Look What you Made me Do

 

The back says "Down Bad Crying at the Ring"

I went on a wild goose chase trying to find a drop noseband to replace the one that broke during my ride on Friday. I went to two local tack stores, not a drop noseband in sight. There wasn't enough time for an Amazon delivery.

The Kentucky Horse Park is always so magical.

No one had one I could borrow that would work with my bridle. So I threw the double bridle in the trailer and figured I could use that if I didn't figure something out.

We hauled into the Kentucky Horse Park early Saturday morning. Then literally baked in the sun until 2 p.m. when I got on to "warm up." And by "warm up" I mean try not to die of heat stroke in the 95 degree sun on white sand. On a horse who is an impaired sweater. I never did find a drop noseband, so I would have to show in the double which notoriously does not go super well sometimes because Hampton gets both backed off AND heavy in it in the showring and that is not good.

And yes I left the tails at home. Absolutely not doing that in 95 degrees.

This was probably the least warm up I have ever done. I literally did a canter pirouette each direction, walked. Did a line of 3s, walked. Then the steward shouted I could go early. I did about 5 seconds of passage and went in the ring. 

... and surprisingly things went decent. I had a bobble or two in our circle of 2s, and the piaffe could have had more fire. He didn't dive down and shut off until the very last centerline. And it was likely I quit riding well. I also tried to change up the extended trot/half pass sequence and got a little ahead of my music. But overall, not a disaster. And both of us handled the heat very well, which was my number 1 priority.

Zoom

I was not unhappy with the test, but felt it was not clean enough for the score.

I was wrong.

66%+

USDF Gold Freestyle Bar

Photo: L. Dean

And Qualified for Regionals.

Never. Give. Up.

***

I was set to ride again on Sunday at 2 p.m. but after debating all morning, I decided to scratch. I hate wasting money, but there was no big reason to make Hampton get that hot again. The water coming out of the spigots at the barns was HOT. It was absolutely rude. If it had been cool out I would have gone in for the practice. But my gut said just scratch, so I did.

This Is Me Trying

I have fallen behind on Blog world!

After our Freestyle in the Rolex area didn't really go that great, I entered two days of Freestyles in Indiana (this would have been early June). I made a couple of adjustments in warm up, and Saturday I had THE BEST Freestyle of my life. Hampton was ON IT. He was on my aids, did great piaffe/passage, hit all our marks and changes. I was smiling during the test because all the stars aligned.

Both of our faces say it all.

I am sure you know where this is going. Still didn't get the score. A 62%. The judge really cut me off at the knees for artistic marks. I guess she isn't a GenX fan. Quite disappointing but it truly was one of the most fun rides I can remember to date.

The next day we unfortunately had two judges - including the same one from Saturday. So while the new judge gave us a 65, the other judge from Saturday really nailed us with a 59 (in a freestyle ... woof!), which gave us a score of 63. This time our ride was also really good, but just not with the spark it had the day before.

Once again, I go home without this ONE LAST $&%($&%* FREESTYLE SCORE.

Now instead of being hard on myself, I was stubborn and pissed.

And entered another show at the KY horse park at the end of June.

Obi photo just because.

Temperatures were a blazing 95 degrees and our rides were at 2 p.m.

And then, on Friday before we left for the show, my noseband broke. 

F.M.L.

... to be continued.