The Fork
Comment here on your past experiences with the Fork Horse Trials. See the first post for a "how-to" of evaluations, and comment away.
posted by AKK @ 3:14 PM
3 comments
Horse Trials Info - ratings, feedback, and more!
This is a forum to find out about and give evaluations of USEA horse trials and events -- define what really IS "average, for horses with some experience at this level"!
3 Comments:
Didn't stable.
Dressage warmup so-so, but I understand that new rings are being put in so will skip that.
XC is great, decent warmup with xc fences available. I've run Training and Novice there on moderately experienced, brave horses; it is an eyeful when you walk it but rides well. Jumps are big and solid but inviting. Good bit of terrain questions (half coffin at Novice coming down a good hill). Recommend having horse drilled and tapped unless they are very surefooted as clay footing can be slippery or hard depending on weather.
Stadium was held in a large flat grass arena, lovely jumps, good course, not terribly difficult.
Novice
Terrain: 3
Jumps: 3
Distance: 2
Dressage warmup was alright, a little wet but plenty of space. Test was held on grass.
It was very wet at their fall 05 HT. Cross-country warmup was quite muddy and a bit torn up, although that was to be expected with all the rain we had. My horse wasn't tapped for studs, so she slipped around a bit. The course, however, held up very well despite the rain, and I didn't have problems with slipping. There were two questions that were difficult: the half-coffin (which was removed from the course due to the footing), and the jump into and out of the woods, which combined both a light change and a terrain change. Course also had a water crossing at the novice level. No bank. Overall the course flowed well and allowed the horse to get into a nice rhythm. No problem with time for most riders.
Stadium was held on grass, and was very slippery and torn up by the time I rode. It was quite twisty, but not too terribly difficult.
Spring 2006 (2nd weekend) was fantastic and I'll do this HT any chance I can -- we did it as our last novice. Dressage warmup was excellent, with frequent watering of both the warmup and rings (huge warmup with a sandy/rubber footing). SJ was groomed amazingly well, and it was a twisty course with big fences but rode beautifully if you were paying attention and looked where you were going. XC was a blast -- seemed like mostly max height and I think they did as much as they could within the bounds of Novice but it rode beautifully. Every competitor I passed on my way up to XC had a huge grin, and every single person said XC was "a blast." It was very hot, but they did an excellent job of watering, and watering, and watering, the course so the footing was as nice as possible.
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