We’re headed out this morning to make the 12 hour drive to my mom’s home town in Mississippi for her memorial service. Obviously, I am not looking forward to to this in any way shape or form for a multitude of reasons. This really makes it all feel final, and permanent… which it already IS, but after this, that’s really the end. I am not looking forward to all the emotions and feelings that are about to happen. I’m not good at them and I don’t like them. Hugs and pity and sympathy make me uncomfortable, but I’ll suck it up because it’s not about me, is it?
Before I go, I want to share the facebook post that my brother (featured above) wrote last week on my Mom’s birthday, because I feel like he makes some really good points that apply so much to everyone, but especially horse people:
I go through life kind of in the moment. So it took me being at the end of the story to fully understand the character of my Mother.
For the majority of my life I would’ve used words like eccentric, opinionated, caring, and generous. I’m not sure if it’s my maturity, or the conclusion of this last chapter, but I now recognize much more. While she was always caring and generous, she was also resolute, and an unwavering warrior in her battle with the cancer that ultimately stole her away. Growing up there were tough times, financially, for my parents. But aside from being taught to work for what I wanted and to appreciate what I had, I would’ve never known. I never had a need for anything; especially, and most importantly, my Mother’s love. It’s true I’m her favorite, albeit by a very slim margin. That could be for a lot of reasons: I look like her, I was the first born, when my Father was away with military commitments it was just she and I, or for nine years I was her only child. Or it could be that I required more work. I was mischievous, not afraid to cause trouble or find something to get into. Not in a problem with the law kind of way, but definitely not the honor role, exemplary child my sister was and continues to be. I was more of that project that required extra attention and Mom may have felt a bit more accomplished that I didn’t turn out a total wreck.
Mom taught me some incredible lessons to live by. Lessons that Lacey and I are ensuring Hayden understands:
Family is everything. It may sound cliché but I was raised to understand that it doesn’t matter the situation or circumstance; family is always there for each other, and can always be counted on.
What you have or don’t have doesn’t dictate who you are.What you do in tough times and for those that need you shows your true character.
Close your mouth when you chew. No one wants to see what you’re eating, and it’s kind of gross.
When you speak, do so intelligently.If you don’t care what you say or how you sound no one else will either.
And lastly be yourself.It doesn’t matter how bright or dull you are; how loud or quiet you are; be eccentric, be unique, be proud. That in itself is a true accomplishment.
Because every show is really a learning experience in disguise:
Our horses love Skittles and Pop-Tarts, so obviously they’re unicorns. Oh yeah, and rainbow Goldfish, they liked those too. But especially Pop-Tarts, of any flavor. I’m just gonna start bringing those to shows instead of buying fancy treats because Henry (and Halo and Rheta) thought they were the best thing ever.
Bobby is a coward. The show provided water balloons on Saturday afternoon so that everyone could take out their aggression on each other have a fun reprieve in between dressage and stadium. Bobby and I of course are basically 12 years old, so we had to go get some. Bobby’s first one hit the brim of my hat and soaked me pretty well, then he kept running away and wouldn’t just take my retaliation like a man. He went and got another balloon and nailed me IN THE BACK with it as I was walking away. In the back! There’s no honor in that! Obviously Bobby is not a gentleman and knows nothing about honorable dueling. I finally got him, and certainly not the coward’s way like he did.
You can find amazing things at a Love’s truck stop late on a Saturday night. As I was walking around grabbing more Powerade and some Cosmic Cupcakes, I stumbled upon a bin of stick unicorns. They even had sound effects. They are so majestic, we each got one… you’ll be seeing these bad boys again at AEC. (Bobby got a horse because it looks like Halo – he’s going to make it into a unicorn – and Sherri got a purple one)
It IS possible for a horse and rider to get trapped together under a BN ramp. After XC as I was putting all my stuff away, I heard a lot of commotion in the warm-up and saw a lot of people running. I didn’t think much of it until I looked up again and saw people standing there with their hands over their mouths and heard someone say “I think I saw an arm move!”. I walked over and it turned out that a horse and his rider were somehow wedged into the back/under side of a little BN sized ramp. I have absolutely no idea how it happened, I can’t even fathom the physics, but they had to unstake the ramp and drag it off of them, which took several minutes. By some miracle both the horse and the rider got up and walked away unharmed. I have never seen anything like that in my entire life.
