What a day, what a day, what a day!
The whole day was great for my gang, but I have to start with the end—after yesterday’s total debacle, I rode Ella in her I2 Championship in the snaffle. It was a GREAT decision, not only because she was SO happy and confident in the bridle, but also because she went VERY well, and took the class by 7 percent! Huzzah!
It was not flawless—she ran away with me a bit in the first extended trot and stole the first piaffe from me (“I want to piaffe NOW mom!” Well, OK then, I guess). But she was as rideable as she’s ever been in the ring through the whole pi-pa tour and even let me put the pedal to the metal in the tempis, something I’ve yet to be able to do. And she stayed really quite through; I’d like her to relax more in the pirouettes and medium and extended canter, but she was adjustable and pleasant and got 66 percent, which I think is damn fine.
I was so pleased that I excused her from award ceremony duty. I thought it would have been very foolish to make her go stand around, choosing instead to let her end her show season on a very high note. She’s done for the weekend (which was the plan anyway), so tomorrow she can buck and play on the longe line, and Sunday we’ll hopefully make it home in time to at least have an hour or two outside.
The day started with a curiosity. I made a dumb warm-up decision on Fender, choosing to warm him up in the teeny weeny warm-up near the show ring, instead of finding somewhere with more space. He’s all legs and silliness when I get on, and he needs to have the room to really go before I gather him up. So in the test—his Championship test—he just felt everywhere, not disobedient, just discombobulated. I figured 67 percent, maybe 68 percent if I was lucky. So when they announced the 69 percent, I was pretty pleased.
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Then I saw the spread. One judge 62 percent, the other 76 percent.
What?
In reading the comments, I was totally with the lower scoring judge. Yeah, he was tougher than I would have been, but he had a reason—and a good one—for each score. And he was sitting in the perfect place to notice that Fender fell against my left leg around every turn, and that I may have had to hook him a little to keep one circle from becoming an amoeba. But really? Fourteen percent different? Yikes.
All said and done, he just missed a primary color, placing fourth by .2. Weird. He was also right on the brink of being a real squirrel in the awards ceremony, so while we did participate in the little parade around, we did not partake in the victory trot. I’d prefer to avoid incidents than correct them later.
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Could Fender and Nicole be any cuter?
Tres and Midge don’t start their Championship classes until tomorrow, Saturday, so they had more warm-up classes today. Midge got another blue at PSG, this time on 67 percent and a much better ride. I rode him in a ring he hadn’t seen before, and he was a bit of an orange Dutch twerp about the judge’s box, which made for some climby and weird stuff at C, but he didn’t do anything bad, just lost some points. I actually showed up and rode, though, which was all I wanted to do!
And little Tres knocked my socks off—a well-earned 69 percent at fourth level, even though the Cowboy Magic in his mane made my right rein pretty impossible to hang on to. Whoops! Wardrobe malfunction.
Tomorrow Fender will make his first level debut—first 1 (hang onto your socks, y’all.) And Midge and Tres do the PSG Championship at some ungodly hour of the evening. 7 and 8:30, I think? Awards aren’t until 9:55—way past my bedtime. Oh well.
Hopefully they’ll both get jealous of Ella’s big blue ribbon…
