On August 5th, Chris and I headed to St. Louis for the SLADS August Classic. I stayed Thursday night at Chris's house and we were going to try to head out as early as possible on Friday morning. Unfortunately, we got a later start than we would have liked, but we got to the National Equestrian Center around 1pm and we missed all the rush hour traffic. We unpacked all our stuff and the horses got settled in their stalls.
We took some time off and then rode in the warm up once it had cooled down a bit. Dezi was really good! We putzed around the barn and relaxed a bit before we headed to bed. Coats were waived all weekend, but I wasn't prepared with a cute show coat! Bummer!!
On Saturday, we woke up ready to go. Dezi and I had our first ride in the Jackpot class (First Level Test 2) at about 10. I braided and watched some friends, and Chris, ride before I started getting ready. My friend, Brittany, from college came to watch and support us, which was really fun! Dezi and I put in a solid test and got a 67.286 for third place! Apparently, though, there was no money payout for third place. I think it might be because the jackpot was distributed between Open, JR/YR, and AA, but I'm not totally sure. I was still really happy with a solid score!
We waited around a little longer and I grabbed a couple alcoholic drinks to help calm me down for my first attempt at Second Level Test 1 around 2pm. I had a really nice ride. My walk-canter transitions were solid and her counter-canter was good! I was very happy coming out of the ring. We ended up with a 62.162! Woop woop!
After I was finished riding, Brittany and Chris and I headed to the Tack Trunk to do some shopping for show shirts for Sunday. I found a really cute eggplant show shirt to wear on Sunday and was very happy! We fed the horses and cleaned up a bit before we went to Chris's brother's house for our well-deserved steak dinner. We got back to the barn pretty late, but we were still able to get to bed fairly early. We were able to get a realy good night of sleep going into Sunday.
I left Dezi's braids in overnight, which was probably stupid because they didn't look great for Sunday, but I had a killer show shirt! I rode my 2-1 test around 10am. I left myself only about 20 minutes for warm-up because in previous 2-day showing situations, Dezi was usually pretty tired on the second day and I wanted to make sure she had the energy she needed to get through the test without being sluggish. Bad life choice. I got into the warm-up and she was an absolute fire-breathing dragon. She wasn't listening to me at all and I felt like I was being run away with. She would grab the bit and just take off and do whatever she wanted. It was honestly a bit terrifying. We went into the ring and the shitshow continued. I'm pretty sure Dezi legitimately ran away with me during my 10-meter canter circle RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE JUDGE! Hahaha! That (not so) little jerk! And she swapped leads before our counter canter. Oops. It was not good. Nothing about the test was good, but we had already scratched from our second test of the day (because we wanted to beat the heat on the ride home). We ended up with a 59.595. Totally fair. I hung my head, tucked my tail, and started trying to figure out how I can prevent this from happening at our next show. We packed up and headed out. We got home around 5pm and I slept HARD that night! Work the next day was definitely tough!
Then, on August 21st, Dezi and I headed to the Mid-America Eventing Association One-Day Schooling Show at Heritage Park. We entered the beginner novice HT because I'm planning to ride beginner novice in the fall events. I really want to get a BN qualification for AECs in 2023! Like really badly. I want to be able to go to AECs in Kentucky and have a successful outing and finish cross country! And I think we've got a better chance of taking some of the pressure off if I can do it at the BN level instead of novice.
We had a solid dressage ride. Our work to the right was markedly better than the left, but Chris and I already knew that Dezi needed her hocks injected. She had been having a much harder time using her left hock, particulary in our walk-canter work and our lateral work. We ended up with a 27.81! Woah! That's awesome! My sub-30 dressage score! Too bad the goal for 2022 was a sub-30 dressage score at a recognized novice event!
We had a solid dressage ride. Our work to the right was markedly better than the left, but Chris and I already knew that Dezi needed her hocks injected. She had been having a much harder time using her left hock, particulary in our walk-canter work and our lateral work. We ended up with a 27.81! Woah! That's awesome! My sub-30 dressage score! Too bad the goal for 2022 was a sub-30 dressage score at a recognized novice event!
We left all the poles up in stadium and went double clear on XC to end on my dressage score for 4th place, but my jumping position was terrible! I was all up in my toes and going straigh forward over the front of my saddle and over her shoulder... even after Chris pointed it out to me! I don't know why I did it. And in my videos, I was doing it over almost every single jump! I really need to work on that before the fall eventing shows. I can do that. AFTER dressage regionals, of course! That's the next big show on the dockett. We've got about 3 weeks to prep and Dezi got her hocks injected, so it'll be fun to have a horse that's willing to work with me again!
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