Flooded fields, flooded stalls, people unable to pull their trailers in or out of the parking, footing awful, soaking wet, and in the end a cancelled event. We started the day off with dressage in gail force winds and hurricane like conditions. Rori was fantastic scoring a 35.09 and placing 3rd/ 20 riders in our division. I made some technical errors, and the conditions were awful but she behaved beautifully and all in all I was really happy with how it went.
With stadium next and the weather becoming worse they were pushing people along way ahead of their assigned times. I jumped my stadium 2 hours ahead of schedule but in the POURING rain, and in footing that could suck the shoes right off of your horses feet. Although she was getting super stuck at the base of the fences and the turns were super dangerous, we jumped clean with 1 second time penalty. It was far from a pretty sight, but we got through our second phase in hopes of doing cross country the next day.....however, the rain continued.
...and continued
...and continued.
By the time I finished stadium they were announcing that they would be holding the rest of the jumping tomorrow so everyone prepared to leave (prepared being the key word).
Just as the footing had been horrible to ride in, trying to drive any sort of car / truck through mud is impossible. People trying to come in and people trying to leave were all stranded in 8 inches of mud and rain until saved by 2 tractors that pulled everyone to their destination. It was a crazy sight to be seen.
The stalls were no better. As we were getting ready to leave, the stalls began to flood. Since the stalls were placed on grass it just became mud and it was not pretty. Rebecca (who trailered to the show with me) and I put 4 bags in our 10x10 stalls and when we arrived in the morning they were a mud pit. Egh!
Sunday they cancelled the show because of the bad footing and inability for cars to come in and out of the field without the help of a tractor. Total bummer. But better to be safe than sorry especially since it's only April and the season is just beginning.
King Oak in 2 weeks! Hopefully the weather holds up :)
