Messing Up

Well I messed up. I had finally decided on going to the Dressage Sport Horse Breed show that's next weekend and what did I do? I missed the deadline. Phooey.

I had it in my head that the closing date was the 6th. I had planned on mailing in my entry a day early (which would have been a huge success for me because I procrastinate, a lot!) but I forgot. So I sat down on the 5th to fill out the entry form and what did I see? That the closing date was August 5th. And of course it was 8 o'clock in the evening so there was no chance of making a last minute run to a post office. I ended up emailing and asking if there was room and if the late fee could possibly be waived because I contacted them the same day as the closing date. They haven't responded and I'm a little afraid that I've offended them by asking them to waive the late entry fee, but I really can't afford to pay double class entry fees. Ugh. I need to learn to not procrastinate so much.

I am really bummed about missing out on this opportunity, but there is one last chance. There's a big end-of-the-year show coming up in September and it's a championship + open show. I could enter the open show and do Training Test 1 & 2 as well as the Materiale class. It's a little more expensive and I wouldn't get to do the conformation classes, but it is my last chance to do a Materiale.

We'll see but this gives me time to plan ahead more! Other shows in our near future? Well, I'm hoping to do a combined test in October with Jetta which I'm really looking forward to. Unfortunately, the clinic that I attend every year with Clay Wright (who has to be my absolute favorite clinician/trainer to work with EVER) got canceled. Boo! He lives in Utah and while he comes up to do several other clinics in the state, I already missed them all. There are two other clinics that I could attend. I'm definitely wanting to go to the Gerd Heuschmann clinic, though it's pretty spendy at $130 (without a horse, mind you) in October. There's also a clinic with Will Faudree that I am eyeing. I'm very tentative about signing up though because I don't think Jetta is ready to clinic I'm ready to clinic on Jetta. It's in September so I might still be able to use Jazz, but I think it would be better to use Jetta. I'm just afraid of making a very poor impression in front of an amazing rider of his calibre.

I was reading Katherine's blog where she got to do a clinic with Jim Wofford. "Jim immediately layed into me, saying that I was a bad rider who didn't have good enough balance to stay with my horse when I wasn't choking her to death with the reins. He then suggested I take up waterskiing instead so then I could at least lean against a boat, which didn't care, instead of a horse, who did." This is what I'm afraid of. I would probably burst into tears at this point. Especially because I try really, really hard, but sometimes it just doesn't happen or you need a few more tries to make it happen. And hasn't everyone messed up? I don't think you'd take a clinic if you weren't interested in trying to improve yourself and your horse, but that's just my opinion. So of course, I'll probably think about it for too long and then miss the deadline to enter the clinic! Hopefully not :)

I'm wanting to start taking lessons again regularly for the remainder of the summer. I think if I actually do start taking lessons this will give me a little more confidence and motivation.