Kamikaze

So ... I have some catching up to do! I've been a bad blogger as of late. Whoopsie!

The past 3 days have been a whirlwind of highs, lows, seriously depressing shit, and more highs. I am mentally and physically exhausted. Cleaning 13 stalls today did not help matters.

Anyway!

We will start with Sunday.

I decided to haul Hampton up to the Octoberfest show at the HHP. Long-time readers (seriously if you were reading my blog 4 years ago I applaud you!) may recall that I took Hampton to this show as a 4 year old. This is the show where Amy & Steady also joined us. We slept in our trucks overnight and both of us pretty much cleaned up at the show. Amy and Steady pretty much slaughtered the competition again this year but I'll let her tell her own part of the story. They looked outstanding!

4 years ago!

Wittle baby Hampton does a walk trot test at Octoberfest in 2011 I think?

So this is the first time I've been back since. It's such a fun little show. It is so super laid back and thankfully the weather cooperated, too. It was chilly, but turned out pretty nice. It also chased away the DAMN NATS that seem to always be at the HHP.

So I threw Hampton on the trailer at 7 am that morning and got to the HHP around 915. I basically threw his tack on, said hi to my parents and started to put my boots on. In doing so, I knocked over my chair which spilled BOILING HOT cider down my boot. I stood there for a few minutes wondering if my foot really was burnt because it STUNG. My mom said, "You are fine, suck it up." ... lol. So I did. (Thankfully no burns!).

So off we go to warm up.

Hampton was .... amazing. Like the best he has been ALL YEAR. He was fresh, but in a good way. He felt happy to work and was up in the poll, soft and listening to me. He canter had jump and he was in front of my leg and incredible in the hand.

I think this was on a short side during one of our tests.
He is starting to look like an upper level horse!

I was like Ummmm WTF now what do I do now?! So I just played a bit with a few movements and piaffe and went right in. We did 3-3 first and it went alright. I did sacrifice some points because he did try to pull a few of his little tricks that he only does in the ring, like getting stuck in the canter half pass and throwing in random changes. I made a big point to correct him -which is what needed to happen - but it dinged my score. That's actually totally fine with me - it needed to be done. That's the great thing about schooling shows!

Then, I decided oh hell let's take a crack at 4-1. I actually really like this test and I think it flows really well. Our left canter half pass was SO AWESOME. Holy shit I was beaming. He once again got stuck in the right one tho ... flipped leads, which then promptly screwed up the following counter canter and the following lead change. SO that's 3 movements we screwed up. They come right after the other and you have really no room for error. But the rest of the test was pretty good! I was able to kick through the line of tempi changes at the end. Those need polish but I knew that.

Overall, I was VERY proud of Hampton. Not once did he dive down, plow through my hands, kick out, buck, drop behind my aids or get snarky. He was so great.

By the way, I need to do a review on my new Annie's breeches.
THEY ROCK.

I win.

My goals for the winter are to do a schooling show blitz and really learn how to ride the tests better. I need some major polish in how to properly prepare him, and fix things quicker. I don't ride sloppy on purpose, I'm just unschooled. haha. I got away with this at Training and First levels ... and maybe a bit at Second, but now my inexperience is pretty glaring.

After an exhausting day we made it back home safely. I was on such a high, but I knew that Monday was not going to be such a happy day ...

to be continued ....