First Day of Competition

If the NCC has a flaw it is that they try to cram too much into a single day. The first day of competition starts with an opening ceremony. The ceremony was held on the old fort parade ground and was attended by maybe a couple dozen people. There were more people in the ceremony than watching it. Nevertheless, we mounted up and rode from the stables in a column of fours for the brief opening remarks.

After the remarks and as the column began to move out one of the horses in the color guard spooked at something and went over backwards in front of the audience. Luckily the rider was not crushed in the wreck. I could not help noticing it was one of the same guys who had been riding up and down the staff ride column the previous day.

After we returned to the stables we changed out our campaign saddles for the stripped down competition saddles and got ready to ride over to the arena for the mandatory competitors meeting. The events held on the first day of competition are the military horsemanship events and mounted pistol. At the end of the day they hold the Major Howze competition followed by a "water call and buffet dinner." It makes for a long day and you really have to plan out the logistics of swapping saddles out for different events when the barn and the competition arena are located a mile apart.

The military horsemanship event is in reality a dressage event. Dressage was invented by the Europeans to train their horses for war but the meaning has changed over the years so that it is no longer associated with martial riding. Although our troopers initially resisted getting involved in this "pansy" riding they have come to appreciate how important it is to preparing their horses for other types of competitive riding. We have historically not done well in this event. The previous year my Wonder Horse accidentally aimed a kick at the judges during one of his transitions and then briefly departed the dressage area. We were eliminated before we could even complete the pattern. Thus, I was not expecting much this time around and was not surprised when Wonder Horse refused to maintain a walk during the short diagonal and dropped out of the trot on our last turn. However, his transitions had been perfect and his circles nearly so. Altogether I was pleased with Wonder Horse since he hadn't tried to kill a judge this time.

The afternoon event was the mounted shooting competition. The military units typically do well at this but, again, I wasn't expecting much from Wonder Horse. He doesn't like guns that much and the previous year I wouldn't even enter him into the event. This year, with lots of training, I felt he could at least enter the arena, if not stay on the course. The Level 2 pistol course included a series of low jumps and other obstacles that had to be negotiated. There were six balloons as targets and some of them were double targets--that is the targets are attached to both sides of a gate that you had to ride through. Shooting two targets that close together at a gallop with a single action pistol is no easy task.

Waiting in the entry chute to the arena got exciting as the Wonder Horse started to get happy feet. He started dancing and spinning around while we were waiting for the other competitor to clear the arena. Finally, the course was reset and the gate swung open and in we rode to an uncertain fate. Wonder Horse hesitated a little at the first jump but did not flinch when I shot the first target. Once we got past the first obstacle Wonder Horse settled down enough so that we could get down to business. We continued on, clearing our jumps, and taking out the next three targets in rapid succession. The last stretch involved a jump, 180 degree turn, pole bending course, and a jump gate with double targets. We were doing really well up to this point until Wonder Horse decided to jerk the reins out of my hands. Suddenly I'm entering the pole bending course (a series of poles that you have to weave through at a gallop) on a horse with no steering wheel. While thrashing around trying to find the reins again I accidentally discharged my pistol into the air (good thing I was observing proper gun safety by holding my pistol with the muzzle up). After finding the reins again I shot one of the last two targets with my remaining bullet and raced to the finish line. Dang. Five out of six is pretty good but doesn't land you in the money at this level of competition.