I absolutely cannot believe that it's almost July already and the first half of my show season of 2023 is already over!
March was very rainy, so all of our plans were foiled. We just didn't have a lot of time to prepare with the wet weather and the cross country schooling at Heritage Park was cancelled because of the ground being too wet.
So April came pretty quickly. We did a schooling at Longview the first weekend and mostly jumped starter and BN jumps, because it was our first outing of the year and we were honestly both a bit unfit. Then we went to World Cup in Omaha. Chris and I went together and it was really cool when I went to find our seats and we were IN THE FRONT ROW for dressage!!! We watched some amazing dressage rides & freestyles, some badass jumpers, and even some vaulting. We got to watch people warming up, buy lots of customized things (my new KEP helmet is amazing and I hope my new tall boots show up in July), try Boba tea for the first time, and take selfies with all the coolest people in the equestrian world. I think it gave us all some serious inspiration for the upcoming show season and definitely inspired me to start figuring out my freestyle!
The next weekend, I did a schooling dressage show at Longview followed by some more cross country schooling. We got a 32.5 on Novice Test B and a 62.772 on First Level Test 3. Our leg yields were KILLER, though! But cross country schooling admittedly didn't go amazingly well. Dezi had a hard stop at the novice table and freaked me out a bit. I definitely lost some XC confidence after that one, but we tried again and it went fine. I still couldn't stop thinking about it.
The following weekend, I attended the AOTA Conference, so I wasn't able to do anything horse related except try to put some quick rides on my horse in the evenings and couldn't go back to Longview to redeem ourselves on the cross country course.
On the weekend of April 29-30, we were supposed to go to the Tulsa Expo Center for the OKDS Spring dressage show. Unfortunately, we decided not to go after they announced an EHV-1 outbreak at the reining show the weekend prior. Instead, we hit up Longview again for some more cross country schooling. The main objective this time around was the novice table and some other novice jumps to prove to myself that I could go novice at Mill Creek at the end of May. And we totally did it! My horse killed it! We jumped some new jumps and even tackled the bank complex down to the skinny and the training tiget trap in the treeline!
May brought the KCDS recognized dressage show at Longview. We got a 60.972 (just under qualifying) and a 62.772 in First Level Test 3, and a 64.4 and a 65.4 in Training Test 3 (at least we got both qualifying scores in that one). We even had some friends from pool come out to watch me ride. It was fun to explain dressage to them!
A couple weekends later, we went to the schooling one day at Heritage Park. We went novice to prepare for Mill Creek. Dezi and I got a 25.0 in dressage, but I caused her to knock 2 rails in stadium. Boo. And then we went to run XC. It started out great! She was jumping well and everything was going amazingly well. And then I think we both got kind of tired. Coming to the second to last fence (a simple, honestly probably closer to BN difficulty than novice), Dezi came down to a trot. I thought we could jump it from a trot, and we probably could have, but I leaned forward on the approach instead of sitting up. And when I lean forward to the fences, we all know that my horse cannot lift both me and her front end, so she stopped. But I didn't. So I came off. Great. Since it was a schooling show, I got back on and was able to push just a littel bit to jump that jump and the final jump to end on a good note. Lesson learned.
Up next, Mill Creek Horse Trials at Longview Horse Park. Dezi and I had a relaxed dressage test, until I spaced and completely forgot the test. With our error, we ended up with a 34.7, sitting in 4th place. Our double clear XC run was amazing and put us up into 2nd place overnight. Then we had 2 rails in stadium, so we ended up in 4th place. Not a terrible finish. We really need to figure that stadium thing out! But we really had a lot of fun with our friends during this one. Anthony came out and we enjoyed dinner with Rod and Gail and Melissa and Junior in the evenings. We even went down to the water complex in the middle of the night for a quick dip of the toes!
On June 10-11, we headed to the Claremore Expo Center for our next recognized dressage show in an effort to redeem ourselves for a second qualifying score for regionals at first level. Because of our scratch from the Tulsa show, we were able to transfer our funds to this show to make it much more afforable. We camped out in the campground and again had some cookouts and good dinners with friends. We ended up with a 65.8 and a 69.2 in Training Level Test 3 and a 62.361 and a 68.472 in First Level Test 3. We're officially qualified for regionals at both training and first level! Time to start more seriously working on our first level freestyle!
