Traveler - TOP TEN!

We did it! We made it through and we finished 9th! So we made our goal - the Top Ten. More importantly, we made it through safely and in the saddle. My trusty steed, our ranch's sporthorse stallion, Traveler, once again wowed the crowds with his spectacular style of jumping. (Just wait until I can figure out the YouTube thing and you see him go at cross-country. It's a hoot.)

Saturday was both Dressage and Cross-Country. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Traveler at dressage, however, we did our best test yet and got a pretty good score placing us at 12th. I was so happy - I just didn't want to be in last place!

And then came cross-country. It was the most exhilirating, exciting experience - Traveler did awesome. No refusals, no run-outs and he cleared every jump with ease. He was the second fastest horse to run in our division, but thankfully we didn't get any time faults. The last stretch of the course he galloped toward home and cleared the last two fences like we were flying. I could barely see the last fence my eyes were so blurry from the wind (and probably tears of joy).

Earlier in the day there were several bad falls, horses slamming into jumps, riders flying over the horse, etc and the ambulances were working non-stop. I am just so thankful that were we safe and all the fallen riders had very minor injuries.

Traveler at the water jump. He had to go through the water and jump a "house" on the other side. I have this segment of our course on video and I will try to get it on YouTube to share with everyone.

Our third jump - see his ears pointing forward - he loves doing this! And he's looking for the next fence.

After cross-country we were standing in 9th place.

And now on to Stadium. I love this picture below of Traveler. You can't really see me and you can't see the jump at all, but you can see Traveler really defined in the moment.

Okay, I included this picture because this is an example of his spectacular jumping - clearing the fence really high. But it's actually my fault - I didn't give him a good release over the jump and so he had to go extra high to clear it and when we came down he pulled the second rail on the oxer. So we had no time faults, but one rail down in stadium.

I relived the entire 42 seconds of our stadium jumping all night in my dreams last night. I rode this fence 1,000 times in my sleep giving Traveler a good release - over and over and over again. I seem to be haunted by this mistake!

Thankfully, I rode the other fences better, but I there's still so much room for improvement. Aren't we our worst critics?

After he banged his legs on the rail, but sure wasn't going to do that again. Check out how high he pulls his legs over this one.

And here we are finding out our placing at the end of Stadium. I just love this picture, here he is surrounded by other horses and he couldn't care less. Oh, how I love the fall season.

Lots of people are starting to notice Traveler in eventing world. I spent the whole weekend talking about the Curly horse. And most of these people had never seen nor heard of the breed at all! At the end of the event one of the local trainers approached me about breeding to him for a Curly Sporthorse in the spring. "My pony" and I are getting some attention! And the good kind!

Once again, Traveler is referred to as a "pony" by the other riders. "I like your little pony, what kind of horse is he?" Which is quite funny, Traveler is 15.2 HH but totally dwarfed by most of the other horses.

And the the extra icing on the cake? An artist was attending the event and displaying these beautiful paintings of horses she creates. She noticed Traveler and took some pictures of him and emailed me today to ask my permission to use the pictures for her art! How cool is that!

Well, thanks for listening to our adventures and thanks for the kind words of encouragement you gave me. Keep on riding! I have one more big adventure for Traveler and myself in two weeks and then we are done for the season! (At least as far as shows & events go.)