Author: SSMDTA

The 2024 Season started off with a great show at a new facility in Apopka. There were eight teams who competed in 13 classes for a total of 60 individual runs throughout the weekend.

Here are the results from the classes.

Compulsory

• First Place • Hearts For Horses – Open • 1,117 points
• Second Place • The Renegades • 1,105 points
• Third Place • Grace & Grit • 1,102 points
• Fourth Place • Ring N Spurz • 1,088 points
• Fifth Place • Swamp Donkeys • 1,083 points
• Sixth Place • Hearts For Horses – Youth • 1,064 points
• Seventh Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 1,038 points
• Eighth Place • The Outsiders • 1,030 points
• Ninth Place • Hearts For Horses – Novice • 1,024 points

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Youth Beginners

• First Place • Grace & Grit • 959 points
• Second Place • Swamp Donkeys • 933 points
• Third Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 779 points
• Fourth Place • The Outsiders • 718 points

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Rodeo

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,183 points
• Second Place • The Outsiders • 1,104 points

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Novice Quad

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,031 points
• Second Place • Hearts For Horses – Youth • 996 points
• Third Place • Hearts For Horses – Adult • 984 points
• Fourth Place • Swamp Donkeys • 942 points
• Fifth Place • The Outsiders • 930 points
• Sixth Place • The Southern Outlaws • 877 points
• Seventh Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 819 points

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Youth Quad

• First Place • Grace & Grit • 1,048 points
• Second Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 1,046 points
• Third Place • The Outsiders • 1,042 points
• Fourth Place • Hearts For Horses • 1,009 points
• Fifth Place • Ring N Spurz • 977 points

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Open Quad

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,066 points
• Second Place • Hearts For Horses • 1,026 points
• Third Place • The Outsiders • 1,022 points

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Open Theme

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,146 points
• Second Place • The Outsiders • 1,123 points
• Third Place • Hearts For Horses • 1,078 points
• Fourth Place • Ring N Spurz • 1,032 points

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Short Program

• First Place • Hearts For Horses – Open • 1,055 points
• Second Place • The Renegades • 1,041 points
• Third Place • Hearts for Horses – Novice • 992 points
• Fourth Place • Hearts for Horses – Youth • 970 points
• Fifth Place • Ring N Spurz • 935 points
• Sixth Place • The Outsiders • 877 points

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Youth Freestyle

• First Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 963 points
• Second Place • Hearts For Horses • 921 points

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Novice Freestyle

• First Place • Hearts For Horses • 996 points
• Second Place • Swamp Donkeys • 895 points
• Third Place • The Outsiders • 894 points
• Fourth Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 829 points
• Fifth Place • The Southern Outlaws • 814 points

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Open Freestyle

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,064 points
• Second Place • Hearts For Horses • 1,028 points
• Third Place • The Outsiders • 1,026 points
• Fourth Place • Ring N Spurz • 1,001 points

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Novice Theme

• First Place • The Renegades • 1,053 points
• Second Place • Hearts For Horses • 1,049 points
• Third Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 946 points
• Fourth Place • The Outsiders • 917 points
• Fifth Place • The Southern Outlaws • 908 points
• Sixth Place • Swamp Donkeys • 870 points

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Youth Theme

• First Place • Grace & Grit • 1,116 points
• Second Place • The Gypsy Rebels • 1,088 points
• Third Place • Hearts For Horses • 976 points

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Judge’s Choice Awards – Individual

• Alice Kampen • Daniel Delgado • The Outsiders
• Jorga Stark • Nichole Sandeen • The Outsiders

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Judge’s Choice Traveling Trophy

• Hearts For Horses

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Congratulations to all the teams and riders. A lot of hard work goes into riding in all of these classes and preparing for the shows. Looking forward to seeing you all again in June.