And finally, on June 23rd, we headed to the Kentucky Horse Park with some friends to compete at Beginner Novice with the goal of a completion! Chris was busy all weekend with working equitation and scribing at the KCDS July Recognized show, so Dezi and I hung out and hauled with the Cassandra Sport Horse crew. They did all the driving, which was awesome! We got there Friday afternoon and got the horses settled. Samantha Fogg came to my rescue to coach me! We walked XC and then I had a short dressage ride that evening before Sam and I headed to dinner with Kathleen and Camryn Holcomb. Saturday morning, I rode dressage at 11:06. I only wanted a short warm up so that I didn't get to overthinking things, as I typically do. We got down to the dressage warm up and they told me that the rider before me hadn't checked in yet, so I could go into the ring whenever I was ready. So Sam and I promptly started warming Dezi up. She was super super rideable and happy. When I went to the warm up steward to confirm that I could go in the ring, they told me that the girl in front of me had indeed checked in. I found her and asked if I could go ahead and ride my test early to give her more warm up and she seemed appreciative. The judge was also happy to keep the show moving, so we went out of order. Dezi was super rideable and I actually found myself thinking throughout the test. I walked out and felt very good about it, especially my beautiful square halt at X at the end of the test. It took forever for them to update scores, but it was exciting when they finally updated everything and I ended up with a 25.9. However, when I looked at my test, I had an error! I was supposed to halt at G instead of X and the judge didn't tell me! Boo!!! I could have had a 23.9.
We rode stadium jumping later in the day. We had a very nice warm up in a truly chaotic warm up ring. I know that I need to sit up to the fences, but I didn't do it correctly to 2 fences out of the 11 and those are the 2 fences that came down. Oops. My bad. Sorry, Dezi. After stadium, Sam and I went out to watch some of the novice XC and I re-walked my cross country course. The course definitely looked more doable as I watched novice going while I walked it. Dezi and I went for a quick walk before I headed to dinner with the crew. We ended up at a cool little hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a Thoroughbred theme and delicious food. I had a terrible time sleeping between Saturday and Sunday and even work up with a heart rate of 101 in the middle of the night for no reason after dreaming about cross country.
Sunday brought cross country day. My ride time was 9:54 and the storm looked like it was coming all morning. I got on shortly after 9:00 thinking that I could give her a long walk warm up, since she had been in a stall all night and is used to being on pasture. Sam agreed. When we got up to the warm up, the warm up steward told me that there were approximately 10 horses before me who hadn't checked in yet and she was trying to get people out as quickly as possible. There were lots of openings and she was allowing people to go as soon as they were ready in whatever order they wanted. After a couple of laps around the warm up field and the sky growing darker, Sam and I decided to just go ahead and start jumping. I jumped each stadium jump once and then each of the 2 XC jumps once before the steward called for any rider that was ready. I jumped on it. We were ready to go. If I waited too much longer, it would be too easy for me to get into my head. We went down to the start box. Sam told me "Do not lean forward to any fence" and the start box steward promptly looked at me and said "Ride every jump laying on her ass and you'll probably be in the right spot!" That laugh was exactly what I needed before she started my countdown. The course rode amazingly well! I sat up to every fence (maybe not completely at 15, but she found it in her heart to save me), and we finished under optimum time! I ugly cried when we crossed the finish line! I had officially broken the KHP cross country curse!I was so stinking happy. And then the skies opened up and the show went on a weather hold for lightning. We made it through the finish flags barely in time! But luckily, it meant that Dezi was able to chill and enjoy her linament bath and a nap and drink some water before we had to head home.
This week, before I head to Florida for our annual 4th of July trip, the goal is to get my freestyle choreography figured out so that I can finalize my music while we're in Florida. Then I head to Nashville for No BS camp, so Dezi will get the majority of the month of July off, which is fine because it's going to be super super hot and her drafty body doesn't need to be in intense work when the weather is crazy hot. She knows her job. I'm trying to decide if our next show will be Maffitt Lake the last weekend of July or SLADS the first weekend of August or maybe both. After that, maybe a hunter/jumper show for fun and some stadium practice before AECs the last week of August/first weekend of September. That's the goal. Not sure what's going to happen after that. I know that we'll go to dressage regionals the last weekend of September to show traning & first level (maybe out freestyle if I can get it together). But as far as eventing goes, I'm not totally sure. I know that I can't go to Heritage Park because of my best friend Ryan's wedding, but maybe we can go to Windermere Run HT at Longview. We shall see.
It's been a crazy year! And I'm so happy to be on this journey with this amazing horse who helps me reach my goals and always pushes me to be better! I think we make a great team and I'm truly excited to see how far we can go!
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