Waredaca Unrecognized Event 6-24-12

Yesterday was the BIG DAY! Time for all of my practice schooling xc and stadium fences to pay off and pay off it did! Once we got to Waredaca we loaded up all of the tack and took it to the Red Barn since we'd be keeping Smash there all day and out of the heat. We checked out the XC course and I only had a few new jumps to remember since my first walk through around the field on Wednesday. I was feeling really confident about both jump courses and just had to take time to focus on my dressage test once I got tacked up and ready.

Finally it was time to get Smash and tack up. She was pretty up when I got on. I had to really work on riding her from her hind end while also not letting her be too distracted by everything going on or running through my hands. Here's the video for my dressage test. We got a 38.5 - a lower score for me than usual, but the comments on the test were mostly positive.

After dressage, we gave Smash a short break and sponge off before tacking her up again for my Mom's rides. Smash was getting bored with dressage - I could tell by my Mom's second test - but she was hanging in there!  She and my Mom had 2 great rides! Once she was done we put her in a stall to have some down time while I grabbed a snack and watched a few Stadium rounds. The BN course was different from Wednesday's schooling show course. At first I was a little disappointed because I was looking forward to dominating it again - but the revisions actually made the course easier so who am I to complain? There was a big wait for stadium. They got a tad bit behind which was slightly annoying since my warm up took exactly 3 min. but thankfully Smash was still game for our round. We knocked 1 rail - boo - but honestly it wasn't too bad and I was still really happy about our round!Here is my stadium round from the camcorder and here is the stadium round from my helmet cam perspective.

Then it was right off to XC! I know Smash was excited and she knew exactly what was coming up when we entered the warm up area because she FLEW around the course!! I had to just sit and half halt the whole time! She finally started to get tired by jump 13 - but by then we only had water and the final jump to do so I pushed her on. You can watch the video HERE.

At the end of the day I was VERY pleased with our efforts! Not only did we accomplish my goal of completing the event in its entirety without getting eliminated but we also got 4th place!! :D A ribbon! I couldn't believe it! All the hard work paid off! And I felt like we had an easy ride despite the rail in stadium. Our next goal is Novice by November's unrecognized event! I'm contemplating a recognized show at BN (those usually have a few more elements like a 2 strided line in stadium and a down bank with potentially a strided line in XC) but I'm not sure yet. Gotta check the checkbook first! Until then Smash will get some rest (as will I!) and we'll work our way up to Novice! Such a GREAT day for everyone!