Roo Report – Getting Ready for Chablis

I don’t think I really got into the European time zone until I finally took a day off to rest and watch it go by. Being six hours ahead of what your body is used to tweaks the system a bit. Watching the sunset after 9:30 p.m. doesn’t help.

The day of rest did both Loretta and me good. We were ready to get to work.

Back to Work

Kelly’s eye for fine detail is fantastic. What others might call a micro-detail, she sees as a glaring interruption. With Loretta and me, that detail was our connection through contact. I was doing too much with my hands, and we were talking past one another instead of with each other.

Once Kelly gave me a big ol’ cup of STFU (my words, not hers — she’s way more refined than that), we could focus on Loretta’s patience and responsiveness. The difference is palpable. It’s as if our connection had some missing pieces with frayed ends, and Kelly helped us quietly close the loop.

Traction Trials

Things in the Netherlands are dry. Very, very dry. There hasn’t been rain in weeks, and when the ground gets that dry it turns hard and slick.

I’ve always used barium applied to the horse’s shoes in a very specific way as my preferred source of traction. That makes me a bit of an outlier in our sport, where most people use screw-in studs. It’s worked for me for over 30 years, but on dry, hard ground it doesn’t quite cut it.

You might think this is a conversation about traction in the obstacles, but it’s just as critical in dressage. A lack of traction is a real challenge when we’re asking the most of a horse. Think of it this way: traction equals stability.

This was the week to give studs a try, especially with us asking Loretta for more drive from behind. A couple of small experiments in, and I think we’ve found a nice balance for her.

The Zip-Tied Wheel

Meanwhile, there were still some logistical ends to tie up.

Just before leaving the States, we decided to change some tires on the marathon carriage. With blood, sweat and tears (mostly tears from laughter) we got the job done, only to have one tire strip off the rim during our first obstacle practice session.

We ultimately loaded the carriage for Europe with the shreds of an old tire literally zip-tied onto the rim. At that point it simply made more sense to handle the problem here, where shipping wheels back and forth to the U.K. would be a whole lot easier.

So a good part of that first week went to swapping a wheel off the carriage, sending the old one back, getting a new one in, rinse and repeat. By the end of Week 2, we finally had the wheels repaired and a proper setup ready for Chablis.

The carriage wasn’t the only equipment objecting to the workload. Just before leaving, I also got a new prosthetic leg (are you picking up on a theme here?). Everything about the leg was amazing and cool, right up until the suspension blew out. Kind of the leg version of a flat tire.

The Team’s Back Together

Tara arrived Wednesday, and the full Go Retta Roo team was finally back together.

It’s great having Tara here because she’s the person who can follow my brainstorms, put them into context and figure out which ones might actually work. There have been a lot of brainstorms.

Tara had no problem getting back into the swing of things with Loretta and me. Honestly, she didn’t have much of a choice. She landed on a Wednesday, and we were headed to a CDE less than a week later. Loretta had a ride with Claus in Kelly’s horse van for the event, but we still had to get two carriages there.

Moving a horse across Europe is relatively straightforward. Apparently, moving all the stuff required to compete with the horse is the complicated part. Eventually we rented a small box truck for the job.

Annnnd there was more paperwork. Apparently, in France you need a human version of a health certificate to compete. The form essentially required a doctor to sign off on something to the effect of “I don’t see a reason this person shouldn’t compete in a horse event.” Who knew? We do now.

By the end of the week, things came together. The carriage had four functioning wheels. We had traction. We had a truck that could carry everything. The paperwork was either finished or close enough that we could see daylight.

We’re ready to head for Chablis and our first European CDE.

Follow our journey: GoRettaRoo