2018 Opener @ MDHT: it takes a village!

Phew, ok guys - let's talk about yesterday's season opener at Loch Moy! Charlie's and my first horse trial of 2018. And our first return to competition since Fair Hill last September before Charlie did his splint. Also our third run at beginner novice.

so happy with this sweet gelding

So lots of fun boxes to check off on this particular day. And Charlie rose to the occasion, good boy! Obviously I'll have lots of detail to share over the next couple of days, with a complete play-by-play of each phase.

Included in this will be some thinking about environmental implications from the weather and ground conditions and whatnot (like how the footing was actually still frozen solid during our early morning dressage warm up and test, and how there was still snow in places on xc....).

charlie revels in the attention of everyone helping get him dressed for the running and jomping!

Mostly tho, from a high level, I've got a couple initial thoughts:

- Charlie was quiet, consistent and obedient in dressage, fully holding up his end of the bargain and accounting for an easy baseline of straight 6s.
- However it's my responsibility to ask him for more. I consciously chose not to on this particular day, and for reasons. Next time tho I'll do it differently.

he also revels in the party afterwards haha

- Stadium was Charlie's stand-out phase during this competition, just like at Tranquility last summer.
- It keeps surprising me when this test proves to be his strength, bc it's definitely not my strong suit. Go figure.
- It helped that this course was almost identical to the course we schooled in our lesson the day before haha. Details on that coming soon too.

i love this pic bc it captures the whole team: groom crew and photographers extraordinaire watching from the sidelines, plus you can just see Brita's pretty blue coat through the fence as she warms up for dressage

- Cross country was..... Hm. How to describe? It was sliiiiiightly out of control. Bordering on uncomfortable in places as Charlie rushed the fences and climbed all over them.
- My worries about running out of horse were unfounded. Lol.
- The jumps were definitely not a problem, and may have actually been too small in places.
- BN is almost too easy for Charlie and he has no respect for the fences. But we'll need a lot more finesse and schooling for us to be safe over bigger fences.

happy horses relaxing between rides, obvi with both charlie and bella fixated on whatever brita's reaching for in the truck lol

Biggest takeaway tho? Gosh I freakin love this horse haha.

I fully expected to break down into an emotional blubbering mess upon crossing the xc finish line too lol. But..... Well. It kinda took me a while to get the horse stopped, and my lungs were burning, and my arms felt two inches longer, and damn I was tired. So yea, no waterworks haha. Mostly just some heavy panting and slight profanity instead lol.

i swear charlie and bella love each other too, even if charlie lowkey drives bella girl crazy with his occasional invasions of personal space lol

But we were clear. No jumping penalties in either phase - a first for Charlie at BN (recall, we were eliminated at the water in our first BN and had a rail in our second). I knew our dressage score likely wouldn't be competitive (it wasn't) but the jumping phases proved influential enough to allow us to move up into the top 3. Yay!

Mostly bc it was (obvi) an early season outing and everyone was knocking the rust off. So there were lots of issues in the jumping. Plus a lot of people simply opted to withdraw from xc out of concerns about ground conditions. Obviously I would prefer to place well on the merits of our own scores vs doing well bc other people dropped off.... But I'll take what I can get haha.

oh charlie. you're kinda a big deal, buddy!

And ultimately the best aspect of this show was getting to hang out with friends while we were at it. Brita and Bella had a fantastic day too - also with clean and clear jumping phases that really highlighted just how much this partnership has grown over the past year.

Plus we had Rachael and Austen helping out too, which was very much appreciated and I'm immensely grateful to be able to call these ladies friends and be able to share these fun show days with them!

So yea. A very happy day. And I'm very tired today haha, and a little sore. My body may or may not be a palace of pain at the moment as it recovers from wrestling with Charlie on cross country lol. But I'm happy. And eager to keep chipping away. And excited to share all the nitty gritty details (and MEDIA!) with you over the next couple days. So stay tuned!! Hope you all had a good weekend too!