After a fairly solid dressage and double clear XC, the pressure was on for stadium. We were tied for 4th place after XC, with only a 1.3 penalty point spread from 1st to 6th, so if I wanted a ribbon I couldn’t afford a rail or a time fault. And when I saw the course, I immediately started dreading it. Why? Because it looked tiny. For some reason I can’t seem to sit up and ride like a normal person until the jumps basically force me to do so, and Henry is never impressed with little fences. But my coach reassured me that it was riding spookier than it looked, which is good news when you’re on Henry… he jumps a lot better when the fences are “scary”.

We also decided to switch him back to his plain french link snaffle for stadium. At the jumper show a few weeks ago I thought that the Dr Bristol was too much, so now it’s relegated to XC only.

When I got on for stadium on Sunday morning and walked to warmup, I felt tired. I don’t really know why, but I was just totally drained. In retrospect, I probably should have done a better job of staying hydrated in the heat and humidity. And eating… I tended to not eat all day. Whoops. Also when I walked into warmup Coach said “Did you really braid??” and Bobby rolls his eyes and says “Of course she did”. No one else braided. But a) I had the time, so why not b) it’s a big recognized show, I don’t want to look ghetto c) pictures are always 100x better when the horse is braided, and I’m superficial like that. Plus I had to put a purple lucky braid in there for my mom. Henry was jumping well, therefore the lucky braid worked, therefore they can shut it.

We went in the ring, saluted, and picked up the canter. The course started off immediately with a line, so I went right into a decently forward canter. As we were coming around the corner to the first fence Henry spotted some disassembled jumps sitting outside of the ring and immediately got looky, and I thought to myself “Excellent!”. No sarcasm there… looky is a good thing for him. He has no stop in him at this height, but he’ll be more careful if he thinks something might eat him.

The first line rode really well. Then I started to come out of the corners and pull. And pull more. And pull more. For some reason my go-to reaction for bigger fences is forward, yet my go-to reaction for little fences is to pull and slow down. We jumped into the third line weak, yet I felt that the appropriate reaction was to land and pull. Why? No idea. Serious case of the stupids. Luckily my horse is fantastic and marched right down there, added a stride, and plopped over the oxer despite my best efforts to murder it and us.

My riding didn’t get much better as we went along, but Henry didn’t seem to care. He hopped around easily, never so much as tapped a fence, and by some miracle we were clear. This horse you guys, seriously. I was embarrassed for myself, but SO proud of him. He really stepped up to the plate all weekend and showed some serious maturity. I could not have been more pleased with him. He’s come a long way in a year, and he seems to just keep getting better. Winning ribbons is nice and all, but having a horse that seems so happy in his job, physically and mentally, is what it’s all about. It gives me all the feels.

After stadium he ate the rest of his 1lb bag of fancy cookies while I apologized profusely, and by the time he got his liniment bath and graze, they had posted scores. Remember my efforts to come as close as possible to Optimum Time on XC in case of a tie? The tie remained after stadium since we were both clear, but I was 3 seconds closer to Optimum so I won the tie!

We finished 4th, 1.3 points away from 1st place in a big division that I didn’t think we had a chance of placing in. Again… this horse, y’all. Worth his weight in gold. And cookies.

The other cool thing about the weekend was that my family came down to watch. Apparently one of the items on my grandma’s bucket list was to see me ride in a show, so my uncle drove down with her from Arkansas to Louisiana and my dad met us there. My family has never seen me event, and I don’t think my dad has seen me show since I was 16, so it was fun to have them there.

What a great weekend. What a fun, gorgeous show. What a fantastic pony.

Oh, and we’re officially qualified for the Coconino N3D! Mission accomplished. Next stop, Arizona!

Yep, the fun part! Feel free to scroll past all the words to get to the helmet cam footage at the bottom, it won’t hurt my feelings.

When we walked the course on Friday I was really happy with it. Nothing looked big or hard, but there were a few more technical questions that I thought were a good test. I like technical… that makes it more fun when you have a horse that is usually pretty handy. The ground handled all the rain fabulously well, too. It was just springy enough to be perfect for galloping, with a couple of soft spots but nothing slick.

It took Henry about halfway through warmup to realize what we were doing, then it was Game On mode and he was all business. The professionalism that he showed in dressage was carrying over… he’s really learned the job now. I’ve also kind of learned what to expect from him. He’d never been to this venue before so I expected him to be a little bit looky in places, but it was also pretty open and rolling, so I thought he might try to pull me around a little in between the fences. Both of those guesses ended up being true.

