AEC: XC Day!

 Rolex Baby!! Ha! Not quite.. not quite at all. But still!! We get to ride through the head of the lake!! I was so nervous though. Like seriously way more nervous than I should have been. And I don't know why! 

I got up and got everything done and get him fed. I bemered him. And then I panicked and thought I was late getting his studs in and boots on and then realized... oh, I still have an hour. Sigh. Not going to be able to walk him with his studs in though. Dang! So, I slowly and methodically tacked up and figured we would just walk under saddle. I got on a lot earlier than I had intended but oh well. We slowly walked our way up to the XC warm up area. We sat and watched .... things. Sometimes Dan just stared into the distance. He's so weird. Then we were walking and talked to another competitor walking. I was so nervous I was so chatty! I even apologized for being too chatty because I was nervous. But it helped. So then we trotted... and cantered. And jumped a few jumps. And then Cindy came up. Yay! Moral support! She suggested I jump one of the logs on an angle to make sure he was listening and not just going through the motions. It was a great idea but unfortunately he blew me off. We came again but there was no angle really because of me trying to ride around another rider, so then we tried again. Slightly more angle this time, but... oh well. We rested a bit and then it was our turn to walk down to the start box. At the start box Dan spooked at a golf cart and reared and spun. Then danced a bit. One of the volunteers took one look at me and asked very concerned if I was okay. I think he thought that Dan's rear had freaked me out. I was like "No dude... I look like this because I'm way more nervous about this XC than I should be... the rear is nothing!". ha ha. And then we had 1 minute! Luckily I finally got my helmet camera to click on and then w were off! 

  

Dan set off at a good clip to the first fence but because I was still being tentative and freaked out, he chipped it. I sent him forward and he sort of chipped the second fence too. I told him he had to get moving and go! So then we got a little bolder to the third fence and then the fourth and fifth fences he started rolling! YAY! He jumped the 6th fence fairly nicely and then opened up as we went up the hill to fence 7 on the top! GOOD boy! Then I had to bring him back together down the hill to the brush before the water. He was game and went bravely into the water and then made the sharp turn to the cabin. Then we came up to the sneaky ninja ditch. He was game and I didn't get him back to the trot but he broke to the trot on his own when he saw the ditch. It actually felt like he broke to the walk and was almost going to go backwards but then surged forward, but on the video it wasn't that obvious. I think that what I felt was just him suddenly stopping forward motion and then seeing what it was and carrying on. I was in the back seat and clucking and kicking but I think once he processed, he was game on his own. Then we went flying over the big rainbow bench. Then we came to the road crossing... The one where Kloie and Quinn took their spill. We trotted and realized we were WAY up on time anyways. We got across safely and then cantered up to the open oxer and then through the field. We were at 3 minutes instead of 4. Oops! Next was the head of the lake and Dan sucked back on his own but trotted boldly into the water with no thoughts of stopping. But since he was trotting, and since we had plenty of time to kill, we took the long route through the head of the lake. And honestly, I thought briefly about yelling something like "Rolex baby!" but my brain was so pre-occupied with getting home safely and cleanly that I just.. didn't. He jumped the big cabin bravely and then the second cabin and then... we were still at 4 minutes and only had a short ways to go with 2 fences left. And optimum was 5:35. Speed faults was 4:44. The crossing guard at the second road crossing had just stopped some golfcarters, but... Dan and I made two circles in the tiny little area there because... there was no way I was getting a speeding ticket this time! So then we carried on (Sorry for the wait golf carters!) and jumped the last two jumps in a nice collected canter. We finished at 5:14. :) GOOD BOY!!!!!!!

But you know what's so sad?! I was so nervous about the whole thing that I never really started to enjoy it. I never really got to think about the fact that I was riding through the head of the lake... and enjoy it! Normally on XC about 4 fences in we start having fun and enjoying it and get over the nerves. Not this time. Which makes me sad. Because... it was a fun course! And it was so cool to be there! On that magical turf where all the other greats have been. Sigh. But we did it! We finished clean! And... we moved up to 13th place! In the ribbons! Whooo hooo!

