Cloud Dancer, the wonder pony

[Lynette Helgeson <helgeson@lansford.ndak.net>]

Hello everyone,
I don't know how many of you remember me talking about my 3 year
old 1/2 arab/welsh pinto pony, but I think you guys are going to
hear a lot more about him in the future. If you remember I am
5'8" and a middleweight rider and my pony is 13.3 hh. I started
to train this pony for my kids, but they were doing so well on
my well broke arabs, that I decided to take Cloud Dancer on some
competitive rides. 

Yesterday I took Cloud Dancer on his first  competitive 12 mile
ride along with my 8 yr. old twins on our 11 and 20 yr. old arab
geldings. I just started riding CD this past spring so he was
still having a hard time with steep long hills, he would get
tired making it to the top, but he excels on rolling smaller
hills and on the flats. I took him on the Chimney Butte ride in
south central ND and on the course the first part had lots of
steep, long hills with lots of rock and the second part was a
lot of rolling hills and some flats, in fact the last four miles
was pretty flat. 

So the plan was to take it easy on the first part and try and
make up time on the last part. There was 30 competitive riders
altogether and since we were taking it easy on the hills, it was
not long before we were in last place. I noticed that CD does
very good at taking care of himself, even if all of the other
horses are taking off and running up and down the hills, he
knows that he has a hard time going up the steep ones, so
instead of pushing himself to catch up, he takes it easy going
up and then he wants to go fast going down, but since he is only
three and is not legged up yet, I hold him back, but I really
think that with conditioning he will be able to travel at a
pretty good clip going down hill. He is very sure-footed and
those short stout legs, (he already has a 7 1/2 " cannon) are a
real advantage for going fast down hill. 

So when it came to the last part, I had lots of horse left and I
let him go. He has a very smooth, fast pony trot, that most
bigger horses have to canter to keep up with, but because my
arabs have conditioned with him, they have developed a nice
extended trot to keep up with him. ANd we flew! we were passing
horses right and left, and we keep up that pace until the finish
line, because we were 11 min. past the cutoff time and in
competitive you loose points for being before or after the
cutoff time which was 2 1/2 hrs. I knew when we came in that we
only had 10 minutes before they would check P/R so it was a real
test to see how fast he would drop after that fast pony trot for
several miles. Well he
check out at 56 after 10 minutes and he vetted in clean all the
way through. No filling in the legs and he had drank good on the
trail. Not bad for a 3 yr. old pony carrying a middleweight
rider, I was very proud of him. 

So out of 30 riders my 8 yr. olds, Kate and Kayla placed first
and third in the jrs. With Kayla getting first overall, meaning
that she got the  highest score of all of the 30 riders and she
was riding the 20 yr. old. ANd my little pony placed 6th. A lot
better then I thought he would do. There was some tough
competition. 

So today I sit before you proud and thankful of not only of this
little guy that we bred and raised, but also proud of my girls
for taking such good care of there horses. They watered and
sponged every chance they got, and carefully took those horse
down hill, around rocks, and listened to them. ANd I am thankful
for all of the list advice that has got us to this point. I
can't wait until next year when we can get out of competitive
and get into Limited Distance and then into endurance as this
pony gets into condition for it. 

I have always been a person who thought that a bigger person
needs to ride a bigger horse. THis pony is proving me wrong in
all counts. 

Lynette
Co-manager for the Long X ride in the ND Badlands.


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