It’s true that every once in a while even a blind squirrel finds a nut. The same thing is true with Bobby and good ideas.

After Corona, Bobby noticed that we were both qualified for Area V Championships at Novice. This year Area Championships are at Holly Hill in Louisiana, which is a venue neither of us have been to before. Surely you can see where this is going. Because when Bobby and Amanda get an idea, we tend to charge headlong into it with reckless abandon.

When Bobby first suggested Championships, I admit to thinking I’d rather go and enter the non-Championship Novice division instead. Usually it’s much easier pickins, being that everyone “good” is entered in Championships. Last year if you wanted to place in the CH division you had to finish with a score in the 20’s. Let me tell you what me and Henry WON’T do! Our dressage just isn’t there yet. But then I thought… my momma didn’t raise no coward. Sure, we’re very unlikely to place, but we will show up and we will give it our best shot. They’ll have to climb over me on their way to the top. Besides, how cool would it be for my pony to have gone to AEC at one level and Area Championships at another level all in his first year of eventing? He’s kind of a badass (not even a little biased).

So here we go on yet another adventure. The Novice course at HH looks pretty straightforward (pics from last fall’s regular Novice and the N Champs in 2012), nothing about it gives me pause for Henry. There are bank combinations and a trakehner and a wanna-be keyhole type thing, all of which he’s seen before in some capacity.

I feel especially ok with it too since Championships are at the end of October, and if all goes according to plan we will have run Novice at Greenwood a couple weeks prior. Greenwood is the ultimate Novice course in our area, IMO. They kind of have everything: related distances, a corner, a down bank to log bending line, a trakehner, water, jumps into and out of a crater, a baby ditch weldon’s wall, a big honkin ditch to kinda skinny brush line, and a giant-ass maxed out brush fence. The Omnibus listing describes it as “a variety of questions requiring horses and riders to be competent at that level”, which made me giggle endlessly in and of itself. If Henry can jump around Greenwood, he can jump around any Novice course anywhere… of that I’m certain. And I feel like he can 100% jump around Greenwood.

Sadly no one has posted a Greenwood N course walk on MyCourseWalk yet (I wish everyone in the world would get that app, it’s fantastic) so I had to nab screen caps from someone else’s helmet cam video:

  

Greenwood is going to be the “hardest” course Henry has ever seen to date, and I’m pretty excited about it. He’s up for the challenge. Especially since Greenwood comes a couple weeks after dropping back down to BN for AEC, which should be a fun easy confidence builder for him.

So now Henry’s fall season includes

National Championships

Greenwood (aka Novice Rolex)

Area V Championships

I already have my entries in for all three so I’m officially poor until November.

It’s been fun placing at every event we’ve been to this year, but I’m afraid that streak is about to come to an end my friends. And that’s okay, because

I needed a quick reprieve from real life, so I figured I’d pop in and remind everyone that Riding Warehouse is having a Labor Day Sale. 15% off pretty much everything! The discount automatically shows up in your cart.

Remember those peach TuffRider breeches? They’re already marked down, so the additional 15% off makes them $54. And the navy ‘H’ belt? $22. Buy em both and you get free shipping to boot. I DID load up on a few things I needed, but sadly couldn’t talk myself into justifying either of those just yet. Henry got a new navy and yellow Irish knit though, because he’s stylish AF.

The RW obsession is real.

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.

This is gonna suck.

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!

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…

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.

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!

Oh yeah and as for Bobby? He won. Told ya.