Houston Area Carriage Association

Cowboy Up and Aqua Sports, 2012

It’s the day after the HDT x 2 at Pecan Mill Training Center (February 18-19, 2012) in Brenham, Texas.  I’m dry and warm for the first time in three days.

I’ve pondered over this wild weekend at the McLennans for hours today while mucking stalls and carrying newborn goats for Charlie and I thought that the next best thing to having been there is to just let you take a seat inside this head of mine and ruminate around.         Just kidding!

Friday started with us driving off with one truck, one van, one horse trailer, three horses and two carriages. Can you ever have an adequate or big enough trailer?

As drivers started pulling into Pecan Mill, Mike McLennan would immediately pull up in the biggest tractor I’ve ever seen, make you unhitch from your truck and then lift the front of your trailer high into the air in order to pull it expertly to a nice soggy location.  My first thought was “gee…can’t he park them in nice rows?” but Mike seemed to care less if the parking layout was pretty.  Towards late afternoon he confiscated my flatbed, loaded hay on it and pulled everyone around the grounds in the rain on a course “drive”.  Riders had to unload three times so that the tractor could make it up muddy hills or through ditches.  

Afterwards the McLennan’s invited us into their spacious home for a “Howdy to Pecan Mill” light dinner and wine.  Playing on their big flat screen T.V. were videos of the World Equestrian Games held in Kentucky.

But during the night you could hear the rain and a lot of it.  As you drove to the event Saturday morning the view of Pecan Mill was water as far as you could see.  I started calling the VSE dressage arena the “aqua-arena” after seeing all the poles and letters being carried downstream.

Everyone was dazed at the site.  Mike, Tom Knicker (TD), and Judge Karen Garrett were kicked into Mach speed as they re-tooled the course.  Frankly all three of them were insanely giddy with the thought of us driving in rain, wind, cold and high water.  They collectively felt that this is what the real driving world is all about and us lucky devils were go to be participants in perhaps one of the craziest drives of the year.  Karen Garrett who with her husband Pat lives and competes six months of the year in Ireland thought “aren’t we lucky it’s not thundering?”  Tom Knicker was wild eyed with excitement over having loads to rearrange and inspect rather than sit in a golf cart waiting to nab youngsters who were poised to illegally drive 4-wheeled vehicles on the property. And the wetter, nastier, colder and windier the weather became Mike became a nicer, sweeter and happier man.   Am I the only one who finds this funny?

As a beginner-grasshopper-student of Mike’s I will take a leap here and state that Mr. McLennan has three driving commandments.   They are:  (1) Cowboy up, (2) drive your horse every other day and (3) have fun.  OK.  He might just have a fourth commandment which would be to “think”.  I have a feeling maybe that one’s got my name all over it.

The dressage arena was wet and a third of the cones course was a water hazard. But to my surprise I found driving in water to be insanely FUN and exhilarating.

My tactical error of the day was to head out for an emergency pair of rubber boots instead of listening to the new course directions. I had “kind of “decided to not drive the Marathon with such lame excuses as William pulling some leg muscles and that I was tired.  Which meant that I sinned against Mike’s first commandment to just “do it”.  When I returned from Tractor Supply I found that I had the overall best dressage score of the day and was double clear on cones.  Without a firm grasp of the course, chucking my horse’s health out the barn door and a blue ribbon already pinned inside my head I tacked up. 

Water and mud splashed everywhere.  It was like one of those “extreme” reality shows.  If I had been at the meeting I would never missed gate #7 and earned the big “E”.  Even though the TD apologized for not putting arrows indicating the far, far, far gate it was my own responsibility to know the course.  That’s a hard and sad lesson to learn. Think of it as me taking a bullet for you and in the future walk the course no matter what.

At the Saturday night dinner at Nueces Canyon Mike McLennan was beaming.  He began by saying how blessed and thankful we all are for the rain in Texas and that this will be one show we’ll truly remember.

Sunday seemed less wet but now the ground had deeper mud. Mark’s gator, the energetic Heidi Gaddis, said that even though Mark made it clean through a set of cones a wave of mud splashed the ball off a cone after they passed through. 

An aside if you please.  Why doesn’t my husband, Mark Witte, ever get dirty? A special pact with the devil?  At 6' 4" is he too far off the ground?

As I waited to head out onto the Marathon, every driver coming up the hill from Hazard 1 and Hazard 2 said, “Wow, that mud was deep and worse that Saturday”.  OMG…could it be really worse?  You knew that the mud wasn’t swallowing carriages whole because everyone actually drove OUT of the woods towards Hazard 3.  But when Will and I hit those first Hazards it was the same feeling I have had when driving with 15 crammed college students in the back of my van.  You feel like you’re floating back and forth. 

