Exhilerated!

SO. MUCH. FUN!

Jazz was just phenomenal today. First up we had dressage at 8:45 - I was super nervous which of course didn't help. Jazz was being super good about being responsive to my leg though with all the excitement going on she was a little tense in her neck and not as bendy as she should be. We had an ok test - she spooked at the letters (very unlike her!) and then was counterbent for most of one circle and had a couple jig steps when we were supposed to be walking. I ended up getting a 34, which I was pretty happy with and I placed 4th in my division! Out of 16, I was pretty happy with that. The comments on my scores were pretty lame though - the only negative comments were "counter-bent" and there was one positive comment for my free walk. Oh well, I know what we needed to work on anyways. But I was glad to get that over with!

Then I walked the cross country course. I had to work yesterday so I only got to walk the course once (this morning). Considering that it was pretty good! The XC went amazing, I am in love with my horse! She did refuse at the second fence (twice! naughty pony) and I don't really understand why - probably a combination of the jump judges sitting close and Jazz was like "what are you doing there!" and then there was a gravel path right in front of the jump so Jazz was looking at that instead of the jump and I don't think I rode her strongly enough up to the jump. Oh well, after I got her over that jump she was perfect! Barely even glanced at anything else. We ended up getting penalized for the two refusals and some time faults as well - we were almost a minute over optimum even though we were booking it! We are now in ninth place. But I had such a blast! I am super exhausted, especially after all that walking. I have a blister on the bottom of my foot and it hurts! I'm being a baby and trying not to walk anywhere because it hurts so tomorrow's not going to be fun. My dad said that I can use the golf cart next year which will be soooo nice. I now really, really want a ribbon. They give them out all the way to eighth so I have to move up one spot in stadium. Usually we have no refusals so we just have to make the optimum time. The only problem is that I don't really have a lot of experience in judging how fast we have to go in order to make time, so we're probably just going to go as quickly as possible without getting out of control :) Wish us luck!