It's been a long few days of migraines and vertigo, but... God was good to me today. (well, He is every day, but especially today!). Despite waking up at 5 am to leave by 6 am to get to Aiken, I didn't have a migraine! And no vertigo either! I fed horses during a beautiful full moon and got Dan loaded up and we headed out. We made good time and got to Aiken in time to walk the course with Jacel and her other students. It didn't look terrible but it wasn't anything to scoff at! At least for me. I was a teensy bit nervous about a few jumps. Stadium looked super fun though!
There was supposed to be storms all day but it appeared to be holding off for a bit. They were running people as early as they could to try to get us moved through before the storm hit. And they were mostly successful!! I stayed dry until I was packing up. But unfortunately some of the tadpole people didn't get to ride. But I was very grateful they ran us through quick and got as many of us in as they could!
We got on with enough time to really warm up for dressage. It was a bit crisp and because of the impending storms, the wind was whipping! Like 20 mph winds! And despite not having been at a show in eons... Dan was super! He wasn't wild or spooky or anything. He just went to work. I was a little worried about his hind end as he was struggling with the right lead canter. And we had just added slight wedges behind. But we got most of our warm up done and then Jacel was able to come out and she said she thought he looked good, just a little unpackaged. So I put him together a little more and it fixed the issue. Yay! We went in to do our test and I was a little confused. I swore I was a whistle not a car horn, but she honked the horn. It was right as the other girl entered for her test, so I thought it might have been her. Luckily the judge was kind and rolled down the window and said "that's your horn... in case you can't hear me over the wind". Ah, kind lady! We headed in and did our test. It was pretty good. I mean... he really was pretty darn perfect. The only slight issue we had was the halt. He doesn't quite understand halting through the walk anymore, so it was a little awkward. But I was quite pleased! Turns out, we scored a 23.something, which put us in 2nd place, only a hair behind the first place girl. (I didn't know at the time though!).
We meandered back to our trailer and hung out a bit. Then it was time to get ready to jump. Especially because if they were letting us run early, I wanted to be ready. It was starting to look a little dark. We headed over and watched the group before us go. Then Jacel schooled us over a few fences and honestly, we were both doing well and jumping well, so we didn't do much. We went in and had a pretty darn good round!!! yay! We jumped clean.
We headed over to XC and warmed up over 2 fences. He was good, so Jacel prayed over us real quick and off we went! The first fence was a little sticky. And by sticky I mean that he just didn't jump it out of a big bold stride. He didn't hesitate but it was a bit of a chip because I didn't ask him to move up to it. Then we got a little bolder and the next few fences were better. We had a few other fences where he chipped a little, but the ones that were slightly scary, I rode more to, and therefore he jumped them better. Unfortunately after the water we caught up to Jacel's other student, but she was super sweet and let us pass. He jumped the in and out quite boldly and we had a good ride up the bank. He skipped over the ditch, but picked just the right spot that a pine tree branch literally slapped me in the face! Ouch! We carried on and went up the mound/bank thing and over the last few fences! Yay!!! Clean and no time faults! And while it wasn't a super bold or brave round, it wasn't a bad round. :) YAHOO!!!
Turns out... we won! The girl just ahead of us had a rail in stadium, so yay for me. I got him untacked and was debating whether to ice him or not when the bottom opened up. I threw everything in the trailer and tossed Dan inside and jumped in my truck. I honestly was a little worried it was a tornado for a minute. The wind was BLOWING and the rain was coming sideways. It was a little creepy. Luckily it only lasted about 20 minutes so I was able to pull Dan back off and poultice him. The icing seemed a little unnecessary at the time. So I loaded him up and went and got our ribbon! Yay! I'm so proud of him. And he had a blast too! We even made it home just in time for the sunset, which was gorgeous!
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