Soggy fun day

 Well... we finally got the rain! On show day!!! POOOOOO. It was threatening all morning and the radar looked pretty rough. I slept in a little, got the stalls cleaned, and packed for the show. Still no rain... so I gave Dan a bath. And literally as I finished the rain started. And it was a pretty heavy rain as soon as it started. MAN!!!! I put his cooler on and locked him in the stall with some hay and tried to figure out what to do. I pouted... and waited for an hour to see if it would settle down. It kept coming down pretty steadily and the radar looked the same. I had just about decided to not go, but was still pouting and Kelli called. I told her I wasn't going because what was the point... She agreed, but pointed out that it might still be fun and it may still accomplish what I wanted it to accomplish. And then she said that at her house it was barely drizzling. So I went outside. Hee hee. It's amazing how much harder you think it's raining when you hear it on your tin roof! It wasn't too bad. So we talked it out and I finally decided to go ride. I figured if the weather stayed at just the drizzle, it would be fine. If it started pouring, I could come home. So.... I grabbed Dan and away we went. :) I'm so glad I did. 

The weather cooperated mostly. I mean, it kept raining, but it wasn't bad. Just a light steady drizzle. I managed to stay mostly dry although my Kerrit's jacket that I thought was a raincoat is not. It got soaked through. The warm up was a little tough cause the grass was wet and Dan now has 3 feet with pads, so he was a little funky feeling. I'm guessing he was sliding some as once we got into the arena he was good. We warmed up for our Novice test and then went in. He was making me laugh. He was good but he was on the muscle! There were good moments but he was also in racecar mode some and he got quick. He was fairly soft in the bridle though so I went with it. And we got all the transitions and did all the things. We ended up with a 31, which... is not really up to his usual standards, but it put us just in first of 3. And considering what he's capable of, I felt it was fair. So then we checked in for our 2nd level test and they said that there was only two more rides in the arena we were just in and then it would become warm up, so I could go in there. YAY! Except the poor girl remembered the wrong test and so she rerode it. Which is great, except it took longer. So I had just headed in to start warming up for 2-2 and they told me I was next up. EEEKS! I did a few frantic canter to walk to canters and then it was pretty much our turn. Oh well. This test wasn't horrible either, but also not our best. He was definitely on the muscle and much more braced and in my hands instead of being soft. Our downwards were fairly horrid and our canter to walks were not without some trot steps. So it was a fairly mediocre test, but... he did do all the things. I thought we had a decent medium canter and an especially lovely medium to working canter, but... we basically scored 5.5-6.5 the whole test. Oh well. I thought that was fairly generous even. But... it's okay. Given the circumstances, I was okay with that. And I wanted to see where we stood. 

Second level test 2 Video  (his snorty snorts make me giggle)

I let him eat some hay while I went to walk the course. They were getting started with BN so I just watched a few rides. Then I tacked up and as I was putting his saddle on the rain got harder and heavier. We headed up to the warm up and it was now raining pretty heavily. Borderline on pouring. We trotted the cross rail and jumped the vertical and the oxer. The warm up fences were still set at BN or lower, but there was no one there, so... that's all we did. Then they set the course for novice and I decided to just go in. I wasn't sure it was worth jumping a bigger fence in warm up since it was a little slick. I wasn't sure that it was a good choice as I swear fence 3 looked like prelim height!!! It was an oxer and I swear it was huge! But it was now POURING so we just went in so we could go home. Hee hee. And he was SUPER!!!!! He picked up the canter and headed towards the first fence and was perfect. He didn't spook at the gray lattice which was getting horses left and right. He was in front of my leg... no crop or spur needed. He was game. He moved up to the distances. He didn't hesitate! I stayed up in my shoulders and off his neck. I kept my knees open! It was just a lovely lovely round! Minus the fact that I got to fence 4 and didn't see the number as the wind had blown it over so we circled and came back to it. So we had 8 penalty points for time/crossing of tracks and got dropped to 3rd place. But I don't even care because it was just such a pretty happy round!!!! I'm soooo thrilled with him! And me a little too. It's just such a nice treat after our last Big Cheese show which just spiraled downhill. 

At this point we were both soaked through so we just headed home. I was sort of debating taking him for a nice dip in the lake, but no need! :) Tomorrow we'll have a nice hack. 

Karen got video of 2-2 for us and Kathy was there taking jump photos. It was soooo good to see Kathy too! I've missed her also. 

Oh, and Dan was eating it up because his fans were all glad to see him back out and about again. I changed his show name to "Hold My Beer" for this show and it was very popular and well received. :) hee hee.