Monday, October 1, 2018

one foot in front of the other

Things FINALLY dried up a little bit this weekend, after what felt like weeks and weeks of rain. It's been so wet for so long, and the ground was so freakin saturated that I was legitimately convinced our planned event this weekend would certainly be cancelled.

the changing weather with crisp early mornings means: time to break out the BoT mesh sheet again!
It was another home starter event (I guess I'm making up for lost time from not getting to ride in their events the last couple years, and now got to ride TWICE in one year!!), but even so I felt some serious trepidation going into things bc of the weather. Where would people park? How would the course ride?

warm sunny weather means still plenty warm enough for bath time after tho. it's clearly a family affair <3
And possibly these feelings of reluctance and foreboding contributed to a .... not great jump lesson the day prior. Which. Ya know. It had to happen eventually, right? Charlie and I just were not clicking. I felt like I had no feel, like he was dropping in his shoulder and diving at the fences and I couldn't see a distance to save my life. It.... did not fill me with warm fuzzy feelings ahead of the show.

also more shetland stallions, this time with mega hair on full display haha
But I had already settled it with my family ahead of time that they would be coming to the event to hang out, spectate, and tailgate. Too late to call it off now!

Plus, organizers had moved show jumping into the jump ring instead of on grass in the field, and had relocated some of the xc jumps where the ground was boggiest. This included that 2 stride line Charlie and I had struggled with so much. And finally: the weekend forecast was GORGEOUS OMG.

So I figured: we would show up, take one phase at a time, put one foot in front of the other, and see what happens.

aw Charlie <3
And it all worked out <3

Obvi I'll have full details for everything, but I was very happy with our dressage. It felt steady and obedient, despite a stupid error on my part when I forgot my test. Oops! Numerically it scored well for Charlie (33%) but realistically we were at the bottom of the pack after dressage - 5th of 6.

Stadium was more of that disconnected feeling from our lesson the day prior. A few misses and uglies. And one jump where we legit nailed the standard and I thought we'd take the whole thing down.... but the poles stayed in the cups so it was one of those lucky clears. And on cross country? Charlie proved yet again to be Mr Reliable. He made good choices, didn't get us killed in the slippy sliding mud, and bailed me out when I tried to shoot for questionable distances.

team is cleanin up!!
It wasn't perfect by a long shot. On a different day in different conditions and among a different crowd, it could just have easily been a performance that finished last on paper instead of first. But on this day? We did in fact finish first! Charlie's first win at an event! And my first win since Isabel's first novice at Olde Hope back in 2015. Feels good, man, feels good :)

Stay tuned for details to come soon! And hope you all had a great weekend too!

46 comments:

  1. Yay! Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG YAY! Congratulations, lady!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! The day certainly went much better than I anticipated lol

      Delete
  3. Yay!!! Congrats!! So glad it worked out. And I laughed at the use of “slippy”. I thought that was a Pittsburgh thing. I get made fun of for saying slippy instead of slippery and hadn’t heard anyone outside Pittsburgh say it. Love it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lol I hadn’t even thought of that but sometimes you gotta run with the word that’s in you’re head and in this case it was SLIPPY haha. And sloppy. You’ll be able to see all the boggy messiness on the helmet cam....

      Delete
  4. Yay Charlie and Emma!!!!!! So nice when the stars align and blue ribbons happen!!! Congratulations on Your fancy blue ribbon!!! 😁😁😁

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yayyyy for nice weather and cleaning up!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. omgosh the weather was GLORIOUS!! i actually have sunburn haha after not even seeing the sun for what felt like weeks

      Delete
  6. This just made me so happy! ❤️

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. aw thanks girl <3 yay for good weekends of pony shows!!

      Delete
  7. BLUE RIBBON! Sometimes a crummy dress rehearsal seems to calibrate everything for the big show. Glad you two notched some more firsts together!! It is proof of all that time you've spent grinding it out even when it gets tough.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ha we've certainly been putting in the time!! and agreed completely that sometimes it's more important how we react when things aren't as easy...

      Delete
  8. omg you won!!!!! thats awesome! YAY CHARLIE

    im glad it went out despite the weather. its been sooo wet I was worried it wouldnt go off.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh man i was SURE it would be cancelled. like had been convinced the entire week leading up, and was almost caught off guard when we learned they would still hold the show. it definitely affected my preparation and everything too, but charlie was a good dog and it all worked out!

      Delete
  9. Yay blue ribbon!! I know what you mean that it was "in the cards" for that day and could have easily been different, but enjoy it and know you deserve it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i seriously could not believe it and honestly didn't get too excited until after the scores were finalized, bc i was sure someone would come out and contest their penalties or whatever. but nope, charlie pulled that out of nowhere! such a good pony <3

      Delete
  10. Woohoo!
    Sometimes we just gotta get out and do it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. srsly. it's so easy sometimes to just like.... not haha. but as my step dad pointed out after i finished, sometimes half the battle is just showing up!

      Delete
  11. Ah yay! I am glad everything worked out and looking forward to the full write up! YAY CHARLIE!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Go Charlie and congrats! What a great way to spend the first non-rainy weekend in what seems like all summer!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh man, it's insane i actually have SUN BURN right now after feeling like i hadn't seen the sun in weeks.... thanks tho - it definitely worked out better than expected haha

      Delete
  13. Replies
    1. thanks! it turned out way more awesome than i expected HA

      Delete
  14. Take that giant blue satin however you can get it! YAY CHARLES!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. seriously tho haha!! those baby blues sure are hard to come by in eventing land!

      Delete
  15. Good boy Charlie! So satisfying to take home the blue!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Heck ya!!! What a good boy Charlie!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Woohoo! Well done, how exciting

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving a comment! You may need to enable third party cookies in your browser settings if you have trouble using this form.