Fence 1 was just a little basic hanging log with some flowers on it. No problem, standard first fence. Henry usually comes out of the box a little bit behind the leg though, so I tried to just sit up, keep my leg on, and wait for him to sort it out.

He popped over that no problem and locked onto 2 pretty quickly, which was just a simple little log.

After that it was down to the oxer in the shadows. Henry spooked at the jump judge a little bit a few strides away but kept going forward (he always keeps going forward even when he’s spooky, bless him) so it was fine.

After 3 he was really ready to roll and wanting to drag me a little, but hopped over 4 easily, pulled me slightly past the distance at 5, but was a bit more polite after that and cantered quietly over 6.

Then it was down to 7 and 8, a cute little Scrabble fence with four strides to an up bank. Several strides away I felt him look just a little bit suspiciously at the fence so I clucked a couple times, he went back in front of my leg, and hopped through here really well.

After that it was down the hill and around to 9, the brush fence (my personal favorite).

Then I brought him way back for the water, knowing that he was going to be surprised by the big expanse of Tidy Bowl blue when we landed from the little hanging log at 10.

He definitely gave it the hairy eyeball but leaped in (with a bit too much enthusiasm) anyway and cantered through the water, out over the A frame at 11.

Except Henry jumped HUUUGE over the A frame (HENNY ROLEX!!!), landing really far away on the back side and with way too much momentum, which completely messed up our line to 12A-B, a couple of barrels set on a bending line right after the water. This was a little bit of a tricky question for Novice, made tremendously more tricky by the fact that we landed past the point where I needed to turn in order to jump them center to center (how it was meant to ride).

I had to sit him on his butt, turn him hard right, and we ended up taking a totally shitty, very angled line from the left side of the first fence to the right side of the second in a fairly ugly 2 1/2 strides. But bless Henny’s honest little heart again, he didn’t even hesitate. As soon as he saw the question he went right on through it and got both of us out of that icky line with no problem. Extra cookies for the pony, I was really proud of him for that. He could have just as easily flipped me the bird and opted out of that one.

By the time I stopped crapping myself and remembered to check my watch, we were almost to 13 and 14, a 5 stride bending line going downhill. A lot of people had problems here throughout the day but this actually rode great for Henry, he was focused and had no issue.

Then it was another combination, a rolltop with 4 strides to a downbank. I brought him down to a little canter for this, to avoid a SUPERMAN off the bank, and he actually jumped down it pretty reasonably for him.

Then it was up the hill to the produce stand, which I thought he might peek at a little but he jumped it great, nary a hesitation.

After that I landed, looked at my watch, and saw that I was going to be pretty much spot on between Speed Fault time and Optimum Time. But remember… I was in a tie. And just in case we stayed tied through the end, I wanted to try to win the tie, so I needed to get as close to OT as I could. I squished Henry way down to a teeny tiny canter all the way to the last fence (which he thought was bullshit) and loped through the finish, crossing at 4:54. OT was 5:09, so I wasn’t sure if that was going to be good enough to win the tie but hell… I had to try.

Overall it was a good XC for Henry. Definitely a butt puckering moment out of the water, but I was super proud of how he came right back and salvaged the situation with no problem. There’s no doubt he loves his job and he’s proving to be a really great ammy horse. He actually got progressively more rideable as the course went on, although he did pull on me a bit more than usual. Probably because he’s pretty damn fit right now, as evidenced by the fact that he wasn’t even breathing hard by the time we were done, despite it being really hot and humid.

After a nice liniment bath and a graze, I checked the scores and saw that we moved up from tied for 6th to tied for 4th! But we still had to get through stadium, and with only a 4-penalty spread between 1st and 11th place, there was zero room for error…

As I mentioned last week, the days leading up to Holly Hill were wet. Really really wet. We had a ton of rain all week in Texas, which meant the horses were stuck in their stalls and our riding was limited to whatever we could do on the narrow strip of grass beside the road that was firm enough to ride on. I figured I might have a slightly feral animal by the time we got to Louisiana on Friday.

Bobby and I were loaded and on the road before 7am, and the drive was pretty uneventful. We stopped about halfway, unloaded the boys, let Halo graze and blow his nose (he has a condition that makes him aspirate his food, so if he’s unable to clear his nose/lungs on a regular basis he’s prone to pneumonia), offered them water, and let them walk around.

Once we arrived at the grounds we found our stalls, unloaded, and let the boys settle in while we grabbed some tacos at the lunch buffet (I love shows that feed us). Then we hopped on and walked out to the dressage warm-up area to ride. As soon as I picked up the trot I knew I had a wild man on my hands, so I just went straight to canter, got into a half seat, and let him go around and around the field until he quit leaping and squealing. No joke – he was actually squealing. Zero dignity.