Our barn is kind of awesome. We’re a small privately owned barn full of working amateur riders, with no resident trainer, and all 3 of us that went to the show came back with a ribbon without embarrassing ourselves in the process. We’re self sufficient, we support each other, we can hold our own with any other barn, and we have a lot of fun while we’re doing it. Adult Team Championships, we’re comin’ for ya!
Just like this. We’re comin for ya just like this…
Having one of only a handful of clear stadium rounds on Saturday re-invigorated my spirits, and I woke up on Sunday feeling ready to rock and roll. The XC course was touted as being soft and a good move-up course, but it wasn’t quite as simple as I was expecting, which I’m ok with. There were a few max height fences and tough questions, including a huge down bank (cue some nail biting on my part) and two combinations. Overall though it looked very do-able and inviting. The course walk pics are from very early Saturday morning, so prepare for some grumpy morning Bobby.
The first four fences were all pretty small and simple, and a good way to get into a groove. Fence 1 was a little ramp a pretty short distance from the start box.
Then we went off into the gross scrubby brush (sorry west Texas, but you’re ugly as sin) and weaved around to 2, a little baby log.
Followed by more weaving around to 3, which is the same little feeder thing we jumped in May at BN.
After 3 we popped out into a field and headed to 4, also a fence that we jumped in May at BN, just dressed up a bit. This is the field that has the windmill and the big metal chickens in it.
Back into the scrubby brush and weaving around to 5, which was a decent size fence set off of a very short/crooked approach and heading uphill.
We kept going up the hill and around to 6, a little… thing. With… dirt. And stuff. I don’t really know what to tell you.
After the enigma at 6 we had a sharp right turn and then went down into a crater, turned left and went back up out of the crater over 7. The fence itself was little and simple, this was more a question of control and steering and willingness to go forward, so we planned to trot it.
After 7 we had a decent stretch to catch our breath, then came back out into the field and rolled back left to 8AB. The A portion was a little rolltop…
that’s Bobby throwing his now empty coffee cup at me, you can kinda see the white smudge
And then it was a sharp right turn with 4 bending strides to the bank down. The bank itself was about 3′ and had a downhill landing that made it seem even bigger. This is the only thing on the course that I thought might give us a problem.
After the bank we turned right and rolled down to The Fort at 9, a nice inviting jump.
More weaving around more gross scrubby brush and then we popped out into the big front field where we had to take a hard right turn with a very short approach to 10abc, the water complex. The approach to this made it kind dirty, IMO, you would reeeeaaally have to get them back and get them turned and going forward again pretty quickly. But the A element was a nice inviting brush fence
followed by B, the water itself
and then out of the water over the tiny log for the C element that was more like a speed bump than a jump.
There was a little bit of a breather after 10 as you turned back through the field and headed to 11, a tall but simple bench Then back into the brush and down the lane to 12, another basic log fence with a bit of a downhill landing.
Fence 13 was the biggest and most visually imposing fence on our course, a maxed out house about halfway up a hill. I figured by this point in the course we would have a nice gallop rhythm and it would ride well as long as I kept coming forward up the hill and rode to the base.
More weaving around other fences and we finally popped out at the last, a little train car.
XC warmup was an even bigger circus than stadium warmup, so once again I trotted a couple laps, cantered a couple laps, jumped two fences, and stepped out to wait my turn. The first 4 jumps on course were small, so I figured those would get us into the flow well enough.
Henry came out of the box locked and loaded, taking me straight to fence 1 with plenty of enthusiasm. At this level I really want him to learn to WAIT and go to the base of the fence, not drag me to a flyer (which could turn into a train wreck if/when we go up the levels) so whenever I see the option for the close one vs the gap, I sit up and ask him to wait for the close one.
His “first fence” face
When we first entered the brush to head towards 2 I could feel him looking around a little bit. I told him he was fine and sat up and kept him in front of my leg, and he soldiered through the first 3 with no issue. When we popped out into the field for 4 he was staring hardcore at the windmill and I really had to stick my right spur in to keep him straight, but he went to the fence with no issue and jumped the snot out of it, because windmill monsters.
5 and 6 rode just fine, then we trotted down the crater and he said HAHA WHEEEEE NOW I CANTER AGAIN BUH-BYE MOM and basically deer leaped 7 while I stayed in the back seat and considered switching his XC bit to something other than a fat KK loose ring.
The plan for 8AB was to get the tiniest bounciest canter and deepest distance I possibly could to the A element, land, hang a right, and trot the down bank at B so I could make sure he saw it. He landed, turned to the bank, took me the four strides to it and jumped right off the damn thing without an ounce of hesitation, totally textbook. Well ok then. No more bank issues.