Oh and... they had Dorothy Crowell and her husband doing live feed commentary. It was so cool! She loved "Spot" and wanted to take him home. And she complimented my riding at the ditch! SOOOO Cool!

 

Dan was snacking before I could even turn my helmet camera off. Ha ha! So I hacked him back instead of getting off and walking. It was quite the hike. We stopped and chatting with Jodie and her spotted kids. Dan was glad to see his kind. When we got back, I got him untacked and unstudded. He was hardly even sweaty! (Unlike me... good gravy.. between nerves, the XC vest, the air vest and the pinney... I was WET!). I decided to toss him out in the paddock to roll and enjoy himself because... I wasn't sure how to coordinate icing him. And... most of my barn mates had left and/or were leaving that day. They were all done, so... the barn was emptying out. And with Dan having the broken stall AND being alone... I thought it might be best to try to move stalls. So while he was chilling in the paddock, I went to the office. They agreed that it was a good idea to move me so we got it figured out. Then I moved all my stuff down to the barn Dawn was in. Which was actually quite nice! It took me a bit and then I got some food. And then I grazed Dan before bringing him in. I bemered him and we were cracking up because I had his door open and he was hanging his head out. All the pony club kids walking by kept booping his nose despite him making snarky faces at them. I was laughing and said I'd pay them each a dollar per boop as it was so good for Dan. hee hee. Then I got him fed and it was time to get showered so I could meet Cindy and Sally, who drove up from Georgia, and Dawn for dinner. And shame on me... I forgot to ice him! 

Helmet Cam of XC

Dinner was.... awful! It was a great place the last few times Cindy had gone there but they must have changed ownership or something. We got there and had to wait about 15 minutes for a waitress. We ordered drinks and she said they were out of tea "but they had arizona canned tea". I opted for water and Dawn got the tea, which was stale and icky. It took 15 minutes to get our drinks. We did order appetizers too. Then we went to order our food and Dawn wanted ribs. "Oh sorry, we're out of ribs". So then Cindy ordered Pretzel crusted trout and they were out of trout. Which meant, they were also out of the trout soup I wanted. Sigh.. I asked what the chefs salad was. The menu says they have a house salad and a chefs salad which was a specialty based on what was in stock and what the chef was in the mood to do. She said that there was no chef salad anymore. Just the house salad. And it was just lettuce, tomatoes and croutons. Cindy asked if it was fancy lettuce or ? And she said "Iceberg". Sigh...okay. So then Sally ordered a grilled pimento cheese fried green tomato sandwich. The only thing on the menu that looked somewhat appetizing and that was available was the blackened catfish and grits. I asked her how spicy it was and she was like "well no one's ever said it was too spicy". So I said I'd try it but to please have the chef go easy on the spice if possible. So then we finally got our appetizers, which... the brussel sprouts were soggy and limp. But the pimento cheese and celery was pretty tasty. And then the fried green tomato fritters were pretty darn good. We finally got our food and basically... Cindy's pork chop was blah. Sally's grilled cheese was maybe in the toaster over for 10 seconds. It had the tiniest hint of grill to it. And me and Dawn's catfish... was basically mild catfish over grits with a 1/4 bottle of Frank's hot sauce on it. I couldn't eat it. It was WAY too spicy. I mean... just don't put the frank's on it!!! But "they put that sh*t on everything" I guess. Sigh. And then, they didn't even have bread pudding. Sigh. Such a disappointment. So then we tried to go for boozy ice cream and finally found it but basically... being Saturday night.. it was so crowded and there was no way we were parking two big diesel trucks so we just gave up and went home. It was late at this point anyways. 

I checked Dan and walked and grazed him some more and then I headed to the stadium arena to walk my course. Because.. it wasn't posted before dinner. Not gonna lie... that was cool! It was probably 11:30 at night, but... it was neat being there by myself.. in that huge arena...  again, you could almost feel the greats there before.