Glen Willow CDE and....

A couple of weeks ago, a college friend gave me a heads up on the Glen Willow CDE taking place in Avondale this weekend. A CDE is basically eventing with a carriage (or three), only possibly even more bad ass and more expensive. Dressage was Friday, marathon was Saturday, and cones were today to finish it up. Since I'm not able to ride right now--my horse or any other--I'm getting pretty desperate for fun horse activities. I loaded the hounds and the hubby into my car and we headed south Saturday morning.

Anemone II Yes, owned and driven by Dirk Young

I can't even say enough good things about this show. Even Hubby had a really good time, though I'm sure the $5 for unlimited (adult) beverages helped. You had full access to all the hazards, and everyone had a dog with them. Why, yes. That does factor into how fun a show is, thank you. We spent most of our time on the bridge over the two water hazards where we also had a close view of the triangles. However, with the way the hazards were laid out, we could see all of them--and dang were they awesome.

back to school hazard.

these ponies were less than enthused about going through the water.

This was a big event with over sixty competitors, several of whom were trying to qualify for the World Combined Pony Championships in Pau next month. There was even a Castleberry pony there, Cob lovers! (Castleberry's Crakerjack in the Prelim Single Pony.) The fun thing to see was that when the earlier competitors were done, they came out to cheer on everyone else. The dogs thought this was the best game ever: galloping horses pulling carts through water with yelling drivers and cheering spectators. Does it get more bark-worthy than that? Probably not, but I didn't hear a single dog out of the dozens that were there do more than squeak out an overexcited whine. Pro show dogs all around.

First water hazard:

Final hazard:

The triangles:

After getting what's hopefully my last sunburn of the year, I whipped out my flip phone, sent off a text, and then borrowed Hubby's iPhone to plug in the address of our next location. Which brings us to the "and":

Glen Willow CDE and....

Blogger meet up!

Since Hillary got to meet up with several west coast bloggers, fellow PA blogger Niamh and myself decided we ought to accept the challenge. We were all, "We can't let those tanned bitches outdo us. Throw down on the east coast, mother fuckers. Let's do this!" (Disclaimer: This may or may not be how the actual conversation went. Probably pretty close though.) 

Fifteen minutes later, the emus had been spotted and we pulled into a gorgeous farm. We went up to the gorgeous arena and were introduced to some gorgeous ponies.

riley is adorbs.

Niamh got on Riley after having her friend take him for a spin and I got to see her ride one full circle before Riley pulled a Bobby.

it was a very nice circle at least.

A mostly pulled shoed put the kibosh on further riding, so we went back to the barn where some true redneck ingenuity got the shoe off. Yay for hammers? Was that even a real hammer? On the plus side, Riley is too cute and was a total gentleman for it, and we were in the barn with some seriously snuggly equines.

i mean, look at that face.

no, really. look at it. zomg, the cuteness.

Niamh gave me the tour: dogs, goats, chickens, cats, more dogs, cross country jumps, more cats, and PUPPIES. I'm still not sure how we didn't come home with a puppy. I tried to make it happen, but Niamh and Hubby kept leading me away. We finished up watching a really nice looking mare get her first ride off the track (if I'm remembering that right).

Maybe one day Bobby will be sound again, and Riley will learn to keep his shoes on, and we can have ourselves a play date. Until then, I'm going to continue to covet all things Area II (because though I'm technically in Area II, it's more like Area Dead Zone up here) and keep my fingers crossed that Hubby will get transferred down there when he's done with his Management Training program. One can hope, right?