So we waited all day, and finally got word that they were going to have dressage Saturday afternoon. The organizing committee said they would let the on site horses do their dressage tests starting at 1 p.m. and the trailer in horses (which we were from Aiken) would start at 3 p.m. They said show up and sign up for a time. By the time we got to the sign up the earliest I could go was 5:21 pm on Arthur and 6:08 pm on Tiamo. Arthur’s ring was very slow so I ended up riding him at 5:50. He was incredibly good. He had an amazing canter to halt at the last halt and salute. The judge agreed, she said it was beautiful, but then rang the bell for an error!!! I was meant to canter down center line, trot at X then halt and salute at G!!! Darn it! I thought I would have gotten a 10. On the re-try he was just as good and she said she gave me a 9 and a 10 so I’m sure I made up for the error. He did win the test. Poor Tiamo had very little warm up and had to do his test in the near dark. He wasn’t phased. His ring was in the grass so it was quite deep in areas, but he was his wonderful self and trudged right through.
Both horses were amazing jumping on Sunday. I cannot thank the organizing committee and all the volunteers enough for pulling this event off. Glen took his tractor out on Saturday with a scrape and scraped all the snow away from the riding surfaces. When the temperatures rose, the footing was perfect! Both of my horses were a pure joy to ride. I had so much fun and I know they did too!