Amazing how time flies. When Nichole and Valerie took over SSMDTA 11 years ago, there were barely a handful of teams and we all worked out of our trailers and rode in people’s back yard arenas with a speaker set up on the back of a pickup truck. Now we are looking at 12 teams, almost 100 horses, 2-day competitions, stalls, RV spots and tons of other pieces to manage.

Between the growth of the Association and the growth of our own teams, it has become increasingly difficult for us to run the shows while giving 110% to our own horses/teams. We are not stepping back from running the Association, but we have hired a Show Manager to run the shows so that we can enjoy our time with our teams.

Mark Lindsey is our new Show Manager and he will be on site at the qualifiers and championship shows from Friday – Sunday. If you have issues with your RV site, stalls, shavings, etc, he will be your go-to person and be able to get that taken care of for you. He will run the Captains Meeting on Saturday morning and will be available to answer any questions/concerns you may have throughout the weekend.

Mark is also going to handle getting your music ready for the show so that he can assist Announcer Marc with any show day issues. Once you have registered your team, you’ll be sent info on how to get your music uploaded to Mark.

Additionally, he will be handing out wristbands for all of your riders, because we had an issue at a show last year with a non-member competing. This is an insurance liability for us, so we need to make sure only members are competing.

Mark’s wife, Carrie, will be assisting him during the shows as well.

We are looking forward to having their assistance to make the shows run even smoother and to allow us to focus growing the sport of drill team.

Mark will be added to the WhatsApp group so you all know how to reach him.

On the Zoom call last night, we asked the teams that were on what classes they were showing in. The reason was to find out what teams were planning so that when Order of Go is complete, we don’t find out that there are a lot of single entry classes. It’s more fun to have competition and makes all the hard work worthwhile.

Sounds like our Compulsory and Short Program classes are going to be big this year and we are very excited about that. With all the new teams and teams getting new riders and horses, it sounds like the Novice (walk/trot) classes will have quite a few entries this year as well. There are quite a few Youth teams, so our Youth division has multiple entries and sounds like our Open classes do as well. The Rodeo class sounds like it has only 1-2 entries planned thus far, so if you have some advanced riders that want to give it a shot, please consider entering it.

We added a new class this year called Youth Beginners and there was a lot of discussion about that. This is a walk/trot class for those Youth riders that are not only new to drill but possibly new to horses as well. We are allowing up to 2 Adult riders in this class, if needed. This is for safety so you can keep an adult with these young riders if they need it. Since this is a walk/trot class, the horse/rider combos in this class may also ride in the Novice division.

We will double check the wording in the Handbook to make sure it is written this way, but that was the intent when we created this class.

We look forward to seeing everyone in all their classes at the February Qualifier.

We had a site visit at the Clarcona Horse Park yesterday and wanted to share the information with everyone since this is a new facility for SSMDTA. Thanks to all the teams that jumped on the Zoom meeting as well, this should serve as a recap for that meeting.

Clarcona does have a covered arena with a clay floor and measurements of 150′ x 265′.

The barns are nice, wood with metal doors that the horses can look out over. Each stall has its own power outlet and switch for the light over that stall. They have clay floors. Water is available at both ends of the barns and on the middle stall. Hoses are not provided. Each stall will come with 1 load of shavings, you can purchase additional loads that will be in the stalls when you get there, or you may bring your own additional shavings.

Because the shavings are put in each stall ahead of time, once the stall assignments are done, Valerie will be in touch to determine which stalls you plan to use as your tack stalls so you don’t have shavings in them upon arrival.

There are wash racks on the end of the barns and off to the side there are really nice concrete wash racks. There are 8 of them (4 front and back). You will need to bring your own hoses for these racks. There are large rings for cross ties in these racks, but no lines, so if you want cross tie, you’ll need to bring a second lead rope.

The RV spots have both 30 and 50 amp. Some sites have power poles at both ends, but water at one end only, so you may need to bring additional length of water hose for your RV/Trailer. If you have a longer rig or lots of slides, please let Valerie know so we can take that into consideration when making the RV assignments. We won’t know until we see how many sites are needed if we’ll need to use both power poles on those sites.

