Sigh.... Well.... It was a good weekend for the most part. :) I got up Saturday and cleaned the house a little bit because there was someone coming to look at our house. I was pretty much packed for the show by Friday, so... that was easy enough. Dan and I actually got out of there on time and got to Aiken in decent time. I figured he had to pee and didn't want to make him stand on the trailer longer, so I just went to Morgans first. I got him settled in a stall and unhitched. It's a neat place! And Dan seemed quite happy in the stall. So then I realized it was 38 minutes to stableview! Doh! That's a bit more of a drive than I expected, but oh well. It was fine. I stopped at McDonalds and got some food and then got to Stableview. Poor Lexi had already walked the course once but walked it with me again, which was nice, because then I didn't get lost. Although, it was pretty much straight forward. One big loop. The course was BIG! I mean..... for a "soft inviting beginning of the season" course..... it was BIG! And I wasn't the only one that thought that. BUT.. it was easy. I mean... it was basically big table to big table to big table to big table... and fence 5 was HUGE! I thought. It was a slight bending line to fence 6, but... like... 7 strides. Then a few more big single fences.. and then a black flag option to a corner. And sure, it was a short corner, but it was fat and wide. Then a simple fence and a few strides into the water.. then out of the water and another simple fence.. then a fairly big brush fence... and a hammock! And another double brush fence... and that's about it. Just a lot of big fences. I power walked the course and... was a little worried about the big fences but tried to tell myself that I wouldn't notice how wide and big they were once I was on Dan. Then I headed back to Morgans so I could sneak in a ride. It was a quick ride as I had to adjust Rusty for Danielle before she had to leave for a work thing... so we got out on the polo field and did our noodle neck stretching. And then we just did a tiny bit of dressage. And... interestingly enough, I was able to do the right lead counter canter serpentine... I had to turn hard left with my upper body... and because we were in the polo field, I'm not sure how swoopy we made it. BUT.. it was still a counter canter serpentine so yay! After that I worked on Rusty and then fed Dan and left him with some hay and went to go get food for myself. I was craving a peppermint milkshake so I drove to chick-fil-a, but... alas! They didn't have any. Sigh. Oh well. I got dinner, then went and got snacks and gas and ice. Then back to the barn... hooked up so I had heat and ate my dinner real quick. Then I braided Dan. 18 braids!! 18!! HOW LONG IS YOUR NECK?!?! ha ha. But it was a lot easier with the Bemer on board. :) And cookie bribes. I desperately need to get him mane one thickness. It would be much prettier braids if the middle of his neck wasn't so freakin' fat and thick. I put his slinky on and hoped for the best since it was going to be an early morning. Then I cleaned my tack.. then off to bed. I actually slept pretty good (thanks to benadryl and propranalol).
So... I got up early and fed Dan and remembered to undo my hook up tether, cleaned his stall, and loaded him up. I didn't give him hay in the stall but he did sit on the trailer for a few minutes while I cleaned his stall. And then we took 45 minutes to get to Stableview so he could have eaten hay then. We got a nice parking spot right by the porta-potty (Very important for my nervous bladder!). I unloaded Dan and he was on edge! Like, dancing a little... not eating... calling.... pooping one or two turds at a time. BUT.. he did settle a little and I got him tacked up. We put on the new saddle pad, which looked great on him (And.. didn't rub!). We went to warm up and he was a little bouncy and reary and bucky on the way, but we made it. Once we got into warm up and he was able to move his feet and trot.. he relaxed. We did our noodle neck work and he wasn't quite as settled but he did stretch and breathe. He still felt a little braced in his neck but we managed to get some decent work. Then it was our turn and man... I thought it was a LOVELY test... Like one of our best! He felt very through and on the bit... not braced... hanging in the bridle, but in a more uphill frame, not just a training level frame. He felt SOOOO consistent... like... so rhythmic... to the point I even whispered to him..."heck yeah buddy!! This is gonna be all 9 and 10's!". I mean... probably not, but it really felt that good. We started our canter work and I was thinking... "Wow, he's really slobbery... there is foam everywhere"... and then on the second canter circle I realized that was his tongue!!! What?!?!?! Why???!!! Why is his tongue possessed again?? It was like it was when we were rehabbing and he was so stressed and pissed off and his tongue got possessed. I couldn't do anything about it. And he wasn't doing anything with his head... No flinging. There was no other indication that he was stressed. Sigh... Of course he kept it up the whole rest of the test. I was a little devastated. I mean... what was causing this? I wonder if he is getting ulcery again and the fact that he was stressed and not eating hay before our ride... and had an empty stomach with just grain... Sigh... I didn't check my score, because... I just didn't want to know. We ended up with a nice score though. 31.7, even with the tongue. It started with 7, 7.5, and 8's... and then after the canter work started, it dropped to 6's. Which, of course, it should. So... a little disappointing as MAYBE we would have been in the 20's again had we not had the tongue issue.So... I was a little stressed about stadium, but more so him in general. Lexi offered to help me warm him up, and in some ways... I should have said no. She was great. She was right. But... I didn't get to warm up the way I wanted. I don't know if it made a difference.. maybe she made it better... He was amped up and a bit silly. Like, almost thought he would bolt a few times as he got super quick and runny, but wasn't actually bolting. We jumped a few jumps and she was trying to get me to package him and balance him. Which, is totally correct. BUT.... again, I can't figure out how to do that just now without shutting him down. So... instead of doing my "kelly thing"... and getting in my groove.. I sort of half tried to do what Lexi was saying and half tried to ignore her. Not really helpful for anyone. She did have some great advice about keeping my hands down and did tell me to hunker down in the tack, which is helpful. So... then we went. The course for stadium was on the small side and very easy. It was literally 4 lines... you started on the right, and then moved down the arena, line by line. We got the first two lines beautifully! Like, I was so proud of how nicely we were both going. Then I ended up jumping up his neck on one.. and then it sort of spiralled downhill and we couldn't get our groove back. We ended up getting too long into the second to last line, which put us tight into the one stride, so we put in two. Sigh. But we managed to kind of get our act together over the final two fences and jumped clean! And on the final fence, as we left the ground, the giant shrub next to it fell towards us! But Dan looked and kept jumping so good boy!!
We finished the course with no more blips and I told him he was a super good boy. He was fresh and full of run when we finished too. But argh... shame on me for ruining it. We ended up second to last place... go figure... Had we not had the stop, AND finished with no time (which in theory.. we should have but a lot of people had time so who knows... and watching the video... I thought we were booking it, but nope!), we would have finished 4th. Which helped a little, as it wouldn't have been a qualifying ride anyways.And then I started beating myself up about it. Why is novice scary? WHY can I not figure out how to ride this talented lovely horse? Argh....
Edited to add the professional photos :) He looks quite snazzy :)
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