Fair Hill Results

The weather was just perfect for the USDAA Kinetic show held at the Fair Hill horse grounds in Maryland. Every year, I dread this show because the weather is usually horribly rainy, cold with a ton of mud. People get stuck in the mud regularly at this show and must be towed out by the tractors. But this year was much different - perfect weather all 3 days!

Friday was the warm up for the 2 day team event. It was my first day back at the 22 inch height class in preparation for Nationals out in Scottsdale, AZ. I felt rushed by his speed at 22 and didn't handle him in a relaxed manner which is what I started to do once I got used to him at 26. So on Friday, I just kept working on my timing. He was good but wasn't weaving well which I felt was carry over from the A Frame slam on Wednesday. He managed 2 Qs - one of which was Masters Gamblers which earned him his Masters Gamblers Champion title. He Qd in something else but I am not sure if it was Jumpers. I know it wasn't Standard or Steeplechase. He ran them well but we didn't Q. I pushed him off some jumps on Friday - my timing was slightly off, especially for the rear crosses.

I didn't win or place in any of the team events. I was soooo hoping to place - just for a boost of confidence before we go to Nationals. He ran Team Gamblers well but I was conservative and didn't rack up as many points as several others. He was only 2 to 3 points out of the top though. Team Jumpers went well considering the course had no flow. He only dropped one bar - caused by me but had a decent time. He would have placed 2nd had I not been a spaz over one bar. Team Standard was a nightmare. I just wanted to run clean because our team needed all 3 of us to be clean in order to pull us up above the qualifying cut off. We all managed to survive the course. Team Snooker - something that I suck at for some reason didn't go well. He squirted off of me after I lied him down and took a red so we only got 5 points!

Team Relay was horrid but 2 of us managed to get around so we ended up with a Team Q. That gives him his first Q for Nationals at 22.

I didn't walk Masters Jumpers because I forgot that I entered it. I decided to not be a wimp and run it anyway. I stood outside the ring and watched the course - asking people how they planned to run it. I visualized the course in my mind, walking it over and over in my head and then doing some physical practice outside the ring. Went in saying to myself, "we'll see what happens" and wow, it was a beautiful run! He went wide and I had to call him off a tunnel, but otherwise very nice. I waited for all the 22 inch dogs to run it and then checked his time and discovered that he won the class! Tracy Hirsch - a teammate of mine for Nationals told me not to walk the courses out in AZ :)

Gusto now only needs 4 legs for his ADCH: 2 Super Qs in Snooker, 1 Standard, 1 Jumpers. The Super Qs will be hard for me - I have a thing about Snooker, I hate it. Jumpers too because I never stick around for the last run of the day on Sundays which is when we always run Jumpers.

Anyway, I feel pretty good about heading out to AZ. I need some rear cross practice and weavepole practice but I felt good mentally - other than the darn rears!