LAUGH OR GET OFF - TALES OF OLD...

Photo used with permission
www.dexterpix.com

Shhhhh, don't tell anyone but I really do want to be Number 1!  I want to achieve a goal that makes me stand out in a crowd...  to be on a podium accepting an award for outstanding achievement!  Yes, I want to be that person!  Yay me!

This weekend at the University of New Hampshire's Fall Horse Trials, I finally could say that I was Number 1.  Sugar and I, through epic efforts on both of our parts had the highest dressage score of all 200+ competitors!  What was that number you say?  It was a 57.6 - a new record for both of us.

Facebook is a funny thing...  that record made my non-horsey friends/family so proud of my achievement.  {{{My mom even congratulated me.}}}  And you all...  well, you actually can picture what a 57.6 looks in Eventing Dressage?  My Bestest Eventing Buddy remarked that it was the most exciting dressage test she's every watched...  like a train wreck - she couldn't turn away!

Winning the warm up once again, my lil' Pinto Pony was supple, animated, athletic and graceful...  Did I mention how beautiful she is or told you how I keep her so white?   Then as if the parking meter ran out and red lights started flashing, my lil' girl began to say, "I don't wanna!"  Yet, with encouragement from my Eventing Trainer, "we got her brain back" and headed to Ring 1.



Used with permission
 www.flatlandsfoto.com

Our scores begin like a perfectly normal test...  5, 7, 6, 7, 5, 6 and then we got to the free walk.  It was at this moment her brain fried and she said, "I have had enough!  Take me back to my lover or I will do it for you!"  3, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5.  Numbers do not describe the lovely "airs-above-the-ground", her levade, the lovely piaffe as I encouraged her to move forward, the passage as she acquiesced to my "gentle" prodding and finally after agreeing that the canter movement was a requirement, she finished the canter doing clean one tempe changes until I "asked" for the trot.  The five was a pretty nice square halt... phew! 

I withdrew before XC after going clean in Stadium the next day.  It was a very hard decision and one I wonder about even today.  In all the leaping and bounding in dressage, I felt a burning in my lower back that persisted despite ALOT of advil.  As we were warming up, I knew I was holding my back still and very cautious.  Ultimately, the decision was made in an effort to preserve my growing confidence. 

It's Monday and yet again, I continue to break rules (Eventing Rule #4 - No one cares on Monday).  I'm still laughing at the whole thing. Sugar's antics were hysterical...   I guess its hard being a teenager particularly when a parent asks you to leave your boyfriend for an hour to do some work around the house. 

Excuse me, I have to run to the barn tonight before Sug runs out and gets a tattoo just to prove, "I'm not the boss of her!"