We Survived!

Well, we survived the show over the weekend. No pretty ribbon for us, but I had a great time, especially since I managed to stay on Jetta! Here is the really, really long recap:

Dressage:

Whenever I go to a show I always think Why do I do this again? Especially when I feel like I'm going to throw up before dressage. I told my friend PM who came to take pics that as long as we stayed in the arena and I didn't forget the test, I'd be happy. Luckily we managed both (barely). We rode Beginner Novice Test B, so it's super easy, except I hate how short the canter part is, because I feel just as soon as I get Jetta into the canter, I have to ask her to trot. Warming up, Jetta felt great. She had gotten two days off and she was moving very nice though we did have to reinforce working on our halts and not allowing any galloping. After all, a couple weeks ago we were practicing our gallop in the exact same spot we were warming up! To Jetta, no fences = no brakes. Lovely. And our canter transitions were quite explosive in the warm up.

The first time we trotted down centerline Jetta almost jumped out of the arena. Seriously. I heard her hooves hit the arena fencing (which looked suspiciously like a jump we had jumped on cross country Wednesday...). We managed to stay in and I had to laugh. Jetta was pretty tense in the ring (obviously because I was tense and not riding her like I should). One comment we got is that we need to improve our lateral work in order to improve our balance and bending, which was a no-duh moment. If I had been riding like I should have been, that comment would have been unnecessary! Other than being tense - which then led to being heavy on the forehand and a bit behind the bit, Jetta was good. One other moment when she "locked" onto the fence and wanted to jump it again, but our canter transitions were nice and we even got an "8" on our halt! Nice :)

Overall, I was very pleased with our test. We scored a 28.6! Compared to the other scores in all the divisions, this was quite competitive. Only a handful of people scored better, so needless to say I was happy! We scored second in our division after dressage.

Stadium:

Stadium was... interesting. Jetta was overjumping everything in warmup. I guess those two days off weren't the best in terms of jumping. Stadium round wasn't the smoothest, most polished thing ever, but we got it done. There were no combinations, luckily, since those are Jetta's downfall. There was a ton of brightly painted jumps with big, fancy wings and boxes and flower boxes, etc. We had one refusal at the very. last. jump. Really? But it was the scariest one - a bright oxer, with a large box underneath. But we came in just under optimum time (going to fast, hm?) with 4 faults for the refusal. Not too shabby really. We were still in second after stadium.

The "scary" jump - take 2.

Cross Country:

This was our downfall. We got eliminated. Oops. We had four refusals, five counting the stop to sniff the water before delicately tip-toeing into the water. Dumb, dumb - we were just cantering into that same water complex a couple days ago! Oh well. It was a lot of fun and now I know what to do for our next time cross country run. If the jump is at all scary looking, we will trot it. Jetta was fun to gallop, though she was unhappy whenever I made her slow down. I was surprised that she jumped both ditches willingly, I was sure she'd refuse. Really, I was just happy that I didn't fall off. The rider before me appeared to have an OTTB that hadn't been off the track too long (just what he looked like) and I saw her standing on the ground holding her horse when I galloped by in the middle of the course. That would suck.

Galloping! Love this picture :)

First jump in a combination - second jump is above - Jetta was eying that second jump!

But I don't want to stop galloping....

Overall it was a fun show. No ribbons, but I'm really pleased with how Jetta did, despite elimination. I just content myself with the fact that we were in second after dressage and stadium :)