Let me just preface this story by reminding everyone that it has been raining for the last 2 weeks, if not more, straight. I mean every. Stinking. Day. Everyday. It's been horrible. Since our horses live on pasture and we have outdoor riding areas, we have had minimal ride time. We have done what we can with hauling to an indoor to make it work, but it has been quite a chore. Well, things were looking up! Mill Creek was this weekend, and all week, even until Thursday night, there was only 20% chance of rain predicted for Saturday and 10% Sunday. The organizers of the event even changed the schedule of the event so that we would have dressage in the arenas on Saturday and then stadium in the arena & cross country on Sunday to allow the XC course time to dry out a bit more before horses needed to run on it. Unfortunately, Friday morning, it all changed. Suddenly Saturday and Sunday both changed to 80%. Whoopee!
I took Friday off work and spent my morning at the boot repairman's shop. I had dropped off my boots 2 weeks prior to get a gusset added to the boot so that my left leg (DVT leg... Eff you, still, DVT) would fit into my boot. He thought he had finished it about a week ago, but when I went to pick it up, I could fit my entire forearm AND my left leg into the boot... not right. Pretty sure that's not right. So on Friday morning, I went and sat in his shop for about an hour until it was completely finished and perfect, and it was pretty darn close to perfect. Then I had to pack up my car and pick up Leah from school so we could organize the horse trailer and catch, bathe, & load our horses.
We got to Longview Horse Park around 5pm on Friday evening. We unloaded the horses, set up the stalls, and made sure that we had everything we needed to get in a quick warm-up ride. Then Leah and I went down to get our packets, but loe and behold, they had run out of Purina treats! Darn it all!
I only had to make about 3 trips back to the horse trailer to get things that I had forgotten for riding, but I eventually got there. Dezi and I had an amazing warm up! We had one incident in the crazy warm up ring where we nearly had a head on collision with another horse/rider combo, but everyone ended up unscathed, even if a bit annoyed. Sorry, whoever you are, for messing that up. But Dezi was listening, she was on the bit, and we had great rhythm during the majority of the warm up. I was very happy with her. We fed the horses, walked the cross country course (which was pretty muddy in parts, but the jumps themselves looked do-able), and took off for the evening.
After the horse show, I had to run over to the pool hall to play in a pool tournament our Wednesday night team had qualified for a couple of weeks ago. It's a good group of people. We ended up winning! I am a handicap level 2 and I had to play someone who is a 3. I did it! I was really happy., but it was a double-edged sword because that meant I would have to play a match on Saturday afternoon at 3pm (in the middle of the horse show day). Hopefully the good vibes would continue to Saturday.
After about 4 hours of sleep, I got up super early to get to the horse park so I could braid Dezi and another horse of a friend. I didn't have a whole lot of time to chill out until it was time to get on for warm up. Dezi had a really nice warm up again. It was fairly easy to find our rhythm and we were doing really good transitions where she was on her haunches and listening to me. I kept checking the stands to see if Anthony had made it, but I guess we had stayed out too late on Friday night and he needed his beauty rest. We went into dressage and I felt really good about it. Our test was really good. I was thinking the whole time, I prepared for my transitions, my geometry was good, I showed good bend, and my rhythm was consistent. We did have a bobble in our right lead canter transition where I went forward too much and she ended up having to run into the canter instead of doing a good transition on her back end. Chris predicted that we would have a score around 34-35. Fair enough. I took Dezi back to the stall, and as soon as she was taken care of and relaxing, I started incessantly checking scores online.
As Leah was warming up for her dressage, we got news that they would be cancelling cross country and making the show into a combined test because of the wet & muddy conditions of the ground. I was bummed because not running cross country would make it more difficult to qualify for AECs, but I wholly understood. I'm doing this for fun, so if something bad happens on a wet XC course to me or my horse and I can't ride tomorrow, there's no point in doing any of this. I also got news that I was sitting in 1st place in my BN-Horse division on a 31.8 dressage score. Leah had a nice test, too, also with a bobble when she picked up the right lead canter. Unfortunately, her bobble caused her to be late in her transition. But she did get an 8.5 on her halt!
