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Monday, May 22, 2017

Jenny Camp 2017: Last place never felt so good

Happy Monday Everyone! I gotta be the first to admit: today is 100% a day for playing hooky. Sorry not sorry. Hopefully if all goes to plan it'll be another good horsey day with more to write about later, but for now let's talk about the weekend.

It was another long weekend here at 'Fraidy Cat Eventing - with a Saturday jump lesson at OF with trainer P that ended up being a private (yay!) that lasted about ~2 hours (omg so good tho). Then obvi Sunday was show day at MCTA's Jenny Camp!!

yay team! also brita joined the colorful jacket club too. it's a fun club :D (the club also uses bridle tag numbers bc coats like these can't be covered up by pinnies!)
If I'm being 100% honest here, I was apprehensive at best about this show. Like, I was excited about it. And objectively speaking, I knew it would be a fun day - bc how can you not have fun with good horses and good friends at an awesome venue (complete with tailgating, obvi)??

But I wasn't super optimistic about our riding. Charlie has been.... very green this past week. Just kinda in general, ya know? Plus he's also been a bit sore, as I already mentioned his message therapist uncovering some concerns in his poll and elsewhere.

So I didn't necessarily expect the best from our rides. But that's fine - he just needs mileage anyway, ya know? Tho then I walked the jump courses Saturday before the show and felt.... even more apprehensive about the jumping.

covering. ground.
Stadium was roped off in a tear-drop shaped section of fairly tumultuous terrain - complete with lots of down hill jumping and tight turns. And naturally the narrowest section of the arena was on the downhill side.

Then there was cross country. This course was unlike either of the two Intros I've ridden at Jenny Camp in the past. It was.... Bigger: Ten of my 13 jumping efforts were either shared with BN or were flagged such that the BN fence was an option for Intro. And Longer: 1,800m.

At least, tho, the ditch bank and water were exactly as I had hoped they would be: perfect for Charlie's current level of schooling. (Tho, naturally as might be expected with a green horse, we still had some issues here).

happy group at the end of a long day
All told, tho, once it came time to ride - it honestly worked out pretty darn ok.

Our dressage went about as I expected - garnering a score ten points lower than last time, but actually less competitive relative to the rest of our division (funny how that works haha). Stadium was surprisingly better than expected - still had a rail tho.

And cross country was.... rip roaring lol. You're gonna need a seat belt for that helmet cam footage haha. And we did all the high options!

Charlie was just so so good. So honest. Not very educated, while simultaneously not particularly sensitive to rider influence lol.... But good. We picked up a 20 at the water but I'm honestly pretty cool with it. Charlie doesn't exactly know what penalty points are at this point, but he did eventually figure out the right answer. Good 'nuff for now.

We were tied for 10th after dressage and the penalties from stadium and xc dropped us back to 13th. But you're not gonna hear a word of complaint from me. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as Charlie knows, we won. You WILL, however, see a ton of photos and videos lol.

#winning

Anyway. More to come later, as always. For now, I hope everyone else had a great weekend too!

31 comments:

  1. sounds like such a fun day with a bit of adventure thrown in.

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  2. It's so cool that you have such a big group to show with. I'm only a tiny it jealous ;)

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    1. this is honestly a brand new thing for me! for most of my first few shows, i was basically going solo. then it was just me and brita for a while. last year we kinda got a little more of the group thing figured out, but then i stopped showing for most of the year anyway. but this year? this year basically everyone in the group is hitting their stride and ready to go out and do all the things. it's been really fun!!

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  3. BINGO!!! lol cant wait to read all about it. :) I am so glad you had fun...and honestly the only way to learn it to take your time and enjoy the ride and you and Charlie are doing just that.

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    1. that's certainly the hope! the big guy is figurin it all out ;)

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  4. Ooooh you got an actual bingo? I can't wait to read the recap! And glad that overall it sounds like it was a good experience for both of you.

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    1. ha yas i was so excited about the bingo! those squares are all spread around multiple events, but they're all totally legit (and i may or may not have photographic evidence of them all lol)

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  5. I can't wait to read about it! Sounds like a good return to Jenny Camp. Also, Bingo!

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    1. definitely a good return. i wasn't sure what to expect but i'm quite happy with our outcome!

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  6. Omg now that I see the bingo card in context, I love it. Makes me wish I evented haha.

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    1. ha i'm like 97.5% certain that most of the bingo cards can be 'won' without actually having to event ;)

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  7. Hey any day you finish on a number not a letter is a good day! Even better when you have awesome friends to show with! Yay Charlie!

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    1. definitely better with friends! and actually there have been outings where i *didn't* finish on a number that still felt pretty darn good to me!

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  8. So happy you had a positive day, especially with how apprehensive you were feeling about XC the day before! Can't wait to hear the details. :)

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    1. yea i really did not love this course upon first (or second) inspection. it felt like a 'sink or swim' kinda moment - like, charlie was either gonna tear it up, or he was going to have a real problem. luckily he chose option A!

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  9. Looking forward to the nitty gritty but yay! Number not a letter!

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    1. nitty gritties will be forth coming shortly!! :D

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  10. Sounds like an excellent event! But downhill jumping and cantering, I'm too chicken to even think about it.

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    1. ha yea..... the actual jumps of this show jumping course were only a fraction of the test itself. the ground and turns were everything. kinda crazy how that works out.... but luckily charlie did well!

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  11. Can't wait to see media! When bringing green as grass horses to shows, it really is about exposure and not placing so the fact that he didn't know about 20 points at the water is completely okay. Good for you for making it a good experience for him!

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    1. yea i mean he still has to learn first: *what* his job is, then *how* to do the job, before he'll even fully figure out what constitutes being bad or wrong or whatever. so for now, he's kinda still in that "but i don't understand, why can't we just go around??" phase when it comes to these small pools of water haha

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  12. YOU GOT BINGO!!!!!!!!!! And you did all the high options!! Sounds like an excellent day all around.

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    1. thanks girl!! there was like this visceral moment on course when i approached the first option like "you gotta do this emma".... and we did it!! and got BINGO!!! #priorities lol

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  13. BINGO!!! Sounds like a great experience! (:

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