Wow.. What a weekend!! I am still just in shock and feel speechless sometimes! Bacardi and I attended our first REAL competitive show off the property.
Going into this weekend, my only goal was to be able to get on my horse, ride my dressage test and ride my jump round. No expectations of placing or high point or anything.
We loaded on the trailer around 11:15am on Friday morning and Bacardi jumped on the trailer like a damn champ like always. Literally the least stressful part of the weekend!
We arrived at Donida Farm at 1pm and got settled in our stall. After unloading, Preston and I drove into town and went and got lunch. After we returned to the farm we went to the show office to get my number, find out where to set up our tent and sign up for our halter class and two rail classes; walk and Belmont walk/trot.
After setting up our tent, we went to go tack up Bacardi. He tacked up great and we went to lead him out to the arena. Unfortunately, his anxiety began to set in and we lunged him a little. We then took him into the indoor and trying to mount was impossible. I sent Preston to go get Emily, our show mom, to assist. She had me walk him in hand and then suggested going and untacking him and getting him in his halter with a chain and walking him around to get him prepped for the halter class.
After walking him around the indoor for about 10-15 minutes, we brought him back to the stall to get him all pretty and get myself dressed and ready to go into the halter ring. We were the third class to go and Bacardi started to get a little antsy, but was overall really well behaved. We ended up placing second in our halter class! It was nice to have a ribbon up front.
After the halter class we decided that it was best just to scratch our two rail classes and get Bacardi put to bed. We went and got him all tucked in, fed him dinner and then went to cheer on our friends who were all competing in the rail classes. After rail classes, we headed off to our tent and tucked in the for the night. I ended up bunking down in the back end of my car because I was too cold in the tent. I slept pretty well and woke up bright and early at 6:30 am.
We headed over to the barn and fed breakfast to a few of our friends’ horses and then fed B his brekky. After he ate for a little, we grabbed his halter and lunge line and went and lunged him for about 20 minutes to get him nice and tired *ahem* I mean focused. After lunging we took him back to the barn, I got dressed in my show clothes and tacked up Bacardi. We took him to the indoor and was able to get on him. He was still a little amped and was backing up and having anxiety. Once again my show mom showed up and walked us around the arena, coached us through some stuff and getting calm.
At that point she told me I could take this as a win that I got on him and I said no, I wanted to ride my test. So she told me to go ride my test. We ran through it in the indoor arena and then went out to the outdoor arena and just kept him moving, walking, moving bending. In that time my bestie, Marissa showed up to support me! Eventually it was time to go do my test. I was able to enter the end of the court. Take a few circles and then we heard the bell and “Have a good ride” from the judged. A deep breath and enter at A at a working trot. We had an amazing test. Bacardi was focused and working and we improved our dressage score from our test in March.
Overall we improved by 6% in scoring. Our free walk improved 1.5 points. Got a lot of 5.5’s and 6’s! I could not have asked for better.
After our dressage test, we went and changed out his tack and my clothes and I took him back out to the outdoor to school some jumps. It was then that we got notice that Enhanced Jump rounds would not start until noon. So I jumped off B, untacked him and we grabbed some lunch at the cookshack. It was DELICIOUS! After lunch I went and tacked B back up. Kept him warmed up in the indoor until they raised the jumps to our level and I jumped back on and we headed to the ring steward. We checked in and then jumped 3 rounds back to back.
Our first two rounds we not that pretty, but miraculously Bacardi didn’t hit a rail, even if we had to take a few circles and had a couple refusals. The third round was AMAZING! PERFECT! BEAUTIFUL! I was beyond thrilled.
After our last amazing jump round, I jumped off Bacardi, Preston took him back to the barn and untacked him. After chatting with a few people on the way I went back to the barn, rested a little, hosed Bacardi, threw his cooler on, fed him cookies and just chilled out and started packing up the car.
Around 3:30 we went over to the awards and waited. Finally award arrived. We were awarded Reserve Champion in Combined Test Hopeful. We were very proud. Then came high point awards. We were not paying much attention since I had no expectation of getting high point, until they announced our name for Belmont Class! I was stunned! My jaw dropped! I was beyond surprised and speechless!
After collecting our awards, we went back to the barn, grabbed Bacardi, threw his new award cooler on and grabbed all his ribbons and ROSE SASH and took him over to the back drop for photos!
This weekend was more that I could have asked for. We improved our dressage score. We went up in height from our online show in March. We showed. We competed. WE WON! I cannot wait to see what lies ahead. For now, Bacardi is getting the rest of the year off to be a horse. We will start back up in January.
Thank you all for the support to this 3 year journey. Bacardi and I have worked so hard to be at this show and we finally made and did better than our wildest dreams could have even imagined.
Happy Riding!
Ashley+Bacardi