Fun and games in the pouring rain :)

Took Sienna to Foggy River for the CT today. Kerri came with me (woohoo!) to make life *way* easier – even though we had to leave @ like 5:30 this am. In a rather impressive thunder storm. Ick.

Got there and organized w/ time to spare – which of course I promptly wasted thinking “I have lots of time”. Hahaha classic eh? Ah well.

Miss Si was a little high coming off the trailer and a little thoroughly annoyed when the torrential rain hit just as I finished tacking her up for dressage; fortunately it stopped before I actually had to do anything. Hahaha w/u ring was on grass and a little slick. N she was still reasonably high. So we ran around at trot a bit – got so that half way around the ring was beautiful and the other half was on speed. At that point it was time to head over to the actual ring where she was really good about chilling on the hill between the w/u ring and the dressage ring… Walking around the dressage ring we had a serious look at the very scary letters, and hugely ADD when she discovered horses in the paddock off one side of the ring. Hahaha Fortunately for me the judge was in a truck – and Si is entirely traffic proof. No scary judge’s booth involved! Phew!



Down the centre line “X Halt through Walk” Walk. Please walk. Walk NOW. Ok skip walk and Halt. Stopping *is* required. Now would be *really* good. We’re almost out of centre line… hahaha eventually we did halt, but it was definitely a whole lot closer to G than X. hahaha oops. Turns out the breaks weren’t entirely functional yet. Somewhere along the way she decided that C was “home” so throughout the test any time we were going towards C she accelerated and any time we went away from C she was absolutely lovely. Circles were *almost* round. Missed one transition cause I neglected to actually memorize the test before going in. hahaha kinda ran out of time, so made it up as I went along. I knew transition was either at A or K so we went half way between the two and figured it’d be put down to either “too late” or “too early” not actually off-course *g* Slightly less than professional perhaps but what can ya do eh? N yeah I got nailed for it, but deservedly so. Mostly though, it was not bad as far as “first tests” go. There were definite “inattentive” moments but there were also good moments. My objectives of “stay on” and “don’t get eliminated” were both achieved *g* Overall I was pretty happy. Beat out Zel’s first test :) hahaha although I’m pretty sure Zel beat us today (not overall but her rider lost a ton of points on a technicality and I suspect w/o that they would’ve placed significantly higher). Comments (other than the rider-is-an-idiot – umm that’d be my translation of “work on accuracy”) were mostly positive or “too-fast” hahaha Classic eh?



So after dressage we went for a little hack down to the stadium ring (happy to say she went through the “water obstacle” on the way w/o any hesitation. Hahaha we wandered around there for a bit and then I hopped off and let her graze so that coming there when we actually had to would be a good thing *g* Hung out for a bit, socialized with random people, visited w/ Zelli’s new owners, etc etc. Then it was time for stad. The course was really nice – long wide turns (good for the footing), small fences but tons of variety so she’d see some of everything. The footing in the w/u was brutal (and I was half way through the first class of the day – by end of day might’ve been scary), but this may have saved us because Sienna’s self-preservation kept her from galloping away (I was missing my standing martingale!). We were jumping a *little* quickly over the w/u fences but she couldn’t go far before the footing would convince her to slow down a touch. Hahaha I really wasn’t sure what to expect from her actually on course. We took the long route to the judge to salute – she was totally kewl w/ us doing that too, which added to making it a good experience. And then we started. There was some hesitation to the first fence, but I convinced her “over” was a good idea, and after that she was a complete pro. Easiest round I’ve had in years. We trotted some and cantered some depending mostly on how she was feeling at any given moment (which means really we cantered towards home and trotted away – clearly have to work on this nappiness issue before the jumps get too much bigger, but for today it was not even on the scale of things to worry about. Priorities people!) One or two fences were a *little* higher than technically necessary, but mostly she was an old pro.

Was highly amused that the last jump had stop signs on it :) hahaha And the XC course had a 40km/h road sign on it.



A second round was offered to everybody but I turned it down – cause really, there was nothing more I could’ve asked for :) And in the end, a *very* kind dressage judge coupled w/ a clear round lead to 2nd place! Woohoo! For her first show ever! Hahaha not half bad eh?

So yeah, Sienna was a superstar. And I was thrilled.