First course of action. I feel that everyone and their brother should go over to MyHorseFaith's blog (You get to pick! She's a good horse mommy and keeps one for each of her babies, Change of Pace, Chronicles of Thalia, and The Wonder Mare.) After you've picked a blog, please give her a HUGE thank you. If it wasn't for her this blog would probably be no more. She kept me from throwing up at the horse show, passing out, and dying.
I somehow made myself sick on Friday. I think it finally hit me that I had somehow thought it was a good idea to go to a horses how. I was a nervous wreck. I did manage to scrub the mare up on Friday and got her as ready as I could. Her mane looked like a 4 year old child did it, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get through the show on Saturday.
Saturday morning I honestly thought I was going to throw up I was so nervous. I was reminded that my horse was white, and she wouldn't look good covered in vomit. I was terrified of the trailer, but luckily no one questioned me and someone just grabbed her from me and put her in. I think I'll get there, but it's hard.
Once we got to the show grounds it hit me what I was doing. Who was I to think that I could just hop on a horse after a 9 month hiatus and actually show. Dumb. We walked our horses around the arena and the mare couldn't care less. She was a rock. She is a rock. I love her. I took my time tacking up thinking that it would delay the inevitable. Just about then MyHorseFaith showed up and helped save the day. Being the wonderful, amazing human being she is she brought me some Rescue Remedy to try. Honestly it worked, or at least my urge to vomit went away and I felt a little better.. I owe her big. She held Mare while I got on, handed me my whip (note: I have never used a whip except for Friday, more on that in a moment.) and called my test for me. I owe her big!!! THANK YOU!! She also somehow managed to call 5 other people's tests too. Hero of the day award!
Test A went okay, but the Mare does not have much forward motion unless you use the whip. I do not feel confident using the whip AND keeping her straight so I opted for our medium walk to look like a crawl instead of us looking like we were drunk. We ended up with a 62.5 on our test and got 4th place out of 4 people. I expected that.
Test B felt much better, still not Olympic quality (: but better. I felt better and less nervous so that helped. I had to leave straight after my test so I wasn't able to stick around to see how I placed. I ran over to see my score, 66.8 and I was happy with that. There were six or seven people in Intro B, and they place to 5th so I wasn't too concerned (because I'm a 12 year old and still want to collect ribbons) and went on my merry way. (NOTE: MyHorseFaith was still there calling random people's tests!)
My trainer texted me while we were sailing to an island in the Puget Sound (Blake Island) and told me I got 3rd! I'm still shocked. I am going to have another lesson this week. Goal? How in the hell do you use the whip AND keep the horse straight.
I also visited Denali today and have an update on her, but in pure Denali fashion, she demands her own post.
11 comments:
That is fantastic!! Well done! You deserve massive high fives and chocolates and flowers and hugs for being able to deal with your nerves!
:D
Pretty (almost) white horse!!! Gotta love a Paint horse :)
Maybe you can partial lease that mare to work on your confidence!!
Congrats!!!! You and the mare look great in the picture.
You are a total original. Faced with the threat of vomiting (justifiable, I think), trailering, even losing your mind, you still go do a show! I love that you just won't be stopped. Reminds me of Denali.
Great scores! You should be very proud of yourself and your horse. I know those pre-show feelings, but after it feels great.
Good job! That is pretty awesome for a 9 month hiatus :)
It's really great to see you back in the saddle again! :)
Hooray!!!
Nice work! Both of those are good scores. Good job. :)
Awesome!!! Congrats!! I'm so proud of you for going through with it even though you were anxious. :) I'll have to check out the rescue remedy for my anxiety. I forgot humans could use it too.
My last show, I was so nervous I didn't sleep a wink the night before, so I feel your pain. Kudos to you for hanging in there and actually competing! I would really like to do a dressage show and there is the opportunity near here. I think the no-jumping bit would help my nerves a lot (though I miss jumping). You look great in the photo, you earned those ribbons fair and square! :-)
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