Mini Trial Update

Luke is SUCH a good boy! We went out schooling with Molly on Saturday, and he warmed up perfectly, even with horses coming at him from all directions. He took a few of the first little jumps like they were 5' tall, and didn't understand the lack of enthusiasm displayed by the other horses. Typical Luke. So we walked over a few, and trotted a few, and ended on a good note. I'm very happy with him. Then he stood tied to the trailer for a long time, and didn't do anything bad. He saw his first horse and buggy on Saturday and his eyes were saucer sized. I got a cute picture of the "buggy" face...I'll upload pictures later.

Sunday we headed out and got to South Farm around 11? I didn't ride until 2:30 so it was really nice to have some time to warm up. We got our packets, I found my camera that I left behind on Saturday, and checked out the tack trailer. I didn't even buy anything! So I'm going to put $10 in a Congress fund, along with $40 from my paycheck. I really want to have some money to spend at Congress this year!

I tacked Luke up and headed over to warm up for dressage. I was able to walk him around the farm on a loose rein, but once we got to the warm up area and started trotting, he got a little quick and panicky. A trainer kindly helped us warm up, and that helped. We did lots of transitions and figure 8's, and he got his brain back. I headed into my test feeling nervous, but more prepared than usual. We did our courtesy lap, and he didn't spook at the flowers or the trailer. He came down centerline nice and straight, and stopped completely for the halt. Good boy! We had a few sticky moments in our test - he cantered a few strides of the trot circle, was a little counterbent in a couple spots, and I overshot center line. Bad me! I know better!

I threw him back on the trailer with some hay so I could relax a little bit. I walked around, watched a little stadium, and then tacked him back up for stadium and xc. I was literally three feet away from him, he was tied to the trailer, and he pulled back. Broke the snap on the lead rope in half, and proceeded to run around the farm - he ran a good 1/4 mile down a stretch, and back up, and then made a big circle around me and let me catch him. I was not a happy camper. I threatened to sell him to the Amish to be a buggy horse. Maybe he was just warming himself up for XC. I finished tacking him up quickly, and hopped on to go warm up for the other phases. He got me so flustered I forgot my gloves. Ouch!

He took the first couple warm up fences as flyers, so we walked a few, and then trotted a few. I remembered to go through the start flags this year! He didn't look at anything on course and hopped right over it all. We trotted and cantered the course - he was a little wigglier than I would have liked, but not too badly. And he didn't knock anything down! I decided NOT to get off, so we walked around for a while, and then headed over to XC warm up. I opted not to jump anything except one little vertical. We trotted out of the start box, I asked him to walk the first jump, and then we alternated between walking and trotting the rest of the jumps. Again, he rocked it...he didn't look at ANYTHING out there. I came across the finish line exhausted, but so proud of him!

I cooled him out, untacked him, put my stuff away, and loaded him on the trailer with some nice hay. I went over to check my scores, which still weren't up. We waited around for a while - my division was of course the last one posted. I went up to look at our results and did a double, maybe triple take. I asked them "are you sure?!" Luke and I came in 2nd place! We finished on our dressage score of 34.0, which is our best score by about 10 points. Even with our mistakes, the test must have looked better than it felt. The comments were helpful - the judge really liked him, said he was a nice mover, and said she liked what a patient rider I was for him. He went clean on XC and Stadium, so we finished on our 34! Good boy Luke! We were only out of first place by 2 points, but I couldn't be happier with the pretty red ribbon. It was such a great day - the ribbon was just icing on the cake! We made it back home and unloaded, fed him dinner, and turned him out. And then I went home and crashed.

Other than the broken lead rope and escape, it was a great weekend. That's the next thing I need to tackle - get him to stand tied again. I'm not sure if it's possible. Always something to work on!