Ok, so at this point Leo and I had been at the Virginia Horse Center since Thursday afternoon, where on that day I worried the entire time how or if I was going to ride my horse. One of the reasons I’d put off telling Trainer B I’d wanted to ride was because we’d had two, ahem, interesting educational lessons leading up to the show, and I had this ridiculous fear that if I’d told him I wanted to ride, he’d be all, “I mean…should you?”

But on Friday I bit the bullet after seeing how tiny the XC jumps were, we switched as Leo’s rider, and I did dressage on Saturday, which had us tied for 2nd place, 2.2 points away from first. Now all I had to do was jump my horse over a course of jumps for, well, the first time ever (his 2nd course ever), and possibly even canter fences…another first, seeing as Leo, aka Spider Legs had been solely trotting fences up until that point.

Then my nerves were slightly abated when I heard the announcer say that the horse trial divisions (the show was also running CCI1/CCI2/CCI3 divisions) would be doing stadium up in the arena Leo and I had just done dressage in the day before. So whew. At least it’s an arena he’s already been in.
Until I went with Trainer B to check out the CCI3 SJ course in the big Grand Prix arena in the middle of the Horse Center and saw course maps posted for the FEI levels…AND STARTER.
How cruel does one have to be in order to run the 3* and STARTER in the same giant GP arena?

I considered asking the show office if I could just stick him in BN. After all, we’d done the same dressage test as the BN division- just slide my score in wherever you see fit, mmmkay? I’ll totes jump bigger fences if it means I can do it in a quieter arena. To give you an idea of how nuts the area the GP arena was, when I was standing near it with Leo earlier in the day, FIVE loose horses (in the span of less than an hour) galloped directly past us, as that arena stands directly in the path from all the other arenas/XC back to the barns.
But I digress.
The warmup was next to the coliseum, and while Leo was a little on edge at first, he actually warmed up super. Didn’t do even a little bolting after any of the jumps and was fairly steady to each fence, even the oxer. So with that, we went into the GP arena with the instructions to trot the first fence, immediately do a downward transition, trot the 2nd fence, then play it by ear after that. If he rushed before or after a fence, immediate downward transition. If he was balanced and relaxed, let him canter.
And voila!
He had a rail at jump 2 because I simply held on too long, but it was so fun to feel his confidence grow as we went along. They had the ground poles set about 6″ in front of each jump, so he whacked at least 3 of those, but the rest of the rails stayed up. And check out that flying change in between jumps 4 & 5!

I was thrilled as we came out, even more so as we headed up the hill to Trainer B’s SJ and my XC and Trainer B said that’s what he needed to see before moving him to BN.

Woo hoo! He didn’t seem bothered by the bigger atmosphere at all. He just kind of went in and was like like OH this is when we jump the STICKS! Got it. So cute.
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He wasn’t bothered at all- aaaallll the worrying I did was for nothing (story of my life) 😂
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Like I said, my next horse is going to be named Existential Crisis hahahaha so I am in the same anxiety boat
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Bahahaha, owning horses is fun 🤪
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Existential Crisis. I need a horse called this in my life hahahahahah
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Right? Hahaha. My ability to work myself up into a tizzy is far greater than my ability to relax.
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We all do, bahaha
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You would have been so annoyed if you hadn’t ridden him and saw that course. 🙂 Great job! you guys look very good!! and a Frasier gif for the win 🙂 love that show.
cant wait for cc recap! You are mean teasing it out like this! HAHAHAH
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I wanted show pictures to put in the posts but the photographer STILL hasn’t uploaded any 🤬I’m getting super annoyed- everyone who showed at other shows last weekend already has theirs! And thank you! I’m just glad we finally cantered some fences 😂
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It’s such an awesome feeling when you can feel them grow in confidence under you as the course progresses. You two are great together!!!
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Awww thanks! I’m loving him
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Woohoo! I love him. He is just such a good boy !
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You two nailed that! He looked so good, and I think you gave him a really great ride through that course! I’m so excited to hear about XC!
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Awww thank you! The photog is taking FOREVER to upload pictures
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I LOVE when you do a course that actually helps the horse learn as you go. Best feeling. AND YOU GUYS LOOK AWESOME TOGETHER!
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Awww thank ya!
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Gosh I love him ❤️❤️❤️
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Me too, he’s dreamy
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