WEF Day 13 – Show Day 5

Today’s caveat is a shout out to my friend Maggie.  She helped me through a tough time when Konan got hit by a truck, and I owe her a ton.  She’s a great vet, and a great person, I’m lucky she moved to Austin so we could become friends!

Due to the so called “hunter spectacular” week, as I mentioned earlier, the show schedule is evne more wonky than normal.  For the A/O hunters they reduced the division classes down to 3 instead of 4, and added a Jr-A/O classic as a special class on Sunday as the 4^th jumping class.  Because of this schedule and my pony’s greenness, we decided to add the 3’3 performance to get in the ring as much as possible on my last (UGH LAST) week of WEF. 

That said, the 3’3 performance was scheduled to run in two different arenas for each jumping class.  No one ever said I didn’t enjoy a challenge.  That morning when I got to the show, I was only able to hack in one ring, not both.  I hacked in the Rost arena, as this is where my A/Os would be running, along with the handy hunter for the performance later that day.  

On our way to hack, we made some friends.

I called them friends DC said he just wanted to stomp on them.

Following my hack, I headed to the closest place with good wifi (Starbucks is my friend) and proceeded with a bunch of conference calls and yet more powerpoint.  I headed back to the show and met DC at the ring for the start of our showing day.

We started with a hunter class in Ring 6.  Yes, ring 6 was not a mirage and was a real ring with real jumps that actually existed.  DC schooled beautifully, but while standing at the in gate waiting to go, the wind really started to pick up.   We were due storms later that day, and the wind showed itself very early.  Said wind started blowing a tent at the far left corner of the ring which DC definitely spied from 100 miles away.  Imagine a brontosaurus head and neck watching out for any tents that might come our way.  Pretty.

We headed into the ring to start on a single on the right lead, which was quite nice.  It was followed by the outside line on the left lead in 5, also super good.  We then had to face the tent head on as we made our way to a long approach to the single oxer on the left lead.  He did do a looooooooksie on the way around, but as soon as we turned the corner he relaxed and jumped the oxer SUPER.  Sadly, next we had to do the outside line away from the gate, cantering DIRECTLY AT THE TENT.  If you’ve never ridden a horse that is spooking at something at the end of a line, it feels something like trying to canter through waist high water and a sludge ground.  Keeeeeeeeeep cantering, so hard, keeeeeeeeep cantering.  We added in the line.  Not the end of the world, but just not amazing either.  He spooked hard at the tent around the end, but finished nicely on the 2 stride coming home.  Scored a 65 with an add in a line, not bad.

Our handy was over in the Rost arena, across the way from Ring 6. Again, we warmed up quite nicely, and I was glad we had the handy because it gives some more interesting things for him to think about other than scary tents.  The first jump was a direct route on the right lead to the in of a line, loop around to the out.  Both were really good jumps.  The next was a bending line off the left lead going right to the next jump.  Matt and I had discussed jumping in at an angle and not too straight because DC has such a big stride.  So I did, and then DC jumped left.  Um, that’s a problem when heading up to a jump to the right that was now MUCH further away than I expected it to be.  Another add.  Ugh.  We finished very nicely with an in and out coming home and a trot jump.  Another mid-60s score was mine to be had.  Really too bad as without the adds we may have had a chance to at least jog.  I say that, but there were 56 in the class, soooo maybe not. 

We hacked quite nicely and took home an 8^th ribbon.  Top placed amateur rider, so I can be proud of that.  

Upon arriving back at the barn I realized that DC had a loose nail in a shoe, so we had to turn right back around and head to the show to get the nail fixed.  On our way I took this selfie, as what could be better than a DC selfie?  Few things I say.