Third Place

Third place isn't bad! We only missed one obstace, but my competitor, the mule guy got all of the obstacles. We have a little friendly competition going on, the last competition I won, this one he won and there's one competition left :)

Today was just an awesome day. I woke up early to feed a horse that I'm horse-sitting. I got home and got Jazzy all ready and headed out to the barn where the competition was. We went first and then she hung out at the trailer for the rest of the day. She did everything very well, even a few things I was thinking she wasn't going to do, like a large ditch filled with water and a giant log you had to jump off into water. The one obstacle she didn't do was to back a zig-zag between two logs and if you stepped out of the two logs you had to start over. Unfortunately I just couldn't get her hip over to the right and we ran out of time (there's a minute time limit per obstacle) though as soon as we did, she backed the whole thing perfectly.

I took pictures the rest of the morning. After lunch, one lady I know asked me to ride her horse through the course because she was nervous about it. He is an adorable little horse and he did super well, though boy did he like to launch himself over everything! We almost cleared the log/pond combination like that picture I posted yesterday.

After I rode him, his owner rode him through and did pretty well, though she didn't attempt the log/pond combination. Then my competition (initials DF) showed up and just aced everything. His mule, the Bailiff, is just a solid guy. DF and his wife both have mammoth mules and afterward they wanted me to ride them. It was fun! The gray mule, Nora is sooo tall! I think she's maybe 18 hands or at least close. I had a hard time getting on her! Hopefully I'm going to go on a trail ride with them soon, should be fun!

After everyone went through, there was a lull in the traffic flow. The competition went until 6, but around 3 people stopped showing up, probably because it was so dang hot! We all just sat around inside and hung out and talked. I love being with my "horsey family".

Overall, a good day. I got a couple people signed up for pictures and even some riding lessons. Awesome!

Then I came home, took a nap, went and fed the horse I'm sitting then rode Jetta. I'm thinking that tomorrow is going to be a disaster. Just sayin'. When I rode her tonight, she was manageable, but still quite a brat. I have three goals for tomorrow:

1. Stay inside the dressage arena.
2. Get a 7 on our free walk
3. Not get "shoulders back" in the comments on every single movement.

Other than that, this is going to be interesting. I paid for it so I'm going to go, but I have very, very low expectations. I don't know what Jetta's deal is, but lately she's been a terrible brat and even the "magical stretching" we did at the camp a little while ago doesn't slow her down or get her relaxed. Sigh... After I rode we worked on some trailering and she was great! Totally blew my expectations out of the water. She, get this... trotted, by herself, into the trailer and stood tied with the divider shut. A first! Hopefully it will be a repeat performance tomorrow!

I'll try to add some pictures tomorrow, I'm going to bed!