National Cavalry Competition Part II

Pete Criscuolo on his way to winning our only jumping ribbon

The days during the NCC are long. The first event is usually at 0930 but there is always something that has to be done beforehand requiring an early morning feeding of the horses. The day usually starts at 0600 with stable call at 0700 and "boots and saddles" at 0800. Of course that means feeding at 0500. The end of the day usually involves some social event that you have to scramble to get cleaned up for. So each day you have to get up at about 0400 and maybe you get to bed by 2200. Some stayed up a bit later to socialize but by the time I got back to my room, I wasn't ready to do anything but go to sleep.

The first event of the day was field jumping and I decided to give Apache another chance to redeem himself, or perhaps me. The Level 3 course included a single blue barrel which is a real challenge for Apache. The Wonder Horse hates blue barrels for some reason and I have a hard time getting him to jump three, let alone a single one. It takes some practice to keep your horse from running out and we had none, so I decided to drop to Level 2.

The Level 2 course was straightforward with an in-and-out, oxer, and a couple of direction changes. Nothing that Apache shouldn't have been able to handle. However, I knew I was going to have trouble getting Apache into the arena. The event director said we could have a person on the ground help lead our horse in but my comrades were under a shade tree a couple hundred feet away and were unable to help. They saw me struggling to get Apache in and saw that one of our riders, Martina, was closest, so they began yelling at her to give me a hand. She complied, but instead of running over to help she starting jumping and throwing her arms up into the air. It might have helped but she was probably 50 feet away while she was doing this. I could hear the commotion behind me but was focused on Apache and getting him forward.

Apache eventually decided that I wasn't going to let him back out of the arena so he sped toward the first fence. He cleared the jump with ease and then lined up for the in-and-out. He took this obstacle with ease also but I managed to lose both stirrups in the second landing. Stabbing my boots back into the stirrups, I lined up on the third jump and cleared this one easily as well. Given our speed and performance, things were looking good for us. Then, disaster struck. The next jump required a hard right turn just before the open gate to the arena. Apache saw the escape route and made for it instead of the jump. I pulled him up too late and we broke the timer plane. We were once again, eliminated. The rest of our team didn't do much better but one of our riders managed to pick up a second place ribbon in Level 2.

The final event of the day was the mounted saber course. I almost decided to participate but when I ran the likely scenarios through my head, I realized that Apache wouldn't be able to hack the course. Once I saw the course, I was convinced I had made the right decision. Unlike previous years, when the course for all three levels was the same, they got a new course designer who added some really challenging jumps and targets. Each level was increasingly more complex and challenging. The Level 3 course involved chopping up targets that consisted mostly of potatoes. In some cases the rider had to pierce the target with the point of his saber, and other times he had to slice the potato with a slashing attack. There was also a parry target that required the rider to parry an arm simulating a saber attack and then follow up with a slashing attack on an associated head target.

The courses were tough and not a single member of our team picked up a ribbon in any of them. Apache would not have fared well and would probably have dumped me on the ground as he had the previous year.

So the day was pretty much a bust for our team with only one ribbon to show for our effort but the best was still to come. The final day of the competition turned out to be a real surprise for us and one of our riders achieved something that none of had ever achieved before.