Ease of Handling Day has arrived!!! And with it, the weather. Luckily it wasn't as bad as it was originally predicted and we had the covered to show in. Not to warm up in, but to show in. :)
Because it was misting when we woke up, Dan didn't get to go out in the roundpen. I figured he'd get filthy and I didn't really want to have to give him a bath and then try to get him dry in time. Plus we had our course walk first thing. Granted I had about 2 hours between the course walk and my ride because they did reverse order of go. I got his mane rebanded as it was starting to look a bit like a circus pony instead of a western banded mane. Then we did our course walk. I walked it with my new friends which was nice. It was actually a pretty easy course. Not really any tricky lines... everything kind of came up right in front of you, with only one reverse line. I just had to make sure that I did the bridge the correct way. And a few of the obstacles came up quick, but we were trotting instead of cantering so it wasn't bad. I stayed and watched my two new friends go and videoed them as they went early. And then I watched a few other rides. There were a few bobbles. I think the covered arena was a bit scarier when you were the only horse in it. And there were also spectators watching now. My poor friends mustang got really upset in the corner at the bell corridor. She told me that she hoped that Dan fared better... she was sad because her guy was in the warm up with all the other horses, then had to go inside alone, and it just threw him off. I sheepishly told her that I didn't think it would be a problem for Dan. He kind of likes to show off. He thinks he owns the arena... and all his adoring fans should be fawning over him. But we'll see.
And then it was time to get ready. ACKKKK!!! It wasn't raining too terribly hard but I did have to dry my saddle off before I got on. And we definitely got rained on the whole warm up. The footing was getting a bit sloppy but he warmed up great. We practiced the gate once and the garocha pole twice. We did some tight turns and some stops and starts. But I didn't want to drill him. Partly because of the footing and partly to just baby his stifle. But he felt pretty darn good and ready, so... we rested some... then we did some more. And then finally.. it was our turn. By that point, there was no one in the arena with us as we were the last rider in our division. But Dan didn't care. And he didn't care going into the covered. We adjusted our pole.. then the judge blew the whistle and it was go time!
And it was awesome! I was grinning the whole way because he was just about perfect!! He had a nice big trot in between obstacles. He wasn't as bent as he could have been by the bleachers because he was looking to make sure his adoring fans were adoring properly. Hee hee. He was so good though. He just happily trotted along and did all the obstacles almost perfect! (In my opinion!). We did accidentally bump the standard with his butt on the way through the gate but he barely bumped it and otherwise it was a very smooth and quick round. (We ended up scoring a 5 on that, which... honestly, felt a little rude. It felt like the scores on tempi changes... where you get a 4 whether you have a skip change, late behind, or completely mess up your count or do a simple change. But like... I feel like a tiny little bump on the gate standard in an otherwise smooth and quick gate should have been more of a 5 or 6 even. I know it's not a 7, but.. jeesh! Oh well. ) He did the livestock pen nicely and our turn on the haounches was great! And we speared the ring on the bull line and he didn't even try to get quick! There was no "charging" like at stableview. hee hee. We got lots of claps when we finished! I was sooooo proud of him. The whole ride just felt happy and smooth and simple. GOOD BOY!!!! I even messaged Judy and Kirsten and was like "I think we just won this!!". He felt THAT good!
Except....We ended up second in ease of handling by 0.5 pts!! The girl we beat in dressage, beat us in Ease of Handling. Doh! So that meant we both had 14 points, so we were tied. I didn't know how they broke the tie breaker, but turns out they average your two scores together and the higher score wins. So since she only beat me by 0.5 pts and I beat her by 2 points... we won!! We were Region 7 L1 champions!!! Whooo hooo!!!
Regardless of whether we had won or not, he was so good in EOH that I had already decided he was going to get to get turned out in the roundpen, knowing full well he would roll in the mud. And at least it had stopped raining. But he deserved it! Except then it dawned on me that we had our awards ceremony at 5 pm. So... I ate lunch and watched the other riders go and then went and got him. And he was FILTHY! Ha ha...dude!! But that's fair. And expected. Sadly, he had to get another bath. And I had to get back into my clothes, which luckily had dried in the trailer. I decided to ride him in the awards ceremony because he deserved it. He earned our championship! Although I suppose he might have preferred just being led in, but... I also still don't 100% trust him to behave in a halter. Ha ha. Sad, but true. So I got back on and we were ready. But they were not. They needed another 45 minutes or so to set up the award banner and such and get organized so.. Dan and I hung out... we made new friends... we walked around the arena and took some photos... Linda took some photos of us. And eventually they called us in.
They took our photo in front of a big banner and with the judges. (Think Quarter Horse style) Polly handed me a garocha pole and asked if I wanted to pose with it. Yes!! Cool. I was thinking it was a photo prop so when we finished I tried to give it back to her. She handed it to Linda... who then handed it to me and I tried to give it back to her. She was like "you idiot, you WON it". Oh wait... what?!? I won the garocha pole?? YES!!! How cool!! Ha. I can't wait to tell Mike that I don't have to use my cheap trashy flimsy pvc pipe one!! I rode back to the trailer carrying it and he was perfect. But dang that thing is long. It was hard to fit in the tack room. I'll have to haul it home in the horse part. 
Then he got untacked and got to get turned out again for a bit before bedtime. We had the competitors party also so I got dinner again and then they had a bonfire, which was nice. It was three fire pits. I ended up helping them move the course and reset it for the speed rounds for tomorrow. Even though Dan and I were done, I had decided to stay til Sunday to watch Linda's speed round and I was hoping to maybe even stay and watch some of the cattle rounds!! But also, by the time we finished awards, it was close to 7:30 and I wasn't about to drive home then!
I'm so proud of him! And again, so grateful to God for this opportunity. Who would have thought that we would have qualifed and then won Regionals our first year out?! Now to see if he can hold up at L2. But we get to do speed rounds so he'll LOVE that!! :) I think. If not... that's okay too. We had a great season, learned alot, made new friends, and found another fun thing to do together. And I like to think he enjoyed having me all to himself this weekend again.
