A good way to end the season.

Though it was not in my "plan" for the end of the season.  I think the "plan" said something like "end the 2012 season with a move up to Novice schooling show."  I have to say though that I cannot complain.  Could I have moved up?  In hindsight absolutely.  Was I 100% confident that it was the right timing?  No.  And I am not willing to add anymore to chance than is already included in Eventing.  Had Steady not gotten injured I am confident we could have but I am grateful that that was not worse and we even got to show one more time.  I was undecided whether I would enter or not.  If it would be worth it or if I should just call it quits early this year.  I am SO glad I decided to walk in to the post office at closing time on closing day for entries to get mine post marked in time.  Talk about indecisive!

I got my ride times and I didn't ride until 12:10 and would be completely finished by 4 and that included sticking around for all the fun classes and watching the bareback puissance, which was AWESOME by the way.  Two girls made it to 4 ft before they each jumped but took the rail and they called it a tie.  One of the winners even has her own eventing blog so you can read her account of the craziness here.  They made it look so easy.

So with such wonderful ride times I didn't even have to pull out of my driveway until 8 a.m. and I returned home at 6:30 pm. perfect!  All went smoothly with traveling the 4 hours(2 hours one way).  Have I mentioned how nice it is hauling Steady in a trailer that he actually fits into and is not freaked out by?  Let me tell you it is such an incredible relief of stress over hauling and he doesn't try to kill himself.  For the most part.
My two daughters came along and they packed, unpacked, carried saddlees, filled buckets, grazed Steady, groomed, cleaned stalls, tacked and cheered me on all day.  I am one lucky woman to not only be comepeting in this sport that I love with the coolest horse but I get to do it with these amazing people who love and support me.

Dressage: Warm up was lovely.  He was pretty relaxed and extremely relaxed compared to our last few HHP experiences.  I was pretty nervous for our test.  I enjoy learning dressage and I respect the sport/artform emensely but performing a test is such a stresser for me. I think it has to do with the last few rides and how aweful they have gone.  So I felt myself tense up and it wasn't my best riding by far but by the time we go to the end of our test I realized we did it.  He did an amazing job.  He was good, obedient and semi-relaxed.  It was one of our best tests if not the best (at least that is how it felt for me).  He only had a couple moments the turn down centerline, the right canter depart and his halt.  The canter depart was bad but he came back to me immediately and gave me a nice canter and his halts are usually perfect but this one wasn't aweful.  The canter was my fault completly, Lee Ann picked up on it last weekend in our lesson that I have a tendancy to put my aides on and think NOW!  And that just sends him in a frenzy and that is what I did.  I thought without those moments we could have even come close to our best score which was a 31.  So when I went to pick up my test and saw a 38.1 I was a little surprised, not disappointed because it is till respectable but just surprised.  Though I scanned through the rest of the scored for ALL the divisions and I realized that all the numbers looked higher so it seemed across the board higher numbers with this judge.  I loved the judge though she was great!  So helpful at the end even schooling some.

Forgive the bouncy video .  My nine year old took it.

Then to the fun stuffs!  Jomping!  Let's jump all the things!  I entered the BN Derby which has stadium XC combined.  Steady true to form did wonderfully brave, honest and bold just doing his thing.  It was of course SO FUN! 

Steady enthusiastically leaps off the bank!

There were only four in my division I was second after dressage and the sweet girl that was in first her horse was just TOO excited to jump so they decided to scratch before jumping.  So Steady and I ended first and even though it wasn't exactly where I had 'planned' to end more than anything I am glad we ended on such a good note! 
I also entered a couple fun classes but I must leave that for another post but they were SO MUCH FUN!