Our event was, well, eventful!
My friend came and groomed for me, which was awesome, especially since I can't braid. I really can't at all. Before we arrived I warned her that Rileigh sometimes tries to get out of his stall at shows, but clearly I didn't impress this enough ... On Saturday morning she went into his stall to comb out his mane and get him ready to be braided, and left his stall door slightly open while brushing him. There was only enough space for him to fit his nose out the door, but that's all he needs; he's so fast once he has a plan. Imagine my surprise when I came around the corner, unsuspecting of anything awry, to see my horse galloping around wildly with Karen O'Connor, of all people, in hot pursuit. I immediately grabbed his halter and a bucket w/ a handful of treats and commenced to following him, along with half a dozen other people. Ms. O'Connor was quite upset with me -- I'll spare the details but she did yell at me a bit and condemned my inadequate horse wrangling skills. He was caught after about 10 minutes with no harm done. I was quite embarrassing -- but what is there to do but laugh about it?
Of course, once we caught him he stood like an angel without moving a muscle for 30-40 minutes while he was braided. You would have never known.
Despite a decent dressage ride Friday afternoon, the start of our dressage warmup on Saturday did not seem promising. All the horses milling around was somewhat overstimulating for Riles, and we were interrupted by a downpour which delayed the show for 20 minutes. Once we were back on there was some improvement though; Joe Meyer warmed us up, and in 20 minutes he made such a positive difference in our dressage. It was astounding, I will definitely be trying to ride with him more often. It started raining again right before we entered the ring, and our test wasn't great, but it was better than last time. My only real goal for the weekend was to score under 50 in dressage, which I'm happy to say we accomplished with a score of 46. We had mostly 5s and 6s, with a 4 on our awful halt and a 7 on our walk. What the judge emphasized most was our "floaty connection." I completely agree that's what we most need to work on. Rileigh is not very steady in the bridle and I do him no favours. We have a plan for the next few weeks though.
Cross country was late Saturday afternoon. My horse is a beast. We came in 76 seconds under optimum time with 8 time penalties. I was looking for somewhere to add time but there weren't any good places to circle, and the course was over before I knew it. So much fun though! I bought a fantastic 8x10 of us going into the water -- the first water picture shown here.
On Sunday morning I took Rileigh up to the Kentucky Equine Research booth to be weighed. They were giving away free saddle pads to those that could correctly estimate their horses' weight within 50lbs. Rileigh hadn't been weighed in over a year and was underweight then; I'd just been eyeballing his weight and was really curious to know how close my guesses were. Turns out I correctly estimated his weight within 8lbs! I thought he weighed about 1100, and the scale read 1108. I used my new saddle pad in stadium that afternoon.
Rileigh was fantastic in stadium, speaking of which. He warmed up great and was jumping really nicely. We had 1 rail at the last fence when I committed to a bad spot and made it impossible for him. I was so mad at myself! He was a superstar though.
Overall it was a fabulous weekend. My only goals were to come away with less than 50 penalties in dressage and to give Rileigh a good experience. Nothing lofty, but I'm happy to say we accomplished them. We'll be working really hard on our dressage all summer to be ready for novice next season. In the interim I think I'm planning on doing BN at the FHP schooling 3-phase in May, and N at the one in June. I may take Zipper tadpole in June as well.
