Jump Jump Competition Day Two

Smiles all around!

Sunday I was again awake at 4am. The nerves were still there but lessoned. This may have been due to my complete exhaustion from the previous day. It was ever present as I got to the arena still and looked at the course maps. Course A looked like it would be quite fun to ride. Some rollbacks here and there and it flowed a bit better compared to the courses the day before. I focused on course A because that is all my brain could handle.

Linds= trainer lady, inhaler holder, water giver, course yeller when needed, and even color coordinated.

I hopped on Bacon and slowly walked and trotted around the warm up ring just to try and wake up. I watched the 2'6" riders go and tried to muster up some strength and excitement for my upcoming rides. Fortunately, it came back as I finally entered the ring. The judge recognized us and my smile (she commented on it every time we went in) and Bacon caught onto the "game" we had been playing that weekend.

The outside line remained. And was no longer scary.

Fun rollback to this jump I deemed as the "mustard and ketchup jump".

We had to do a tight left rollback into our first jump, and I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be taking the first rail down this time. I tried to keep her up instead of falling forward and kicking to the jump. It worked, and we didn't take the damn thing down! Actually, we never took the first rail down at all that day. We jumped clear and made it to the jump off. Unfortunately, we had a rail down in our jump off, as both my horse and I were very excited racing around and we got a bit flat. All my fault.

Brick wall to oxer...

Over the start jump here!

We made it to three of the four jump offs. And we had a rail down in two of our three jump offs. We had a rail down in one of our 3'0" rounds due to placing my foot wrong in my stirrup (I have a giant goose egg on my shin and when I place my foot wrong in the stirrup, shooting pains radiate through my leg). It was a shock of pain and I just fumbled along the rest of that ride. Sorry Bacon!

Mid turn. Apparently I lost my seat a little bit. 

Prepare for launch in 3...2...1...

Easy end jump.

But the last ride was sort of our best. I say sort of because we were on the incorrect lead pretty much the whole round, but we went double clear. It felt nice to come out of there without any rails. Bacon had to save my ass on several occasions that day because I would put her in a weird spot, but she got it done. She realized that the start jump was the same for every round too, and couldn't wait to rail around the turn to get over the first jump. She figured out this new game and thought it was terribly fun. She made it super fun.

Ears forward to the next jump.

Saving my ass over the oxer.

We ended up with a second and third in the 2'9" division and a second and sixth in the 3'0" division, with a reserve champion ribbon as well for the weekend. I would say it was a very successful weekend and it was way better than I thought it would turn out. And well worth the sickness I am feeling now trying to recover from the weekend.

Too much fun!