Written by Michelle Bassola

Well what a weekend it turned out to be!

The Moora ARC committee may be small but they certainly knew how to utilise every inch of their very looonnnnggggg cross country course in the recent ARCA Winter Challenge!

After walking the course once, kind of the 45, kind of the 65, I was feeling rather exhausted and kind of parched and definitely ready for pre-dinner drinks, but thought it was wiser to push on and re-walk immediately while I still had some of my wits about me, taking a few jump pics and trying to commit both courses to my somewhat unreliable memory.

So after trudging backwards and forwards through the muddy, puddley gullies, winding around the course in a giant serpentine fashion and trying to guess just exactly what we were expected to do at each of the non-jump obstacles, we paused briefly on the train jump to regroup (and get a group shot) and contemplate what we had signed ourselves and our unsuspecting steeds up for. Most of us were just feeling so thankful that we didn’t have to walk alllllll the way out to the “far, far, far away log” in the back paddock, like Monique, Sue, Cherie and Lynn had to!! After walking the course for a second time, I thought I’d better take my pony for a nice stretch in preparation for the big run the next day.

With the horsey jobs done, I was very impressed by Monique and Kate’s lavish spread of pre-dinner (apparently their actual dinner) snacks and then managed to hitch a ride with Frana to the fancy digs where she had thoughtfully booked a table for us all. Upon arriving at “The Junction Hotel”, we eventually found a door that wasn’t dead-locked, although it did show evidence of being recently smashed, and we made our way inside, via the drivethrough. We were directed through the ladies toilets to the restaurant on the other side. While it’s always handy to know where the ladies’ room is, Suzie point blank refused to walk that way for fear of getting toilet germs on her freshly opened beverage and joined us looking only slightly sodden from the drizzling rain after taking the more dignified but rather exposed other way around.

Dinner was delicious, if not makeshift for some of us, well actually only one of us...poor Steph ordered the only vegetarian dish on the country pub menu, only to be told it was not available (they didn’t cater for weirdo’s according to Suzie) so they made her a “chef’s special” which she received long after any of us would have finished our desserts, had we ordered them instead of another round of refreshing drinks (the rain was making us feel thirsty).

Well the sun rose above the frosty Earth much sooner than many of us expected it to, but that meant we could get back out there and walk the course again (or jog in some sections because it was soooooo long), before briefing at 8am. The course was muddier and seemed even longer than the day before but I was pumped! After having booked two awesome cross-country lessons at the previous two rallies, with Phillipa Collier and Bec Thomas, I was feeling fairly confident that I could get as far as obstacle 24 without elimination. Obstacle 24 proved to be quite the penalty point contributor in every class!! Thankfully my trusting little pony believed me when I assured him there were in fact no crocodiles in the water tray, and put all four hooves in the dish in good time!

I was also very relieved and grateful to find out how thoroughly my strapper/eldest daughter, Hannah, had prepared Charlie for me in the previous 6 weeks, riding him around and around and around our firebreaks almost every afternoon to ensure his fitness! He seemed happy enough to be pushed quite hard on course and definitely seemed to pull up better in the days following the challenge than I did! So 2 perfect scores later and Charlie and I saw ourselves in the blue ribbon position in both rounds, in decent sized classes! I was so proud that this little reining trained Quarter Horse, who only learnt to jump a few months ago, had tried his absolute heart out! It really was the icing on the cake, after such a fantastic weekend! We certainly did ourselves proud as a club, too, with ribbons won in every class and taking home the Hi Point Club Trophy, yet again!!! So well done to all of the Horsemen’s riders! Judging by the size of the smiles all round I think we were definitely all winners in one

way or another!!

A huge thanks to our president Frana, and Kate, for coming along and cheering for us and covering helper duties even though they weren’t riding. For me, the weekend was fabuously fun and exciting from start to finish, made even better by sharing it with such amazing, inspiring, talented and supportive ladies. I especially loved having all the gorgeous kids there, giving much appreciated advice (thanks Kate and Keira for the perfect line between fence 16 and 17!), taking photos of us and making us laugh, doing our helper duties for us, walking and feeding and checking our horses for us, and hopefully realising how important it is for us Mums’ to get out and be the ones having the fun and being cheered on every now and then! I can’t wait for the next Challenge!