I sent off an entry for a dressage show yesterday. Yes, a dressage show. Pretty much the only type of show I’ve never participated in. In a way it’s a little exciting because it’s just two dressage tests and then you’re DONE. Much less crap to take with you, absolutely nothing to stress about, no courses to walk a thousand times. On the other hand you don’t get to do anything fun after dressage, which seems like the whole point of it in the first place, so it’s kinda like:

But since it’s a little schooling show, if you want to do classes outside of the specific ones they offer – which are USDF Intro through Second – you can write in whatever test you want. You have to do them HC, but whatever, I don’t care about ribbons anyway. Novice Eventing Test B and Training Eventing Test A (because I like to confuse the hell out of myself figuring out how to make a semi-symmetrical 15m circle), here we come! I reject your tests, USDF. Who wants to halt twice in one test? Not me. Definitely not Henry.

Aside from that, I also sat down and wrote out my list of shows for the fall. It’s kind of a mirror image of our spring season, except at a different level.

• Aug 29-30 USEA Corona HT: Novice

I’m a little bummed that it sounds like they’re dumbing their courses way down from the event we did in May. But the May one was also listed as “good for first timers” and that was a huge BN course, so we’ll see what this N course looks like. Hopefully it’s not too basic.

• Sep 24-27 American Eventing Championships/Adult Team Championships at Texas Rose: Beginner Novice

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’m 2% sad that we qualified at BN for this, but there’s no way we would have had time to qualify at N without a lot of serious last minute hustle. Plus I’m pretty stoked about the ATC with all my friends at BN, so that makes it all worthwhile. It’s gonna be a hell of a fun week. Unicorn paraphernalia is taking over my guest room already.

• Oct 10-11 USEA Greenwood HT: Novice

Reeeeally excited about this course, it’s legit and I love Greenwood. There’s a little corner, and a bending line down bank to log, trakehner, jump out of a big crater, giant steeplechase brush fence, ditch, etc. All the cool stuff.

• Oct 31 USEA Pine Hill HT: Novice

Pine Hill is always awesome, and hopefully the weather in October will be a bit better than it was in April (so muddy).

 

There’s an h/j show I’d like to go to in November but we’ll how to see how my schedule and bank account are looking by then. Of course now that I’ve written out a plan, let’s see how much Fate decides to laugh in my face.