We did it! Mother's Day Classic

Okay - it's been awhile since I've blogged last, but we have been training for our first USEA Recognized 3-Day Event of the year - the Mother's Day Classic in Rainier, WA. Traveler - my bold and daring stallion and myself (not so bold and daring) moved up a level to Novice and competed for the first time in this division and by the skin of our teeth we managed to complete all 3 days and place in the top ten, receiving a beautiful 8th place ribbon. This is our first ribbon at a recognized event and our third event in total.

It was not a perfect event - we have lots of areas to improve on, but we did it! And we placed. And not only were we the only Curly horse competing against the big dogs, but the only stallion as well.

Here I am with our ribbon - I was so happy it was over and we made it safely through every day. The weather was horrible - you can't really tell from the pictures but it poured down rain and made the cross-country course and grassy stadium arena a swampy, boggy mess.

The first day was dressage - note the cows in the background. Thankfully Traveler is not bothered by cows - however, 2 horses were eliminated from dressage because they jumped out of the ring due to the presence of cows. We did not ride the best dressage test - this is the area that we need the most work in, however, we did it and he didn't jump out of the ring! He didn't trip, buck, stallion scream, rear or take off running - so I consider that a success and we completed the test and received lots of constructive criticism to think about. (Okay, so this is not my favorite part of the Event. ) But note his mane and forelock all braided and looking very smart.
And for the best part of the Event - the Cross-Country course. We had about 18 jumps including a large water complex- ramp into the water and jump out of the water, a huge ditch and a jump that landed you on the slippery downhill. This is the jump I was most concerned about because of the slipping and falling factor - but Traveler did it. He jumped it great, landed and then realized it was really slippery and wanted to slow down to a walk - like, "mom, we had better take this really easy." Due to not wanting any time faults - I kicked him back up into a canter but it was nice to know he was thinking about being safe.
Here we are, after the cross-country course. See the big smile on my face - nothing in the world compares to this.

We made it around the course with no faults - no refusals and no time faults. We had 5 minutes to run the course and we finished at 4:57. At the last fence I kicked him up into a gallop and here we are galloping across the finish line.
This was the "schoolhouse" jump and we soared over it and headed toward home. The first fence on the cross-country course is always the most challenging and is usually maxed out at height and width. So we had to start the course, not with the easiest fence, but the most difficult one (not pictured here) and we had a herd of cows, right next to the jump and they were mooing at us. Traveler looked at the cows, looked at the fence and I kicked him hard to let him know we were serious about doing this and he flew over the fence and didn't look back.
The last day was stadium jumping - as I said before, the pictures are deceiving. They make the footing look really nice and soft, but we were actually sinking deep into the bog and because of this I think Traveler decided he really needed to jump high to get his feet out of the mud and over the fences.
We finished stadium with no time faults - we had 60 seconds to jump 10 jumps, but we did pull down one rail.
Well, that is the end of our adventure - we made it, we placed and we were safe. Now, time to get ready for the next one.......