The wrap up.

I had an amazing time.  It was made so much better by my friend and all her help.  Friday afternoon it was time to pack up everything and put it into the truck.  There were storms on the way and I was hoping I didn't have to drive in a severe storm.  It managed to not rain for a few minutes so I could get everything into the truck.  Ryan got home to take over the family duties and it was throw Steady into the trailer and hit the road.  I stopped on the way to pick up my friend and we were headed to CAF.  Got there unloaded, got settled into our stall area, gave Steady a bath, clipped, worked on his mane and got everything in working order for the morning.  We finally made it to eat dinner at about 10 pm.

The plan was the first night to sleep in the truck at CAF that way we would be there and ready to go in the a.m.  Both of our husbands were in disbelief that we were going to sleep in the truck.  Tara and I just didn't see what the big deal was.  I have two bench seats which to me was like two beds, perfect.  The temps were supposed to drop quitea  bit overnight but we figured we would be fine.  And guess what?  We were right!  We both got a great nights sleep and never got cold.  I finally woke up at 7:45!  I didn't set any alarm because I figured I would be up the sun or at least everyone pulling for the day.  Nope!  There was a truck and trailer parked directly behind us that had come and unloaded horses and all and neither of us every heard it...lol.

I was still fine, time wise, because I didn't ride my dressage test until 10:47.  It was feed, groom and tack up.  My nerves were in full force.  Since I was a kid the day of any show I would have butterflies and be anxious.  I don't think it is a bad thing, I actually think it is all a part of the rush for me.  We went in to warm up and he was good but very looky and head high.  But I reminded myself about my realization last week that he just needs time to warm up.  We spent about 40 minutes warming up and he was GREAT!  He became very soft and supple, we were having contact, I was very happy and we even got a compliment from someone about how nicely he moves.  All the sudden it hit me that I needed to still learn the derby course...oops.  Should have done that first.  I put him in his stall for a few minutes to go walk run the course.  Then back on and I made my last minute attempt to run through my test with 7 other horses in the indoor arena.  Right before I headed out they announced they were moving dressage from the indoor to the outdoor arena.  Oh, ok we can go with that?!  I got over to the ring a couple minutes before my time and noticed that there were two seperate mud puddles right on the center line...lol...just to make it a bit more interesting, right?  We went in and trotted around a couple times.  The thing about thinking you are riding indoors and the last minute switching it to outdoors is that warming up indoors seems like a fine idea, BUT when you do indeed ride your test outside your horse may just be completely interested in seeing what is outside during your test.  He was good he was just a little head high and neck tight.  Our first trot down centerline was a bit wonky cause of the puddles.  But other than that most of the test went off without a hitch, not perfect but hey we are in Starter division we are not supposed to be perfect.  Our biggest blunder was toward the end of the test and he picked up the left lead instead of the right.  We pulled back tried again and wrong again, pulled back and finally at about C he got it.  We had about 2 seconds of a nice contact canter.  Second time down centerline he was much straighter and at halt he was SQUARE!!!!!  Can you tell that makes me happy? :)  It is a big deal for us.  I was proud of my boy.  He did the best he could for me and we didn't have perfect circumstances.  He got the wrong lead but I didn't really care, he was trying for me and that is why I love him. 

Dressage score 41.0!  I am happy with that and we were tied for second.  I am certain if we had not screwed up the lead we would have been first.  All numbers were 7's and 6's except the canter to the right got 4's oops :).

I am not an eventer that stomachs dressage to get to jumping, I truely enjoy that part of this sport.  Finding that level of communication is not something I was taught in all the years growing up riding.  I am completely facinated by it and want to get better and better at listening and communicating with my horse.  But jumping IS f-ing FUN!!
Dressage: check.  Now onto the derby...

I had a few minutes in between to scarf down some lunch(best horse show food you will ever sink your teeth into) then back out to tack up and hop over some warm up jumps.  Then I went to watch a few people before it was my turn.  It was cold, windy and if it wasn't raining there was this yucky mist flying through the air.  I wasn't cold but the people on the ground were fridged.  I think you can even hear one person in the background of the video saying "I can't feel my fingers, toes, anything"  LOL.  Our ride went awesome!!  I don't think we have ever jumped anything as well as we did that course.  He was brave, willing and listening.  I mean what more could a rider want.  When we went to the far end of the XC course there are always the dreaded cows but he watched them but never stopped listening.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!  I actually was tearing up right when we were done because I was so damn happy!  I screamed like a crazy woman and I am sure everyone thought that I was indeed crazy.  Especially when most teenage kids coming off the course were at worst either pouting because their horse wan't perfect or at best meloncolly about it all.  It bugs me when people don't smile on their horses back but that is probably because I am getting old and ungrateful little whipper snappers bug the buhgebbers outta me.

So as I was leaving the arena you will see Lee Ann walk up to me and what she was saying was, "which direction did you take the orange and yellow?".  Ahhh go figure it was a perfect ride all except the fact that I went out of my way to jump one of the jumps the wrong direction.  I was disappointed but it did not change how fantastically awesome the whole ride was.  Steady didn't know the difference and I made sure he knew he was the most wonderfullest horsey in all the world.

The weekend went fantastic and I cannot complain an ounce about any of it.  The end result was us being eliminated but who gives a darn, we had fun!