The Curse Has Lifted

That's right. Part of the reason I disappeared on here is because I didn't want to jinx our possibility of finally competing in our first recognized event. And guess what guys. It happened!

Where R we going?

HOORAY!

Baconator and I headed off to Stanton Farms bright and early Thursday morning with some fellow horse friends. Bacon knew immediately that something was up because the fluffy halter and shipping boots came out. She started to tremble once near the trailer, and I thought, Oh crap. What have I gotten myself into? Fortunately, she hardly weaved at all the whole way there and unloaded calm and cool. Which has not been her go-to lately at all.

Where R this?

After getting everyone and our camps all situated, we had a quick dressage hack in the warm up arena. Oi. I had me a sizzling mare. She was very distracted and wasn't sure what was living in all of the trees around us. A very different atmosphere from what she is used to. But she took a nice nap in her stall and seemed very content the whole rest of the day. She drank well and ate pretty well, which is also not her go-to. Yay Bacon!

Outfit win

Our ride time was supposed to be at 9:15am Friday morning, so I thought I would have plenty of time to watch our friend go at 8:00 for her first prelim on that horse. This event happened to be paired with a pony club rally. Which they decided should go before the event riders. And apparently these were freestyle dressage rides, so they needed to set up the speakers and whatnot. By the time this was all said and done, our friend's ride time became 8:40. She put in a lovely test, and I rushed off to go get ready, not too worried about time because they announced they were running 50 minutes late. After 5 minutes, they changed their minds and said they were running 20 minutes late.

Somebody got a little tense. Maybe two somebodies.

Ooo, she looks round and not so pointy here.

Thus created a little bit of panic despite my Xanax on board. I tacked up as quickly as I could and got changed and tried to hurry to warm up. Of course, a four wheeler was right up Bacon's butt our whole trek up there. As I entered, I went over to the ring stewards and asked if I needed to check in or anything. No response. I rode a lap or two, came back and asked again because I could hear my number being announced somewhere. They then told me that they skipped me. I was allowed to go down to the show rings, where another motorcycle appeared out of the woods (yay), and they let me go because they understood there was a lot of confusion about times.

Sometimes we got a tad bit of bend.

Ooo, sassy tail swish

I was sitting on one extremely tense, coiled spring of a horse, that had a cold back and was thrown in with the wolves. It was not a great test. It was not even a good test. But I rode as well as I could with the given circumstances. Bacon did not know what straightness was, nor bend, or relaxing her back and stepping through. I tried to just smile and shrug it off, but I was pretty bummed. We ended up in last place (10th, it was a tiny event) with a 43.7.

A tad bit of stretch in our free walk. Our medium walk was instead a medium jig.

And there was some thought about bucking going into our left lead canter....

After our test was finished, we did our bit check and I headed back to warm up. I wanted to end on a better note, and she put in some very nice stuff after actually getting loosened up. And I was happy with that. Plus, our outfit was pretty great. Unfortunately, I did not have a person to take pictures, but hubs did take some video. I was very happy he was there! But now that we had gotten dressage over with, it was on to the fun stuff the ne

xt day. Cross country!

Our trot got a little better after some canter.

Damnit. Sit up ho.

Almost done! Hang on!