I waited a few days to post about the show this weekend for
a few reasons. One, life in general. Two, needed video evidence. Three, I
wanted to make sure my horse show high wasn’t false.
It wasn’t.
He was amazing…for a baby.
Keeping in mind this the first show hes been to with me,
maybe fourth EVER and I had no expectations. Mostly, I just wanted to get out
there and school a little bit.
The show day dawned way too early, since I woke up before my
4:30 AM alarm, and I forgot how much I love/hate being up on show days before
the sun. I was the first to arrive, which was surprising, since I was running a
tad late. Someone had cuddled with Levi/sipped on coffee/watched re-runs of
Forensic Files too long. I was part of the hauling crew, but luckily my father
was amazing the night before and hooked up my trailer to the truck AND checked
all the tires. Dad wins!
It was a balmy 65 degrees at 5:30 AM in DECEMEBER and I was
actually rushing around sweating my butt off. My body is not enjoying the
random fluxuations in temperatures one bit. Get it together OH.
I digress.
Like I said, I was the first to the barn at 5:50 AM…which
was peculiar because departure time was supposedly 6:30AM. I went ahead and
gave everyone a flake, loaded my tack and twiddled my thumbs for 20 minutes
until the show party arrived. I helplessly “helped” feed the horses (all 30 of
them), since I dont work there, but we got it done. By that time it was close
to 6:30 and we hadn’t loaded one horse. I HATE being late…more than anything,
especially with a young horse, who doesn’t load well, for a show…but I kept my
cool and rolled with it.
Luckily, Bacardi, nor none of the 6 other horses going, gave
a fuss loading and we were on our way by 7AM. (Good boy! But also, eeeek.)
Show started at 8AM.
We arrived about 20 minutes before the beginning of the show
and our party ended up being most of the Jumper Classes.
I registered for 6 classes, not remembering whatthefuck the
difference was between them, figuring I could scratch later and tacked up so
quick I don’t think Bacardi knew what was happening.
We had ten minutes to warm up in the ring, with the jumps,
and hell yeah I wanted that opportunity to do so.
Unfortunately so did the rest of my barn and the others
competing , so the relatively large indoor was cramped with massive OTTBs and
WBs flying around the ring jumping jumps every which way. It was a madhouse.
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| not a pic from warmup |
Bacardi handled that situation quite well. In fact, better
than I did. I was all jumpy because we literally had no time to warm up, much
less over fences, and I WANTED TO DAMMIT. The ribbon whore inside me secretly
wanted some satin.
Luckily, we were able to pop over every jump on course. In
which he refused every.single.one the first time.
Oh, so its going to be one of those days? Cool. Cue worried
ribbon whore into argument with adulting, rational self.
The hurried second and third times around he jumped just
fine and without fuss and I got our butts out of that ring.
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| Just Chillin |
He could’ve care less about standing around in the crowded
waiting area, which was pleasantly surprising and I made The Boy snap a few
photos to prove it.
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| How to make your 17.2hh gelding look small; be me |
Speaking of, The Boy volunteered to come, brought me coffee
and videoed our rounds. What a guy!
After that whirlwind of a warm-up, ALL of us from EME
realized not a single one of us knew our rounds. Where were they even posted?
What are jumps? How do we do this?
There were three separate rounds with two having jump offs.
No way were we going to memorize those. Um…halp.
EME devised a plan to photograph them with our handy dandy
cellphones and DURING our rounds, shout them out to each rider. SOMEHOW I was
delegated to do this after a few times of riders missing jumps due to soft
voices or unclear instructions and we soon learned that “WHITE WITH YELLOW
DIAGONAL” meant the white jump with yellow flowers on the diagonal and “RED
WINDOW TO WALL” meant rollback turn left to a red brick wall fence, etc.
Apparently I have a huge, booming voice with clear and concise directions. It
was fun, but disastrous for most. I eventually ended up learning the courses,
kind of, and still got lost on one of my rounds because I barely knew the course
and couldn’t hear my caller. Thanks guys, love you too.
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| Less than stellar SS but you get the gist |
The organizers were totally chill with our shouting and
crazy cheering/laughing antics and thanked us over and over for making the show
fun and showing up… but some of the boarders and trainers were totally not
chill.
One trainer with a mean RBF I even caught muttering, “this
shit is ridiculous, how is this allowed” and I fueled the fire spitting back
“Well this isn’t hunters and we just got here, its within the rules and the
organizers are fine with it. This isn’t dressage either. Would you like us to
tell your riders the courses too?”