He did settle though and we got some good work at the end, so we decided to just leave him with a little edge and hope that it worked out for good instead of bad the next day. We bedded the boys down, walked our courses, had some dinner (free food again, Holly Hill is the best), and then went to bed. The next morning Henry still had a bit of a wild man look in his eyes so I opted to leave the spurs off, but he was actually really quiet in warmup.

I have to be honest, I was a little worried he would lose his shit in the test. There were 4 rings all in one grass field, very close to each other. There was a whole lot going on, and in the past he’s not done well with that (ahem Greenwood). I have to give him much praise though, he marched right in there like a pro and didn’t look at a thing. He was rideable, he was professional, he was steady, and overall just a really good boy.

I messed up my first circle completely… I’ve gotten so used to my trajectory for a 15m circle that I came off the rail with way too much bend and kind of had to leg yield my way back out to a 20m path. If you’re into lopsided ovals, it was super. But his transitions were decent, his free walk was good, and the second trot to canter was very steady – we’ve struggled a lot with that so it was nice to finally get a good one.

Nothing about the test was brilliant, but nothing was bad either. Overall really consistent and he stayed totally “with me” mentally the whole time. Very unlike last year where most tests were just me trying to tiptoe through it without him getting tense and upset. We’re close… we’re really really close to having great scores. At this point it’s just a matter of me riding him better.

I was still expecting around our usual 35-36, since I was familiar with our judge and knew she was not exceedingly generous. Really I was just hoping to end up around mid-pack, but either way I was happy with Henny. He’s grown up so much since last season.

I was pretty pleased to see our score of 33, and even more pleased to see that it put us tied for 6th out of 23. It was a really stacked field of super nice, experienced horse and rider teams, so to be up there among them was exciting. Finally, all the work is paying off. Now I need to get my shit together and stop leaving easy points on the table.

But there wasn’t much time to bask in our mini taste of almost glory, because we only had a few hours until CROSS COUNTRY…

 

If you’re going to Rolex and want to win some free money and free stuff, keep reading.

The Eventing Unicorn will be at Rolex this year gathering even more autographs. For those who don’t know Uni’s story, read all about her here and here. Or the short version – we’re collecting signatures from upper level riders on the unicorn mask and taking pictures with the riders and Uni for a photobook. The mask and the photobook will be auctioned off to benefit a Texas eventing facility owner and her special needs daughter. Uni already went to Fair Hill last fall and got some pretty big names:

And now she’s headed to Rolex to add some more international riders to the collection.

So, about that contest…

• A picture of Uni is worth one entry.
• A picture with Uni is worth two entries. Don’t be shy, go up there and get a picture. Knowing Uni’s entourage, they’ll probably hand you a drink and you’ll be BFF’s 5 minutes later.
• post it to Instagram with the hashtag #unidoesrolex (make sure to @eventing_unicorn)
• There is NO LIMIT to the number of entries.
• One winner will be randomly selected for a $30 Riding Warehouse gift card, plus two free belts and a shirt (of the winner’s choice) courtesy of Mango Bay!

Where can Uni be found? She will be tailgating of course, so look for her near Spot 57. Otherwise, just keep your eyes peeled – you never know where she’ll show up!

For the bloggers out there who don’t have Instagram (ahem EMMA), if you post the picture on your blog I’ll count that as an entry too. Just make sure I see the blog post and please link to The Eventing Unicorn’s facebook page when you post it!

Also please please please feel free to share this post anywhere you wish. The more we can spread the word about Uni, the more bids we’ll get when she gets auctioned off, which equals more money for her cause! And if you’re not going to Rolex, make sure to follow Uni on facebook and Instagram to keep up with all of her adventures.

Bobby and I are off bright and early this morning for the 6 hour trek to Louisiana for Holly Hill Horse Trials. This whole area of the US is so water-logged right now, hopefully some sunshine today will help make things less of a mess. Still betting on a muddy weekend, they’ve gotten about 7″ of rain this week and we’ve had even more.

Of course, we really haven’t ridden all week due to the rain and god awful mud, nor have the horses been turned out. Well… I did hack on the shoulder of the road a couple of days this week, and Henry got to go out in the round pen for a few hours yesterday. This could be exciting! Don’t worry, I brought the Shitshow socks, because they’ll probably be accurate.

There are 26 in my division and 16 in Bobby’s… I’m just gonna try not to die and finish on a number. Luckily I don’t need a placing, just a completion to fulfill my qualifications for Coconino. Yay, first recognized of 2016 (for me)! But first, a really really long boring drive awaits…