I had a little bit of a hard time getting him balanced back up for 9 (another point where I considered a new bit) but again he let me put him to the close distance and kept chugging. The turn to 10 was rough… he popped out into the field and wanted to just keep right on going, so I had to set him on his butt a little to get his shoulders turned to 10. Bless his honest little heart, as soon as he saw the fence he was locked on and went.
The last few fences were no big deal. The big house rode really well and he jumped it great just like I thought he would. Every time I checked my watch we were right where we should have been, so I just let him roll along and we crossed the finish with no problems. In fact, he was barely winded and was cooled down within minutes. Guess all that conditioning work has really helped. XC didn’t claim nearly as many victims as stadium, but we did move up one more spot. More importantly, Henry finished on his dressage score again. That’s my real goal. We also got another completion at Novice toward our qualifications for the Novice 3 Day next year. My pony was super, I have no complaints. Henry officially has two Novices under his girth… now on to AEC at BN before we go back up to Novice for the fall season!
I have to admit, I went into Saturday feeling pretty defeated. Sitting 12th of 14 after dressage is not a place I’m used to being, and I felt like our shot at finishing in the ribbons was completely blown. But there was still a tiny glimmer of hope left, because Corona is known for eating people alive in stadium. At the May show there, Bobby and I were the only two clear in BN. I figured if I could pull off a clear we would at least move up a little bit in the standings. Since we hail from Jumperland, stadium is our easiest phase, but we are still far from guaranteed to go clear at a place like this. I knew if I made a mistake I would pay for it. I also knew that if I kept Henry’s shoulders up and kept coming forward to the base, we had a good shot.
Fence 2, the butterfly jump, claimed the most victims
Bobby and I didn’t do stadium until 7pm on Saturday so we had aaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllll day to sit around. Our other barnmate Sherri did her dressage just before noon so that helped break up the time a little bit, but it was still a really long day. The weather ended up being overcast and unseasonably cool, so we totally could have just gone ahead and done stadium in the afternoon. Around dinner time a light rain started up and kept going for the rest of the evening, which cooled things down even more.
Purple bonnet with purple ribbon pin to go with my purple polo… so much purple for Mom happening at Corona.
This of course made for a pretty exciting warm-up ring. There were a lot of pros in our Novice division on their green horses, and what happens when you put a bunch of green horses in a busy warm-up ring in the sprinkling rain with a nice cool breeze? Chaos. Mass freaking chaos. I got in and got out as quickly as possible, trotting a lap each way, cantering a lap each way, jumping the vertical once and the oxer twice. Even just doing that, one pro in particular used my horse’s butt to stop her runaway, which neither Henry nor I appreciated. We got the hell out of there and just walked around outside of warm-up and waited for our turn.
The course was pretty much all singles, with a couple of tight turns on the downhill slope that claimed a lot of victims, rail-wise. Fence 2 and Fence 7 came down a lot. If your horse was on the forehand or you didn’t keep a good rhythm, you were not making it around clean. We had a hard rub at 7 where I let him get a bit flat, but I guess we accumulated some karma points after dressage because it thankfully settled back into the cups. Otherwise it was a pretty smooth round and he especially jumped the oxers really well.
that tail flip though ❤Happy pony and a clear round!
We were one of only 3 people in our division to go clear (Bobby was another) and we moved all the way up from 12th to 5th. Yes seven places. Everyone was tightly packed enough after dressage to where you just couldn’t afford to add 4 to your score. Corona remains the crusher of stadium dreams, but it sure worked out in my favor.
NOMNOMNOM that’s the sound of Corona’s stadium course eating people
I’m a nerd and did the math for stadium throughout all the divisions – only 18% went clear. That statistic drops to 15% if you throw out the Starter division. 15%!!!
After stadium when I got off Henry and loosened his girth to walk back to the barn, the show vet came over and asked me about him. He said that he’d been sitting there watching all these rounds from P/T on down, and he just wanted to let me know that Henry was his favorite. He said that he was so impressed by how he walked in there as calm and professional as could be, turned it on and did his job perfectly, then walked out again just as calmly. He said it was a pleasure to watch a horse do a job he obviously loved. I have to thank that very kind man for coming up and saying that to me, it really made my day. After having had my spirit crushed a little bit by the dressage judge the day before, it was a taste of sweet redemption for my unassuming little brown horse that always tries so hard for me. It makes me happy when other people see that quality in him too.
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