Centered in the Saddle

I did my first ever actual Eventing Thing on Sunday and entered an unrecognized combined test. We did Starter Novice so it was 2′ jumps and the Beginner Novice A dressage test. Literally no pressure or reason to be nervous.

Duke was a gentleman to braid, which I do not take lightly. Braiding a fidgety horse is a special kind of torture. In fact, his braids turned out so well that the judge specifically complimented them. Three times. Boom.

Warm up was great. Test was good. It went by very quickly – it felt like it went much faster than any time we’ve practiced at home. Adrenaline is a weird thing.

And then we had a pretty long break while the people doing the Mini Event did their cross country and stadium rounds. Meanwhile, I got my dressage scores back and got a 36.something. Pretty much 6s and 6.5s with a 7 for the free walk (double coeffient woo!). So, pretty solidly fine. The judge did leave a nice comment at the bottom that we are so close to being really through and pushing from the hind. We need more outside rein and with a little more work we should be able to really shine in dressage, which is so exciting!

At this point, M asked if I wanted to know my place after dressage. Apparently some of the people from our barn don’t like to know. But the look on her face pretty much gave it away – we were in first!

Like I said, I felt no pressure because the jumps were 2′ tall so I just went in, tried to relax and ride right to the base of the fence. We only took one long spot out of 10 jumps so that is a win in my book!

Actually it’s a win in everyone’s book because WE WON.

And then we tried to get a cute picture with our blue ribbon and Duke was like guys no I’m done with this now.

We finally got a couple of cute ones with Trainer B and called it a day. It was such a fun day and a total success! I haven’t actually won anything in a long time, and I’m not gonna lie – it feels really awesome. I am so pleased with Duke. He is so calm and willing, he’ll be fancy when needed and I don’t worry about jumping him because he’s going to go over (the only question is whether we’ll go from his favorite long spot or my saner preferred takeoff point).

I think it’s going to be a heckuva fun summer.