[AshKnoll]

Just had to brag after the morning I had. A little back story here, I competed in 2006 at Novice with my homebred mare Catty, and then she got injured, had a foal, etc. Finally last fall I started really putting her back to work, and found a great event trainer to work with. I also hadn’t been jumping regularly in 2 years at that point. This spring we came out and started with a BN event, which went well, then moved up to Novice, had 2 wins at that level then moved up to Training. Neither Catty nor I had ever competed above Novice before this. The move up went great, and we went on to have five great outings at Training, including winning our division at the VAHT last weekend.

Today though, I accomplished a real pipe dream for me, we completed our first Prelim. The dressage test wasn’t our best; we had a nice round in showjumping, but 2 rails, our first rails at any event this year. On XC I had a blast, there were several huge tables/brush fences, but it went so well, minus one jump where I made a big pilot error. We came home clean, just 6 seconds over the time. I’m thrilled to say we finished in 3rd place!! I still can’t quite believe it. This is us going through the coffin at the very end of the course. Excuse my crazy chattering, I’ve found it keeps me calm and focused around the course. http://youtu.be/HCv8Rc24umM

Thanks for letting me share!

[GoForAGallop]

That was so sweet! Congrats on coming back, better than before, on your lovely, game mare.

[ACMEeventing]

Congrats! That's awesome!

[scubed]

Whoo hoo! Go Catty and AshKnoll.

[Gryhrs]

What a great story! I, personally, love the chattering!! Way to go girl!

[Scaramouch]

Show jump! Show jump! Show jump! And what a lovely, fluid jump it was!

How great to know you've bred such a cool horse.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

Very cool!!!! You guys looked great!

[BestHorses]

Wow. What an unbelievable story. Enjoy every minute!

[riderboy]

Great job! I hope to do that one day!

[RWR]

That's fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

[Beam Me Up]

Congrats!! You both look great out there.

[GotSpots]

Congrats - that's a fun course!

I wish CDCTA had decided sooner it would run as a one day. We decided not to enter because the omni had it over two days; had we'd known they were going to condense everything down to Sunday (or had said they'd at least run by division in two one-days), we would have gone down to support it, plus have fun playing on those hills!

[Janet]

Congrats - that's a fun course!

I wish CDCTA had decided sooner it would run as a one day. We decided not to enter because the omni had it over two days; had we'd known they were going to condense everything down to Sunday (or had said they'd at least run by division in two one-days), we would have gone down to support it, plus have fun playing on those hills!

The decision was made on Oct 9, based on the entries, at that time, since opening day. We basically had to make a judgement call on whether we thought we would be over or under 150 entries. (We ended up with numbers up to 142, and somewhere between 120 and 140 assigned ride times.)

The organizer and secretary tried to get the word out ASAP, but obviously it didn't reach you in time.

If you have a suggestion on how we could have done a better job of letting people know, I'll pass it on.

Glad to hear you would have come if you had known.

Sorry to hear the word did not get out to you in time.

[Janet]

Congratulations ashknoll. Good job.

There were very few clear show jumping rounds at Prelim (3 IIRC).

[AshKnoll]

Thank you so much everyone for the great comments and for letting me share, it was truly a wonderful outing. It was also terrific that I got to spend the day with Beam Me Up who also had a great run at Prelim.

Have to add one footnote, and can't believe I forgot this in my original post. This was the situation my mare found herself in 18 months ago. http://www.ashknollfarm.com/river.JPG

She got away from me while schooling at a nearby farm, and ended up in a swollen, swift moving river, which carried her out of my sight. The photo shows where she was spotted after being missing for over 4 hours, and was 1.5 miles downriver from where she went in. So every competition we compete in I consider a true blessing.

[Fergs]

She is SO CUTE, and you look great. I love stories like this; congratulations!!