We are the champions!

Of Introductory Level Test C!

On Saturday, Gina and I competed at the Green Country Chapter of the Oklahoma Dressage Society's schooling show championships.

All things considered, it was a pretty uneventful day. The show was about 5 minutes from my house, so I met Richal & co. at the show grounds around 7:30 AM. I had plenty of time to scrub Gina's nasty, manure and dirt crusted socks clean, assist various children in being at the right place at the right time, and watch a couple of my friends ride.

We are winners!

We did a qualifying test in the morning and scored a 66.25%, which is higher than we scored at our last show! (Last show, we scored at 63.5%.) The judge remarked that Gina and I were a nice pair who needed to work on loosening up Gina's back and crisper canter transitions. We again scored a couple of 8s on our 20 meter circles at the trot, which never ceases to tickle me.

I somehow grossly misjudged my ability to get dressed and tack up the horse before the championship round, so I had around 10 minutes to warm Gina up. Gina was kind of cranky about having to leave her stall and get ridden again, but did the equine equivalent of rolling her eyes and sighing and behaved herself for the whole 5 minutes it took to get through Intro C.

Gina's braids.

We scored a 65%, which I felt was totally fair. Gina had less impulsion and was definitely counter-bent for about three strides between H and C.

However, our scores were good enough to earn us accolades as champions of Intro C- Amateur!

"Where is my stall? I want to go back to my stall."

I was pretty jazzed to win a neck ribbon- I've never won one before! I also won a medal (which I've also never won before), a bucket, and a rubber jelly curry. It was very exciting. 

Gina's post-braid 'fro

For her part, Gina was a total star. She hauled well, stalled well, drank 3 buckets of water, ate lots of hay, was unfazed when her stablemates left for warm-up, didn't spook at flapping trash bags or crazy wind noises, and put in very nice tests. 

I'm so pleased with Gina; I feel like we've had a great year. There's still the hunter pace in a couple of weeks, plus an event derby in December, but the dressage season is over. Next year we'll compete Training for sure- who knows, maybe we'll get up to First Level if we can wrangle trainer Anne for some lessons! 

The hunter pace is in a couple of weeks, so I'm really looking forward to getting out of the sandbox and schooling some XC!