I spent the Fourth of July riding in a horse show down in Albuquerque. I hadn’t shown a horse in four years. I’d taken some time off to really work on Intermediare II, and the three years ago my Steppi died.
I was really nervous, and I almost bailed out, but I realized I had this wonderful horse and I ought to be enjoying him outside of lessons. Well, it was a great show. I rode in three classes. I won all three, and each test my scores were higher. I ended my last qualifying ride with a 68.684%.
A qualifying ride is when your scores count toward getting to ride in the Regionals where you compete against horses from all over your geographic area. You have to earn a score of 65% or over to go, and we got a 66.053 on Saturday, and then racked up the big score on Sunday.
My biggest problem is that Vento is a wiggle worm. He hates to stay straight between my seat and hands, and his hindquarters keep moving from side to side. So I’m really going to work on that over the next few weeks.
I also decided to go for my Bronze, Silver and Gold medals from USDF. For the Bronze you have to earn two scores over 60% at first, second, and third level, riding different tests with two different judges. (Fourth level may be included in this too. I’ll have to check.) Anyway, I’m going to go for it. Since I have a young horse that I’m taking up the levels I may as well get the scores.
I had promised a post about horsemanship, and I’ll do that in the next couple of days complete with a few photos. I’m also going to try and learn how to add video to my posts. I had my rides taped so people can actually see my boy in action.
I’m a pretty good rider, but I’m mounted on a super horse. Total strangers kept walking up to tell me how beautiful he was. It was very nice. Now I just have to decide if I’m going to ride second level up in the Parker CO the end of this month.
