Our Congress started off rather weirdly. The first weekend Taylor arrived, she broke out into hives (vet bills $$$$). Then she twisted off a back shoe, and needed her feet repaired (farrier bills $$$$). It was a crazy start to a crazy couple of weeks. But the most difficult thing was keeping my mind and my nerves in check. It was my last Congress as a novice, and I wanted to make it a good one!
Since I was only allowed to take off 2 days at work, I had to do a lot of driving back and forth from Lima to Columbus to ride and prepare. I got to know that 2 hour drive very well!
Our nightly rides at Congress were terrible. The crowds in the riding arenas were huge with everyone going every which way, and plenty of rude people who just loved to sit on their horse in everyone's path and chat on their cell phones! I had some good rides and some frustrating rides, but the crowds just made me too nervous to really accomplish anything. Taylor worked hard to try and ignore my nerves! I know she was probably frustrated with me and my lack of focus. I promised her we'd get it together on show day!
| Time to show! We entered the arena at a very confident trot. I was shaking all over but forced myself to concentrate and remember the game plan outlined by Stacey when we discussed how I would ride this class. |
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| Our canter transitions were fairly nice...an improvement over the frustrating ones we had all week. Things were going smoothly, though I could feel that Taylor had a lot more energy in her than we had thought! |
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Taylor forced me to concentrate extra hard as she really wanted raise her head and look at the crowd. I had to ride consistently, always reminding her to pay attention to only me!!! |
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| Things were going smoothly, though it was a lot tougher ride than I had anticipated. It's always so hard to really RIDE and try and make it look like you are just sitting there. |
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Now the moment of truth..would I get my number called to make it back to the semi-finals? I was not very confident. I tried hard, but I am not sure my ride was smooth enough. |
| YES they called my number! We managed to hold it all together and make it to the semis! |
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| Now comes the hard part...trying to focus on another ride. We had a very short wait until the semi-finals. Stacey walked Taylor around, not only to keep her moving but also to get her away from my nerves!!! |
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| I felt much calmer for the semi-finals. I could feel Taylor was a LOT more nervous. The crowd was very noisy, and the semi-final go had a lot more horses in the pen. We had a pretty nice first direction, and second direction started off pretty good. But, here's a picture of another example of what can always go wrong...be it at the Congress or a local weekend show., You just never know with these animals!!! |
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I brought her back down from the spook right away, and we finished the class rather smoothly, all things considered! But a major boo-boo like that was plenty of reason not to have my number called back. Such is life! I was still happy with Taylor, she handled the crowds and my nerves as best she could!!! There is nothing greater that showing a horse you bred and raised from a baby. |
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