Las Cruces Horse Trials

Sorry I haven't been on for a few days, I was at the Las Cruces Horse Trials in New Mexico with my mare, Diamond Martini. All I can say is it was awesome! It was a really small show and almost didn't happen because there were only forty some entries. Still, it was a perfect training opportunity for my mare and I! I was in Junior Novice with two other girls (they were in a Pony Club Rally that was happening simultaneously), and this was the first event where I was going without a trainer.

The warm ups, the scheduling, the course walks, it was all up to me. The first day was the usual warm up day where you can buy schooling rounds to jump in the stadium arena before competing in it. The weather was cold, rainy, and windy. But Marti was a gem and went through the courses I made up well. Next day was dressage and stadium jumping. I got nervous with the dressage because Marti was acting up a little, and one of the girls I was competing against was looking really good. Despite it all, Marti and I pulled out a 30.4 which put us in the lead by 0.9 points!! Then stadium came up, and I'll admit, it didn't go as well as it does at home. We went double clear, but she was long, flat, and very, very strong. She was surging forward, and I think she loved every second of it. We even got four strides in the longer five combination... Most people were getting six strides. Still, we held the lead. Finally, on the last day, we had cross country.

Poor position on my part...

Marti was a beast. In the warm up, she became barn sour like no other with her habits of flying backwards, kicking, and doing little rears. Needless to say, I was nervous to go out on course. When we charged out of the start box to the first jump, she didn't stop accelerating. After the first jump, she kept speeding up to probably a prelim speed, so twice as fast as wanted. We hit the half way point 30 seconds earlier than I wanted, and I struggled to slow her down because at that rate, we were going to cross the finish line roughly twenty seconds faster than the speed fault time. I had luck, but barely. She got to the water and slammed on the breaks to walk through it acting like it was the most disgusting thing in the world, and a few jumps startled her, but she refused nothing. We came in ten seconds above the speed fault time, and went double clear. In short, we won! And only by 0.9.... The other girls did great the whole weekend, too. Marti used to be slow and refuse jumps on cross country, now it's the exact opposite. Once I find a happy medium, I think Marti and my success will skyrocket. Hopefully, haha. I'll have videos up soon!

Marti's first blue ribbon from an event!