Chatt Hills had a Golden League Team Challenge added onto their schooling show this weekend. We decided to do it. And I'm so glad we did. It was a blast. It was me, Kelly Rousey, Laura Edison and Laura Duhamel. Cindy Phillips was our team captain and Elizabeth Thompson was our groom/cheerleader. :) We were the Hot Flashes!
I got there Friday and Cindy and I schooled XC together. Kelly Rousey hacked out with us and Elizabeth rode the scooter. Dan was WILD!!! Like prancing, jigging, etc the whole way down to XC. I ended up peeling off and doing a little trotting, then a little canter, and then two gallop/buck bolts up the giant hill. His "sprint sets" and then he was still a fire breathing dragon. We ended up jumping some stuff. Some novice, some training. :) :) He was pretty good!! I mean, he was going and going fast and I just directed and he went. We did mostly some novice stuff but the training complex at the bank and maybe another training table or two. Then we went to jump another training table catching up with the others and I tipped and Dan jumped it terribly. Of course, when they were all looking. So.. we fixed it and then went to the water with the others. I went to do the training line and... suddenly... it fell apart. I think Dan finally took a breath and then... he started to listen to me and I wasn't talking. Cindy helped me out and was telling me that I had to keep pressing him forward to the fence. And not tip myself down. But then I felt like I was running him at the fence and she agreed that wasn't what I wanted, so... we decided that I should collect him 15 strides back.. then balance.. then 5 strides out, start pressing forward. BUT... onward and upward!!! #onwardandupward! Not running, not lengthening... but lifting up and engaging. And it helped. We spent the last 15 minutes getting out my head again and had some stops and some ugly fences. But.. .we managed to get it together at the end. Then we hacked back home. They were saying that Dan was tired, but... he was jigging and prancing so.. I think he was just hot and sweaty and looked tired, but he was not tired. Although he did work hard. 
We had a fun cook out and hanging out and then off to bed! We had jogs at 7:30 am! Kelly was awesome and found t-shirts with flames on them and flame tiara's for us to wear. I bought sparkly orange and red toulle for us to put on the horses. And we looked awesome!!! We did the jog and we were all accepted! Then they had mimosa's for us. They were delicious. And then Dan managed to slop mine all down the front of my shirt. Ewwww... so sticky!! We decided to leave their ribbons in and wear our tiara's for dressage. It was fun! I never want to show without ribbons and tiara's again!!
Dan was super for our test. It wasn't our best, but for our first time doing training A, it wasn't bad at all. The judge told me she liked my hat. :) :)
But... In many ways I'm glad we did it. In some ways, it was more confidence building to know that we survived and almost got through it.... despite the fact that back in March/April I was terrified to jump even little fences, we had soundness issues, we had very little jumping because of life, we haven't jumped anything of that size... in... maybe ever.... and certainly not a whole course of it.... really, it was kind of a stupid move on my part. I certainly didn't prepare him. It was really kind of unfair. But.. he rose to the occasion and managed to get us through most of it. I don't think I undid his confidence. And to be honest, we were having the same issues at novice and I know it. I do think that perhaps the bigger fences brought it to light and made me realize a few things?? Maybe?? I don't know. After we came out of the arena, Lauren was there coaching some students and told me to not let him quit and go back to warm up and jump. She said that I was fine.. then I'd panic a stride or two out and lift my hands, thus inverting him and making it hard for him to jump. So... she told me to drop my hands. And it worked! It was scary.. and really hard for me to put them down and leave them down! But it worked. And I think it worked because of what Danielle had already helped me accomplish. So.. we did two or three more jumps with my hands down and then we went to go see if we could run XC. They let me. :)
XC was a blast! It was novice, so... it was kind of a relief. He just clocked through it all. Although the up bank was an up bank then instead of going straight down the down bank, they had you veer slightly off to the right and go down the slope to a fence. He jumped so big into the up bank that he almost bounced right off the down bank so he propped just a little. We lopped over the rest and had a blast. Even the big scary spooky looking blue table didn't phase him. He trotted before the ditch, but part of that was the turn and me asking. But then he picked the canter right back up over it and didn't look. So yay! I don't know what our time was. I didn't have my watch because it didn't matter. I meant to ask the timers what my time was, just for educational purposes, but I forgot. Drats. Oh well. 
So yep... sadly we were eliminated, but it was still a super fun weekend. Our team should have done really well too as we all scored well. I felt bad being the drop score. But then unfortunately Kelly jumped the wrong jump on the XC course and didn't go back and catch the novice one so she got eliminated too. Doh! We still ended up winning some socks. :)
Anyways... feeling a little better about Windridge, but definitely going to need to get stadium figured out. I think there's a jumper show at Silverthorn soon. Guess we'll do a few rounds there!
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