Colorado Day 9

So yeah, I was all caught up and stuff, and then…..well…I wasn’t.

So therefore, I’m very late with this blog, and the rest of the blogs that are to come. But hey I’m sure someone out there is still reading right?

Day 9 started as a fairly unremarkable with hardly any emotional shenanigans from yours truly.  Sadly it did not end that way. 

I arrived at the show at a very reasonable hour of 9 am, with plans to once again do a little watching, a little shopping, and a lot of reveling in the amazing Colorado weather.  I succeeded in doing much of the above, including playing with a French bulldog puppy at one of my favorite show vendors Exceptional Equestrian.  http://exceptionalequestrian.com/  Seriously, this woman gives me a bad addiction for all things cute and unnecessary in my life.  And she has a puppy.  I think it’s a marketing ploy. 

I also got to watch TJ bring home his second champion in rusty stirrup in as many weeks. 

When it was time to finally get on I decided to play it smart, and load myself up with my ring side back pack (a new addition to my showing necessities that I now cannot live without), throw a cooler on DC, and hand walk him up to the ring.  It only took me two weeks, but finally the light bulb went off.  Walk the horse to the ring, and eliminate all stress of back and forth!  Well, it almost worked; we only ended up heading back to the barn one singular time due to ring delays and a trainer that was supposed to be in 4 places at once. 

Regardless, we stood nicely and quietly waiting for our rotation.

By nicely and quietly I mean the typical “hi my name is dc, hi you over there what you doing, can I play with your bag, how about the sponge, I like sponges, do you have a whip, I play with whips, I like to bite, here I’ll bite your water bottle, yes so fun yes hi.”  There is a reason holding DC at the ring can seem like a bad idea.

Our warm up was honestly less than stellar.  I just didn’t feel exactly on my A game, and as we all know feeling on my A game doesn’t always result in amazingness so I was a bit concerned about what our trips would be like.  And honestly, they were another group of just ok.  And I was awarded with…..just ok.  4ths and 5ths abounded. 

One fact about me is that I am NOTORIOUSLY hard on myself.  I really want to do well, and ride well, and WIN ALL THE RIBBONS.  And once again in as many weeks as there had been horse shows, I simply let myself down.  I’d like to say that I went on with a devil may care attitude, but in reality I was seriously contemplating taking up trail riding.  I mean I’d never take up tennis, I lack the eye hand coordination, but I bet I’d be one fierce trail rider.  Matt somehow managed to talk me down off my ledge of my new found goal of trail riding excellence. 

I took the rest of the afternoon to watch some of the Woodhill riders, and catch up with the working student at Woodhill, Miguel.  Miguel is one cool kid who works very hard to have opportunities to ride, doing anything he can for more time around horses.  As we were sitting there chatting, he says to me “I have a confession to make.”  I’m thinking “ok this is about to get awkward.” Then he says “I read your blog, and I love it.”  Well…don’t I just feel famous now???  If Miguel is reading my blog, that means maybe some other cool junior kids are too.  Or at least they were until I didn’t write for 20 or so days.  Oops.