Stoney Ridge @ HR June 2019 Show

Yep back to back weekends of showing, but this past weekend was at the home barn. Since Maestro had just worked hard at the WAG show, he had Monday and Tuesday off then I flatted him around on Wednesday. Of course we’ve had just crazy amounts of rain in Michigan this spring and the outside rings were looking quite wet even before we got a nice storm on Thursday that took down both tents by the show rings and a porta potty. Being someone who has a lot of anxiety about riding in sloppy footing this was not great news for me. When I got in the ring to school Thursday night I was nervous, although moving around the footing felt decently stable under the water. Our jumping was not that great, mostly because I wasn’t very convincing about moving forward and thus Maestro wasn’t particularly wanting to do that either. Don’t even ask me to ride forward for a lead change in that, lol. We finished by doing a nice add down a diagonal line and called it a day. Maestro was good and I didn’t think he needed to jump again Friday just because his rider was being a wuss about the mud.

So of course it rained more Friday, then rained more Saturday afternoon right before my classes (causing a rain delay due to lightning) so it was still quite muddy for me. Trainer had taken Maestro in a warm up earlier in the day before the additional rain, and he had marched boldly around but a bit strong. First up were our flat classes though. The equitation flat went first with 8 of us in the ring which left me wondering how he would be after the weekend before. Several horses were getting upset at the sound of the others splashing in the puddles. My tense horse from last week was mostly gone and faded to his normal self by the end of the class. The fun part of this flat class was that the judge actually asked for some different things beyond the usual posting and sitting trot. He had us halt then asked us to reverse and I immediately thought perfect time to pull out the turn on the haunches! Maestro did it well and then even obliged with a nice right lead canter transition after that. I was so pleased with him and we got 2nd in the class. The hunter flat after that dwindled down to just three of us and Maestro went back to the version where I wished I had spurs on for the canter transitions. He showed off a really nice trot though that had been missing so far this show season. We won the class and I’m in love with this picture of us coming out of the ring.

So handsome

After that we got warmed up to jump and did some more mud splashing. I felt that Maestro was a bit strong over fences but he wasn’t running away with me or anything. We did a warm up and two hunter classes, getting 1st and 2nd in those hunter classes out of four to finish up our show day.

There was supposed to be a derby in the evening Saturday, but it was cancelled due to more rain. It seriously rained for hours into the evening, for a while it seemed like it would never stop. Sunday I headed out to the barn and was happy to see that the ring looked about the same level of wet as the day before despite the additional inch of precipitation. A few of the puddles had formed into joined ponds but one of the lines got turned into a single and the other jumps were well placed.

Our warm up class for the day went well although with a more rounded puddle corner I failed to get my lead change in a spot. I still failed to get the change in my hunter round, earning us 3rd out of 4 there, although I was super happy with all of the jumps. Next was an equitation trip where I did manage to get my lead change act together in the puddle corner and we got 2nd out of 6. Lastly, I had a medal class. Despite one flopped lead change in a weird over-sized rollback we were 2nd after the first round and called back to test. The test was to canter immediately to the in of a line on the left lead then come around and show two simple changes of lead on the center line before walking out of the ring. So I’m thinking great my horse lands left – I get to the fence a little long, and guess who lands right? This left me a bit discombobulated but I decided to trot around to the center line then pick up my canter to show my two simple changes. Also not thinking, I picked up the left lead in the corner meaning I did simple change to right lead, simple change to left lead, but the gate was to the right. So we did our second simple change close to the end of the ring and then I just made a left hand circle so I could head to the gate. Despite my somewhat sloppy decisions we maintained our second place finish out of 6. I will say the simple changes themselves were quite sharp though!

We did end up being champion in our hunter division for the weekend. I was very happy with Maestro this past weekend and I’m interested to see how the rest of the summer turns out. I may have written a check to hold a stall at a certain show in Traverse City later this summer, eeek! Just going will be something to mark off on my bucket list for sure. I have a busy summer planned both in and out of the saddle!