So much for blogging regularly, oh well. I guess I had more pressing things on my plate. But it is Christmas break and I am getting all pumped up for my trip across the pond that I leave for in only 10 days! I can't believe it came up so quickly. My first semester of my junior year just flew by, as the rest of my college career has so far, it's scary that I'm more than half way done! I guess I need to nail down a game plan for when I finish my undergrad....EEK!
Anyway, just got done celebrating Christmas, which was wonderful as usual! We normally have a pretty low key holiday with our family that is in Cedar Rapids. The weather was not very christmas-y as it was raining a lot of christmas eve, but it's basically a winter wonderland now, so it may be another day before I can go see my horse and give her her christmas presents-my uncle got me a 20 pound bag of horse treats, which I'm sure she'll mooch out of her caretakers while I am gone (not that she wouldn't succeed in getting them out of me either, she knows how cute she is and uses it to get what she wants-TREATS! she may be a little spoiled haha)
On another note, my last two shows of the summmer were great (as I said I would update-more for my memory than anything else, it just seems a little late in the game). I moved Julia up to training level at Catalpa Corners in Iowa City, and she was great. It was her first training, though not mine. We had a pretty good dressage test for about a 38, not bad for her first training. Clear jumping cross country with some time faults, she was SO good, it was a little sticky in places getting used to the harder questions asked on that level but we had schooled a lot so she was definitely ready. She launched into the water jump over the drop, I think she much prefers the drop into water than just running in, it's as though she says "HOLD ON MOM.....CANNONBALL!!!!!"-she thinks it's much more fun, although I wouldn't mind if she was a bit less exuberant, although that is much preferable to her not liking water. Anyway, she had a decent stadium-a little sticky, I think she was suprised with the height change and I could've ridden her better (that is the main factor, she's got jump to spare) but I was a bit nervous, but overall 2 rails wasn't bad and we figured out a new tack/bit combination for her next show and saw a big improvement in her stadium there. Anyway we ended up in 8th place-I was thrilled to get a ribbon in our first show at that level.
We did another training level at Wayne Dupage, and had an improved dressage which I was really happy with-a 34.5 I think. Then we had a wonderful cross country. I don't know why but sometimes I get so nervous before XC, even though I love it so much. But that ride definitely reminded me of why I love my sport as much as I do. It was a decently challenging course for training and Julia was SO game, we had one or 2 awkward fences but overall it rode S
O great, especially any combinations or big fences she was just a rockstar to, the ones we had weird striding to or whatever weren't anything to worry about, it was more that we were both getting used to moving at a little faster pace and we both came off the course feeling positive and I was thrilled with her. I had a huge grin on my face as I signaled to Cindy (my trainer) that I'd had a clear round-we just were a few seconds slow which I could care less about because she is new to the level and I knew the 2 spots where I'd lost a few seconds so really I knew that we had been going at a true training speed. Stadium day was interesting-our division was approximated to go at about 2:30, really quite late for where we normally are. So the upper levels went in the morning, had lovely sunny weather. Well about noon dark clouds started rolling in and the skies opened up and it started to pour rain. When Hannah and I were getting Lyn and Julia tacked up it started to clear off a little, but of course as soon as I got in my saddle it poured even harder. We went up to the ring (they won't call it unless it's raining or really really bad) and started warming up, which was going great. Right before our division starts it starts to thunder and lightning, so our entire division rides across the huge warm up ring at Lamplight into some empty temporary stabling to get ourselves and our horses out of the storm. We stood there for about an hour and finally the thunder had quit for long enough for them to tell us to get back on. They told us to just come in as we felt warmed up since
we all had to get back on and get our horses moving and jumping again. Hannah and I were 2 of the first few in. I had a much much smoother round on a pretty big course (I have no idea why, but the jumps always look so huge at wayne, even though I know they can't be any bigger than max...must be the atmosphere). I think I had one or two rails but with all the confusion they counted me as a double clear (the rails were easily fixable, the first fence we just got weird striding to-she's still green, and the second was to a double that we would have either had to take off really long and had trouble with the second fence or take the first rail, but that is not a big deal at all). So we ended up 4th (we should've been 7th) which I didn't realize because someone else picked up my ribbon because it was raining they didn't do a victory gallop. So, I emailed the organizer telling her of the mix up but it never got switched-but I did all I could and I'm sure it's not the first time that's happened so I guess I'll just take the white ribbon, haha.
XC at Wayne Dupage-all pictures by Derith Vogt (thanks!)
Stadium at Wayne Dupage-my pants are about 2 shades darker because of the rain-my trailer smelled like a swamp for weeks!
I couldn't have been more pleased with my horse this year, she really stepped up to the plate and grew up a lot. It's not every horse that can move up to training in their first real year of competing. I am so proud of Julia-it makes it ten times better since I've been her trainer (with from the ground help from Cindy every now and then to make sure I'm teaching her right) and basically the only one to ride her since she was only a little ways into her basic training. I definitely had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion because she is just so great. She's beautiful, a great mover, athletic, smart, and just a peach! (I know I say that stuff a lot-but I can't help it, I'm a proud mom haha). I am so excited for the future with this horse, I think she's going to be something special-she certainly is to me already. I am so thankful for the support my parents and also of my trainer, Cindy Burke, and all of the KSS eventing team. It wouldn't be possible or nearly as fun without them!
Anyway-now that that was about 4 months ago I'm glad to have that part of the blog finished. This semester went really well, I enjoyed most of my classes, worked hard, but managed to have some fun too! I am very excited to go to England and will definitely keep this updated every few days while I'm there!!
Merry Christmas!
