Two weeks ago I brought Wanda home from Aiken, SC, and was fortunate enough to be able to bring her back to a nearby barn where I could pay board for great care as well as having access to a riding arena with lights. Although not my dream choice (I would just LOVE my parents to put in a riding arena... :) ) it has been the best choice for the situation that I'm in with work downtown.
This past weekend was Wanda and my first event together for the season. Last year we had a lot of run-out problems during the final 3/4 events of the year, so I had to come out with a very pro-active mindset about how I was going to approach these issues.
The dressage was in some muddy grass footing, so I went ahead and put in studs for the dressage portion, and left them in for the entire event (all riding was on grass). I'm thankful that I did, because Wanda's hind legs slipped out from under her standing at the trailer before I put them in, and I can't imagine what it would have been like running without them! We scored a 31.3%, which wasn't too shabby for our first test. We were tied for 1st after the dressage.
ShowJumping went really smooth, and I was thrilled at how rideable she was. There was a two stride combination, and we jumped in in the proper stride, but she's so big that we had a very short two strides and bumped the back fence. Luckily it was just a tap and didn't fall :) So we came away with no jump penalties but 4 time penalties, dropping us to 5th place.
The cross country was the part I was most worried about since we had been having so much trouble with it. Luckily I was super prepared mentally, so I was able to avert the one time she tried to test me. It ran perfect and we came out double clear.
All in all it was a great event for us. It didn't hurt ending in 5th place out of 15 :) Definitely a good step in thinking about moving up soon!
Next up: Redland Hunt Pony Club Horse Trials - Novice - 4/24/11
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