Fair Hill, technically speaking

Technically. Haha. Hahaha. I'm full of jokes. You see, that's a play on words. Well. Specifically the word "technical." And especially as it relates to that whole "finish with a number and not a letter" thing. I did even better and got two letters this time: TE. Technical Elimination.

Booooooo.

Getting eliminated for biffing the rules blows. But I won't say it's inexcusable tho, as I've already forgiven myself. Frankly I forgave myself even before riding over to tell coach Dan what was up (as apparently it's a subtle enough rule that it was easily missed - hence why they pay the judges I suppose).

Megan from Let's Get Ready to Runkle was at Fair Hill and we got to meet!! she's just as wonderful as you might imagine from reading her blog. and what's more - she took a whole bunch of gorgeous photos, including this stunning airborne shot of Ms Isabel doin' her thang out in the dressage court. 

And anyway, even tho our dressage was quite nice (details and media from Megan (THANK YOU) to follow!), stadium was shit-showy enough that the difference between finishing with a last place number and finishing with letters isn't particularly meaningful to me.

Le sigh.

It's a shame. Walking that stadium course, it was stupidly apparent that we should be doing novice right now. The jumps are small. They don't actually scare me (hallelujah!). We school way higher on the regular. And yet, I can still handily fuck small jumps up right and good.

The SJ course was an ideal litmus test too. As I texted Austen and Alli after walking it: it was easy and small, all bending lines with no real related distances. Essentially the perfect course for calling me out on my flaws as a rider. If I could get the appropriate canter, it would all flow perfectly.

So are you dying of curiosity yet about how this all amounted to an elimination?!? No? Oh well, I'm gonna tell you anyway haha. My blog, my rules!

isabel doesn't want to be seen in these conditions haha

Well. We had a refusal midway through course. And, as is our wont lately, we smashed right through the whole thing - necessitating a total rebuild. Judge blew the whistle (pay attention bc that's an important detail), jump crew trotted out to put the thing back together again, and I proceeded to finish my course (with one other rail - for 8 penalties) upon the jump being rebuilt.

Did.... did you notice what was missing? Bc I sure didn't until the judge waved me over. She never blew the whistle to ring me back on course. It's a safety rule - make sure jump crew is fully out of harm's way before sending the horse back on course. (Well, and also obvi a rule for the clocks too even tho this wasn't a timed course).

Womp womp woooommmppp.

at least we got good parking - this rock pile neatly prevented anybody from wanting to pull in next to us!

Oh well tho. Experience is that thing you get right after you needed it, right? (Tho some might tactfully argue that this particular experience could have been avoided by reading the rule book haha).

We jumped cross country anyway tho bc starter trials are cool like that and schooling is schooling is schooling. And it was actually pretty freaking awesome. As was dressage. Two of three ain't bad, right?

So stay tuned for more later - and especially given Megan's awesomeness in all things photography!!!!