Quick Show Recap

In the midst of the insanity that is my life, blogging should be the last thing I have time for... and yet here I am at 11:30 at night, blogging. Anyway, first show of the season was last Sat.  The weather was gross- cold and rainy- and as a result the dressage and stadium rings were absolute soup.  The dressage warm up ring was so bad (like 4inches of water on top of 6 inches of mud) we decided to warm up on a semi-flat, relatively dry hill near the dressage rings.  Cadence wasn't too thrilled with this arrangement, and I never managed to fully unlock her neck and body.  Then, we had a major freak out at something as we were trotting around the dressage ring, so Cadence was would up heading into the test, and she was NOT happy with the footing in the ring, which was shoe-sucking mud that splattered all the way up to my thighs as we trotted and cantered through it. All in all, it was the worst dressage test we've ever done.  We cantered on one of our trot circles, almost missed one of our walk transitions it was so late, and jogged through our free walk.  Also, I was so focused on trying to get her to walk for the free walk, I rode MXK across the diagonal instead of BXE, which was what was in the test. Oops! In spite of that, we got what has to be the nicest comment I've ever gotten from a judge. Her comment was "You have a talented horse, and are a talented rider. The conditions are awful, and as a result the marks on the test don't reflect that talent.  It isn't really fair, but I have to mark what  I'm gievn." :)

So after dressage I had less than one hour to walk stadium (which was a solid 10 minute walk away... minimum) change clothes, change tack, and warm up.  I ended up hopping on Cadence 12 minutes before our ride time (!!!) and trotting down to the stadium ring, which turned out to be a great decision, as the footing on the jog over was way better than the rings! Anyway, they were running 2 minutes behind, so we arrived in time for  tack check, a quick canter, and to hop over 4 or 5 warm up fences. Clearly this type of warm up suits Cadence really well, as we had the nicest warm up and by far the best stadium course we've EVER had! It was like I was riding a trained horse... how odd!  Unfortunately, this new found sanity didn't carry over into XC. Cadence was bold, which was good, but she was strong as hell and by the time we were galloping to fence 4 I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it to the fence, let alone finish the 16 fence course! Alas, somehow I managed to stay on, and not get killed in the process. Cadence took most of the 2'9 fences as speed bumps, and was quick enough that I had to pull her back to trot for a section, as we'd caught up to the horse in front of us (who brought home 20 time faults).

Overall though, it was a great show & I won my first truly green ribbon! All my other 5th place ribbons are aqua, or various semi-green colours.