Horse trial time

We've spent months and months of preparing and training and working our butts off in preparation for me and Roan's first horse trial, and it was so worth it. After getting off the trailer at the show grounds Roan was a little bit frazzled. As much as we've trailered for schooling, clinics, and other outings, it's hard to recreate the busy and exciting atmosphere of a horse trial. As soon as all of her feet were off the trailer we started throwing dressage tack up on her and heading to warm-up. We had a bit of a delay while pulling in (deep Southern Pines sand got us stuck a bit and we needed some assistance from the tractor) which didn't leave much time for warming up. Subsequently we put up one of the worst dressage scores of the day. But hey, all four feet stayed in the arena and as terrified as Roan was in the dressage ring, she did somewhat listen to me and didn't take me back to the trailer like she really wanted to. She felt like a cat dropped into a filled bath tub, totally frantic to get out. Just getting dressage out of the way was a relief, besides, everyone really goes to horse trials for cross country and boy were we ready to get on course.

XC warmup was one of the best feelings after a frazzled dressage test. As soon as I pointed Roan at the fence she perked up, took me charging at it, jumped well over the top of it, and galloped off. Perfect. Into the start box we went! Then the countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Have a nice ride! And we're off! The only thing I had to worry about on that XC course was time, and I don't mean I had to worry about making time.... Halfway through I looked at my watch and was a solid minute too fast... Oops. Trot break... We ended up coming in double clear and headed over to stadium. 

The stadium course had lots of interesting bending lines and broken lines, things that we hadn't really practiced much back home. Oh well, the jumps were tiny and Roan was a fire breathing dragon after XC, I figured I'd just point her at the jumps, help her balance a bit, and otherwise let her figure it out. She is learning her job and I try to encourage her to be comfortable handling challenges. We went clear again and ended up with a pretty white ribbon! Not bad for a cow pony's first horse trial ;-) 

We have a lot to work on, and have several schooling shows planned and a big USDF show in Raleigh next month, all to get us prepared for Full Gallop in August! Roanies first sanctioned horse trial.