Kansas City and the midwest in general are known for crazy mood swings when it comes to weather. The week before Windermere was typical fall weather until Thursday when temperatures hit the mid-80s! I didn't even ride that day, because I was worried our planned ride would be too much for Dezi with her full winter coat and a full week of work. And then Friday came and the temperatures dropped. Mid-40s and cloudy all weekend were what the weathermen predicted. Great. I can handle the 40s. That's not that cold! I live in the midwest. We're used to cold. I neglected to realize that mid-40s were the HIGHS for each day. It was cold.
When it was time, we headed back to the stall to prep for dressage. Dezi had been napping in the fresh shavings and was very resistant to getting up. After I finally convinced her that it was time to ride, I walked for a while in the grassy area near our stall before we started toward the warm up. Dezi was doing really well! She felt soft. She was listening to me. I was actually thinking and keeping her in a frame and working from behind. We heard that they were running ahead, so we headed up to the warm up area. In the small arena, we were still killing it. And then they told us to head to the warm up behind the arenas. I didn't realize that heading to that warm up meant that there would still be 3 whole tests before we would get to ride our test. I did the best I could to keep the momentum going, but Chris had relocated to the stands thinking that we would be going fairly quickly. Not the case. I don't know what I was doing or if Dezi just became agitated at the long wait, but I didn't feel like I was doing anything right. Going around the outside of the arena, she felt like she could take a deep breath. We headed down centerline and we had a nice test. I struggled with the things I would have predicted I would have trouble with. Our transition from stretchy trot to medium trot was not pretty at all. Dezi was very bracey. And then there was the free walk. Thank god it's not a coefficient anymore. I have really been working on the free walk, trying not to give her too much rein to allow her to get distracted and slowly picking the reins back up to get to medium walk. Well apparently I got too complacent in the test, gave too much rein and then tried to pick her back up too abruptly. She threw her head in the air, truly offended that I would possibly ask her to finish the rest of the test. We worked through it and came to enough of a compromise to finish the test. 37.6. I know it was bad, but I didn't realize it was quite THAT bad. Other than those 2 mess ups (which were totally my fault), the test was actually pretty nice. We were sitting in 9th place. Make your own assessment of the ride on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/2TPN-zSY4kM
Because of the number of entries, they made the show a three-day. Prelim would do dressage and XC Friday with stadium Saturday. Training & novice did dressage Friday, XC Saturday, & stadium Sunday. And BN & starter would do dressage & XC Saturday and stadium Sunday. So for us, it was actually a three-day show. We would ride dressage at 4:54pm Friday, XC at 11:45 Saturday, & stadium around 11 on Sunday.
I took Friday off work so that I could get Dezi and the trailer ready. I got to the barn around 9am. I opted not to bathe Dezi, because it was cold and I didn't want her to hate me for the rest of the forseeable future. But I did braid her from the comfort of our own wash rack instead of trying to get it done at the park. Good thing, too, because it took me about twice as long as it usually does because of my cold fingers that constantly needed breaks for warmth. We left around noon and headed to Longview.
We set up the stall and made it look as purple as possible before we headed down to walk the cross country course. Everything looked pretty doable. There was nothing we hadn't jumped before except for the novice corner, which of course they decided to put directly after a ditch to make it even more of a question. I walked the course a second time before we watched some of the prelim riders go.
I took my time putting everything away. I fed Dezi and just relaxed a bit. We went for a walk before I called it a night and headed home. I took all my jumping stuff with me so I could clean tack in the comfort of my own home, on the couch, while watching TV. Anthony and Paul were playing in a pool tournament and it was kind of nice to have the house to myself.
The 5:30AM alarm came quick. I did my usual QT stop before I headed to the barn. My dog, Sophie wanted to come, and with Chris coming for our rides and then leaving, it would be nice to have the company. I fed Dezi, walked her around the property for a bit, and then Sophie and I headed down to watch some of the training level XC. The course was eating people alive! There were riders falling off, lots of refusals, and several people that just decided to withdraw in the middle. It was a very technical course and honestly, made me reconsider ever wanting to move up to training level from novice. Although, I guess that's a decision that can definitely be made at a later date, after we've established ourselves a bit more at this level.