I spent the next few hours cleaning tack to get the dirt & mud of the arena off my saddle, girty, and everything else. It took forever! After we relaxed for a bit, I left the caring for Dezi to Leah and her mom, Karla, before I left to go play another match in pool. I got to the pool hall pretty early and ended up playing in the second match. I played against another lady whose handicap was 3 and beat her very quickly. She didn't even win a game. After I won, I told the team to text me as many updates as possible and went home to feed & let the dogs out, take care of the horses, & watch some of the upper levels do their stadium courses. After we walked the horses around the property for a while, I left to go back to the pool hall.
This was the last match of the tournament. If we won this round, we'd qualify for the world tournament at the end of May. And if we won that, we'd be able to represent Kansas City in Las Vegas in August. Baby steps. They played me in the third match when we were up 4-1 against the other team. I had to play someone who's handicap was 5, so I had to win 2 games before she on 5. If she swept me, the worst that could happen was that we would be tied 4-4. If I could win one game, we would be winning 5-3. and if I won both, it would be 6-1 or 6-2 depending on how many games she had won. Anyways, I lost the first game and started to get a bit down on myself. I won the next game and was on top of the world! Then she won a couple more games. And then it happened. I won my second game! Our team was up 6-1. My boyfriend, Anthony, needed to win one game in order to qualify us for the next tournament. And he did! Everyone was sitting around and I couldn't figure out if we were waiting on bar tabs or what. Apparently, we made money for winning this tournament! I'll take it!! Too bad it meant another night of minimal sleep.
I got to the horse park around 6:30 on Sunday morning. It was lightly raining, but nothing too terrible. We are eventers, after all. Leah and I cleaned our horses stalls and walked the grounds to get them out a bit. Then we went down to watch some of the Novice riders do their stadium rounds. I was a little enthralled and late to start getting ready for my own stadium round, but it worked out. By the time I got on, I had plenty of time to hack around the show grounds for a few minutes before doing some walk/trot/canter in the field outside our stalls. Dezi was being really good and listening to me well. We walked down to the arena as they were in the middle of the division before us. We would be the second pair to go in our division. Our warm up was good. We did knock one rail in warm up because I got her too close to the base of the fence and was over her shoulder. I could do better in the actual test.
We went in for our round. The first jump was nice. The second jump was an oxer, so I obviously rode it correctly because it seemed a bit big. And then I got her too close to the base of the third jump and got over her shoulder. She knocked the rail. I was determined to make that our only rail and proceeded to ride the rest of the course really well. Everything else was clean and clear. That rail took us to third place! Oops! Fortunately for me, one of the girls who would have been placed higher than me had a few rails, so we ended up in second! I couldn't be more happy! If we had jumped clean, we would have been the Adult Rider low score for BN, but it is what it is. We're still learning. It'll get easier the more I get to know her. This is just the beginning for us, and to end it in 2nd place is pretty dang good. I couldn't be more proud of her! I know we didn't run cross country, but we got through the 2 harder phases in second place! How cool! And I got to lead the victory gallop because so many of the horses in our division went back to the barns when it started raining... so that was pretty fun!
Unfortunately, Leah had a fall in stadium, so she was eliminated. The tone of the rest of the day was a bit somber because of it. We packed up, waited out a bit more rain, and then headed out. Chris offered to unload Dezi so I didn't need to drive the 100+ mile round trip to/from her barn. I appreciated the offer and took her up on it.
Anthony and I spent the rest of the day lounging and watching movies. Between second at our first recognized BN, a win in the pool tournament, and even finding some time to relax, I'd call that a pretty perfect weekend.
Unfortunately, because we didn't get to do cross country, we won't have enough cross country rides to be able to qualify for AECs in 2019. We'll have to change that so it becomes a goal to qualify for the 2020 AEC. I think we can do it. It would give us a lot more time to prepare and become confident at the beginner novice level before we got to the big stage. Our new goal will be to go double clear in our next stadium round. Luckily, we'll have a chance to do just that at RIO next weekend!