Yeah, that put me on her shit list for the morning.
She hated us for cheering for her riders, even asking us to
“calm down” when they went double clear. They were very obviously hunter
riders, in full braids and tailcoats and quite serious about winning. I think
RBF trainer was mildly pissed our frazzled group of eventers, totally dressed
in polos, were kicking their butts in some classes, but whatever.
RBF trainer even said to me once, noticing the red ribbon in
B’s tail, “Why did you bring a horse who kicks to a show where other people are
around him? Can you stand like, over there, away from everyone”. Um, OK lady,
who are you? Queen?
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| I spy a red ribbon |
I politely said back with a smile, “Well that’s what the
ribbon is for, and I’m pretty sure he could care less right now *gestures
towards half asleep horse*, and the ribbon is just a precaution, but sure I can
go stand where you want me to”.
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| Obviously giving a lot of fucks |
And I did because I’m a reasonable human being. I can
understand the reasoning behind her snide remark, but seriously, he hasn’t
kicked anyone in ages. The last person he kicked was me. But I would feel horrible
if he bashed someone, knowing his propensity to lash out when nervous, and not
give warning. Like I said to her, precaution.
I’m going off on a tangent again though, apologies.
Bacardi’s rounds were more than I could ask of him. We had
two refusals total for the day, one in each class, but honestly, I could care
less about that.
I was ill-prepared, it was his first jumper show ever, he
was rushed into the arena and it was all a little overwhelming.
Our first round, I still cant figure it out. He was locked
on to the first fence, I was riding (for once) and then he just sidestepped and
was like NOPE. We swung around and nailed it the second time, and the rest of
the round was marvelous.
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| Turn N' burn |
His canter was a dream and he was really listening to me. I
wasn’t ducking horribly and we were working as a team. I was so proud, even if
we didn’t make the jump off. Only 2 riders did, mostly due to going off course
or a fence knock down, and we ended up 3rd out of 10! Still beating
those hunters who had had the courses memorized probably for days, HA SUCK IT.
If he hadn’t refused that first fence, we might’ve actually been in contention
for the blue. That was so cool for me, getting our first ribbon together.
The second course was the speed jumper round. It was twisty and had 3 rollback turns. I literally did not know it at all, and pretty much missed the rollback to fence 5 and we had a run-out. Again, not his fault. we also had a weird disagreement from 1 to 2, and he really didnt hear my outside leg and blew right through and we almost crashed into another fence. Fantastic, haha. This might;ve been his fault, since he geeked at fence 1 again, but whatever. Baby moment. If I had known the course I think I could’ve ridden much better and we would’ve been fine. He was nailing his rollbacks and felt so responsive to me- I was elated.
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| I actually really love this blurry SS |
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| Really really good picture of us over a fence *eyeroll* |
My favorite thing is The Boy telling Supertrainer the course, hilarious. He had them all memorized in five minutes and none of us did! HA.
In time, he
will be able to cut turns out and be a little quicker between fences, but hes
still green AF.
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| Some sass |
We ended up 4th out of 10 in that round, as we had
that refusal and the one hunter rider was QUICK in her turns.
Again, really cool to think that we could’ve placed higher
with a little more preparation and I cant wait for the next one. Its in January
by the way, my birthday weekend!
I ended up scratching from the 3rd round classes
since I figured his little brain had done enough for me and I wanted to keep the
experience positive. Almost all of my EME barnmates placed or got a ribbon and
one of our ladies ended up Champion and got a nice trophy and a tri-color.
Comin’ for you next time!
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| Ends Meet Eventing Team |
Altogether, a really well organized show and wonderful barn.
It was to DIE FOR. I’ve never seen a cleaner, nicer, more organized tack room
in my life. There were ponies in the aisles getting braided/washed and I almost
died looking at their dainty, shaved faces. They had four Corgi’s and a heeler
“running” around and they were friendly and adorable. Their show office/viewing
area was jaw-dropping. It looked
like
the inside of someones house mansion! The arena was
gorgeous and the footing was definitely well maintained. For a barn that was so lavish the entry fees were reasonable, even for me. We were so pleased
that the office staff and organizers were so warm and kind to us, we almost
forgot about RBF trainer and her riders.
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| SATIN |
I will be going back to that barn, it was such a worthwhile
experience!