There are grills at the RV spots that you can use, but no open fires are allowed.

There is a bath house in the RV area. It has showers and hot water. There are also bathrooms in the building between the barns and arena.

Looking at the facility map below, Show Ring #3 is our Warm Up Ring and Show Ring # 2 is the Covered arena. We are working on getting another arena to use during the show as well.

Since we have so many teams this year, your arena practice time is limited to 45 minutes. Please use this time to get your horses used to the environment, set your markers and general practice. You can continue to practice in the 1-2 outdoor rings beyond your arena time.

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There will be a food vendor on site, once we get their info and menu, we will post it for you.

There is not a lot of seating around the arena, they will be moving some bleachers closer in, but you may want to bring chairs if you plan to sit and watch the show.

This is a county facility and they have asked for no visible alcohol on the property.

Thank you all for your patience as we worked through creating the next version of the SSMDTA Handbook. It is now published and you can download a copy by clicking here.

All information relating to the 2024 season including the Show Schedule, Compulsory, Short Program, Handbook, Membership Form and new Score Sheets can be viewed on the website 2024 Show Season Page.

There weren’t a lot of changes made to the Handbook, so I just want to point out some of the key things that changed.

• In addition to riders, all Coaches, Captains, co-Coaches and co-Captains MUST be members of the Association.
• A new class was added: Youth Beginners. This is for our younger generation that are just starting to ride as well as starting to do drill. We encourage these riders to participate in the Novice classes as well for experience, but the Beginners class will give these new youth a level playing field.
• Teams will NOT be standing for formal Inspection this year. Your costumes/tack/grooming will still be judged, but during your Courtesy Lap and you will receive your scores under the Appearance category.
• Score Sheets have been revised to give more value to the 4 core areas of drill (Spacing, Alignment, Timing & Coordination and Degree of Difficulty). They will also be different across the different classes giving more weight to Appearance and Music in the Theme classes. Copies of the revised score sheets are available for you to review on the 2024 Show Season Page. **Compulsory and Short Program sheets have not yet been completed**
• The Judge’s Guide at the end of the Handbook has been updated to reflect the new scoresheet categories.
• All entry, music and write-up changes will close the Wednesday prior to the competition. No changes will be accepted at the show.

I think that covers the major updates for the 2024 season. If you have any questions, please let us know. We plan to set up a Zoom call with the teams in the near future to clarify any of the new rules.

Looking forward to a great 2024 season!

SSMDTA memberships run annually, so it’s time for you to join for the 2024 season. The entry forms for the first qualifier will be published shortly and riders need to be added to each team’s list so they can register properly.

To join the association, please click here, or select Registration from the top menu.

Any person may join SSMDTA. Membership year runs from January 1 – December 31. Annual dues are $30 per person.

Each person wishing to join the Association MUST fill out the Membership Form online and digitally acknowledge/sign the liability waiver.

All riders must be members of the Association in order to participate in any of the shows. Additionally, all Coaches, Captains, Co-Coaches and Co-Captains are required to be members of the Association.

We look forward to riding with you all in 2024.

The Award photos from the 2023 State Championships along with the Opening Ceremonies and Compulsory Stick Pony Walk Through have been uploaded to the website.

You can view them from the main menu or by clicking here.

Hope you enjoy them!

The February qualifier that will start off our 2024 season is taking place February 24-25, but the location has changed.

We will be going to Clarcona Horse Park in Apopka instead of the Sarasota venue originally listed. We had to make this change was made after being informed that facility improvements were not completed, the amount of stalls were limited and fees would significantly increase.

Nichole and Valerie are going to do a site visit this month and will pass along more information after that.

The address for the new facility is: Clarcona Horse Park • 3535 Damon Rd. • Apopka, FL 32703.