Now I will admit here, in public, that I was WRONG.  My horse is way more powerful and talented than I’ve EVER given him credit for. My English Carriage horse hit that deep black mud with his head lowered and pulled hard. When I mentioned this to Mike, that crazy man simply remarked “I’m not surprised”.

Mark and his super-gator Heidi were watching us from the road as we began pipe Hazard 4.  They thought we were either caught up in some sort of driving vortex or maybe my horse was just refusing gate B.   Even though we circled those damn trees three times to drive a straight line through “B” with an embarrassing time of one minute, nineteen seconds, we finished with big smiles and finally a real Blue Ribbon. 

When I mentioned to my partner in Mad Girl Blogging crime, Linda Yutzy, about the rain, mud, wind, cold and lack of course arrows (they ran out because most were under water) she paused and said “I don’t see the problem here”.

The awards ceremony was filled with smiling and exhausted faces. Ashley Mitchell spoke about the “Friends of Reggie” fund which made for a beautiful and moving moment at the end of a now sunny day.

Mike jumped back into his big assed tractor and with Mr. Cowboy-calm himself, Joe Llanes, pulled all the trailers out in record time.

Here are the post-it notes that are now stuck to the walls of my brain: 

• Mike and Jerry McLennan (now aka Wonder woman) put on a show that raised the driving bar in this neck of the woods.

• Karen Garrett has probably the best 2 eyes I’ve seen when it comes to looking at and scoring a dressage test. If you thought you knew what you did correctly or incorrectly Karen Garrett saw it first, from inside a truck parked at “C” and in the rain. She saw every stride, bend, loss of energy, straight line or a “kind of “ straight line, halt, backup and gait change. Her dead on scoring will help each one of us prepare for many a future test.

• Tom Knicker proved that he can smartly change show plans in a blink of an eye with safety the priority.

• That event volunteers are like mini-diamonds in the rough and they shine, shine, shine. (Lew Smith only three days out of the hospital for heart surgery?  Nuts? NO......just pure driving enthusiasm.)

• That Pecan Mill Training Center has a superb dressage arena, cones area, interesting hazards and a gorgeous driving course.

• That our navigators are THE stars in the driving galaxy and when you don’t have one you just may succumb to lying, cheating and stealing for one (be wary of Terry Arnold when she comes near your gator).

• That driving folk are generous with their equipment, wine, assistance and their driving tips.  A really big “thank you” to Lee Fuermann who agreed to be my navigator (see the Terry bit) and actually saved my life and carriage before the marathon (I kid you not) and then had me laughing hysterically during the drive.

• And that your horse will pretty much do ANYTHING for you and probably does so for a few cookies, kindness, clear directions, soft hands and your partnership.

Anyone who didn’t show up at the Pecan Mill HDT x 2 or left early missed a great opportunity.  The mantra that keeps circling inside this cavernous head of mine besides the newly tattooed "know your course" is that you will continually learn this sport well if you associate with the most professional drivers you can find.  We’re blessed with some incredible driving guru’s in this area and Mike and Jerry McLennan are stars in that lofty, small club. 

See you next year at the Pecan Mill Training Center.  Just bring on the rain, cold, mud, and wind because we’re ready to harness up and head out strong.

 

 

Mark Witte's Blog about Pecan Hill HDT x 2 (husband of this Mad Girl) reads:

 It was very wet, very muddy, we had lots of fun, big thanks to Mike, Jerry, Karen, Tom, my gator and all the volunteers. 

 

• • 2012
    • February
      • South for the Winter?
    • January
      • A Mad Girl in Holiday-ville
  • 2011
    • December
      • Caldwell ADT ... the rest of the story
      • Caldwell Arena Driving Trial
      • Pony for Christmas, Part 2
    • November
      • New Pony for Christmas
      • Cowboy Country CDE
      • Mad Girls go Blogging

• Mad* Girls are
  Karin Broker and Linda Yutzy

  Linda began driving her 12h ponies in 2000. In 2010, Karin began driving her 17h horse. Sharing the differences in experience and perception has been a lot of fun for them both. They hope you enjoy some of their stories as well.

  * We are not angry ... just "mad"  
  -- in a frenzied mental or physical state: it was a mad dash to get ready.
  -- (informal) enthusiastic about someone or something: I am mad about ponies

  Disclaimer
  All comments here are our own and not necessarily those of the Houston Area Carriage Association or its other members and officers. Karin and Linda

  
  

   

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