The Event at 3 Day Ranch

This weekend was the Event at 3 Day Ranch in Aguanga, CA. I competed Training level on Dru! 3 Day is not too far from us, so our horses were stabled there and we drove back and forth which was awful at times but kinda nice to be able to go home and shower (:

Thursday and Friday I had flat lessons. Dru was unbelievable both days! We spent a lot of time really improving his canter and it got GREAT!!!

On Saturday morning, I got to 3 Day around 7 am (originally we had planned to be there at 6…but passed two turns and went 30 miles out of our way…whoops!) and walked my show jump course! It didn’t look bad (:

Saturday I rode dressage at 8 am (ish). I had a really good warmup. My test wasn’t quite as good but still decent! I got a 35.5 and was in 3rd in my division. All of the comments were that his neck was too short and he needed to stretch more and get his nose farther from his chest. That’s the normal problem we have, so I wasn’t surprised. At least nothing changed too drastically in the ring!

I show jumped at around 11. I went down and checked in to find out that I had 1 horse before me and then I had to go in…cue panic! I was a little panicky in the ring and couldn’t really see a distance, (and I ALWAYS kick for the long if I can’t see a distance…major problem). There were a few times that he should  NOT have jumped but he did…he’s amazing (: I got my act together for the last half of the course though, and we jumped double clear! He was a little up for show jumping, again I think he was looking around for going out on cross country. It definitely didn’t help that Intermediate was starting and finishing right next to the show jump ring!

I spent the rest of Saturday getting horses ready. My trainer had 7 horses going! And the 2 training horses went twice! So it was a bit of a crazy day but we pulled it off (:

I checked my scores at the end of the day (no cell service at 3 day= no startbox live scores!!!) and saw I was in 2nd after show jumping by a little more than a point. I wanted one of the first place coolers so bad so secretly I was hoping the person in 1st would have some time….(:

I walked my course Saturday night and it didn’t look bad at all! There was a half coffin, a one stride line of houses out of the water, some brush-y steeplechase fences…nothing too tricky! I walked it by myself (some confusion on my part about where the course walk was meeting meant that I missed it), and was hoping that I wasn’t missing anything! Luckily my trainer did tell me a couple things that I should be careful about on course, and then I ran the course with the assistant trainer at 6:40 Sunday morning. (Yes, I do mean ran…). I got on for my 9 am ride and had a good warm up! I finally figured out how to get him moving his feet quicker and we had some really nice jumps in warm up. I went out aiming to go fast (I set my watch for speed fault time so I’d get a better feel for Prelim speed and bringing him back for the fences) and clean! He went around AMAZINGLY! We went out of the box a little slower than I was planning on going to keep him settled since he’s still looking for the blue numbers (: And then we sped up and it was so fun! We had a bit of a hard time making a sharp-ish right hand turn from the trakehner to the half coffin, so I think I might need some more bit for Prelim, but he was great! He just knows his job so well that he wants to take over sometimes and gets a little strong in a loose ring snaffle (: . He took a look at the wine barrel jump (which I was warned almost every horse stops at!) but of course jumped it (: . Everything went so well!!! It was so much fun (: We finished in 2nd place, which meant I won brushing boots instead of a cooler ): But of course I’m still thrilled with how it went!

Dawkins was also a superstar this weekend! He went Training and was fantastic on the flat, getting a 25!!! The division was so incredibly competitive on the flat that he was tied for 2nd! He show jumped double clean and then went out on cross country double clean to finish in 2nd by .9 points! He won’t be going to Galway since there’s so many horses going, but I can’t wait to see how well he continues to do with more time!

Overall it was a great weekend at 3 Day Ranch! Margie runs a great event (:

Now on to Galway…my first Prelim!

Thanks for reading (: