantastic ride, coming second. To this day people still talk about their presentation to win the Best Conditioned… lovely dressage in the vet ring followed by a high speed exit.