I headed back to the barn to find Dezi napping. Silly girl! But we had to get ready. We headed down to warm up. Alone. Sophie got to relax in the warm car while I was riding. I hadn't seen Anthony or Chris, but XC was running early, and I wanted to make sure I was there when it was my turn. It was nice to see Annetta, a familiar face, when I got down to XC warmup. Chris eventually arrived and we had a good warm up. Dezi was totally game to jump all the things. She felt really good. We headed out on course and she absolutely killed it. We weren't as close to speed fault time as we had been at Heritage, but I think it was mostly because of the hills, which were really testing her fitness. She rose the first jump really well and then proceeded to cross-fire most of the way to jump 2. She did the bank up (5) well and then hesitated a bit at the bench at 6. She swapped leads all the way down the hill to 7. It felt funky and I wasn't sure if I should be worried about her for some reason, but she didn't do that at all the rest of the course. I think we need to incorporate more hills and inclines in our fitness work. She jumped the ditch like a champ and then had locked onto the corner before I even needed to ask her. It's so cool how she loves her job and just looks for the next fence. She was a little slow up the hill to the lattuce and jumped it a little funky. We got to the water and she started to hesitate a bit, so we made the joint decision to trot it. She the refused to pick up the canter in the water, so we jumped 14 from a trot. We were fine on the time, so I let her relax for the last 2 jumps and she came down to a trot as soon as we crossed the finish line. She was done. Good girl, Dezi. Watch the GoPro video of our ride here.We went double clear to end up moving up to 7th place.
Dezi got the afternoon off, linament, and lots of hay for munching. Sophie and I went shopping and then watched some of the BN cross country to see the people we knew and then watched the prelim riders do their stadium rounds. It was a really fun environment with almost everyone from the show there to support the top level riders! Dezi finished the night with a good walk, some food, and standing wraps. I headed home for a warm shower (still feeling like I would never be able to warm up), and then went to a friend's house to celebrate his birthday. I made it an early evening so that I could comfortably wake up early on Sunday when the alarm went off at 6AM.
Another QT run before Sophie and I went to Longview. I fed Dezi, walked her, and got her wraps off before I went down to watch some of the show jumping. Since we were at the end of the novice divisions, I was able to watch all of the training riders before I headed up to get ready.
It was cold. That morning, it was really hard to take off my layers of clothing! The show was running super early, and Anthony arrived right as I was getting on. We walked for a bit until it was our turn to head into warm up. Dezi was being good. We had a good rhythm and she wasn't second-guessing anything. She was ready.
We went in for our round and she was really good, but I think we were both maybe tired. Typically, we race around stadium with reckless abandon, and then get a stern talking-to for being too on the forehand and nearly out of control. Well, I guess I overcompensated, because this round was too slow. Maybe we were tired. Maybe I was working too hard to keep her slow and paying attention, but we knocked a rail and then proceeded to get short spots to almost every other fence on course. Dezi didn't look at any of the jumps or question anything. She was a total champ (you can see, too, at this link: https://youtu.be/PxFQPTO-Vu8 ). The announcer announced that we had a double clear round, whcih was definitely not true. I made sure to ride over to the judge to make sure they had my rail marked- I couldn't imagine finishing on a score I hadn't earned. As we watched the rest of my division, it looked like almost everyone went double clear, but there were a few rails. We would see.
We headed over to the grass arena for the awards ceremony. Again, like at Heritage, there were no numbers called so I didn't know if I would be getting a ribbon or not. I decided to take a chance and go in with the group. They announced 8th and my heart fell, I assumed my rail would take me down in placings. I was totally prepared to be that loser that is at the back of the victory gallop without a ribbon. And then they announced 7th. It was me! What? I ended up in 7th place! I guess people had more trouble than it appeared. I forgot that they had not had us go in numerical order, so the people placed ahead of me must have gone before me. And the best part about a 7th place ribbon?!? IT'S PURPLE!!!! PURPLE!!! It was destiny!!
We got the stall torn down and headed home for a relaxing evening. It was a long weekend.
We definitely have work to do this winter. I need to get into the dressage ring as many times as possible so that I can work on not going brain dead and continuing to think when I turn down centerline. We need to work on our stretch to medium transitions at the walk and trot. We need to figure out the proper rhythm for our stadium courses and maybe even go to some hunter/jumper shows to get in the ring and get that figured out, too. But until then, Dezi will have some time off. I hesitate to take the foot completely off the gas, though, because we typically are forced to take the entire month of January off (because KC weather). We shall see what we decide to do. But it's definitely time to look at our goals for the year and start thinking about all the big things we want to achieve next season.
I could not be more proud of Dezi and my work this season. We've worked hard, and I'm so excited for the great things to come next year. We're just starting to figure it out, and we are going to accomplish amazing things. She's my girl, and we're true partners. #badasswomen
