Sunday brought another day of competition at Sporting Days Farm again in Aiken. My parents were on hand to help and to watch this time. When I convinced them to come down, I mentioned the sun and the warmth. It rained for their entire stay, including when Aunt Kathy came to visit from Charlotte, NC!
Bumbleberry was the star of the day on Sunday. He improved his dressage score by 5 points from Wednesday, and he finished the event in 2nd place out of 19 behind Boyd Martin by 1 point. This was his first event at the Novice level. He still has very green (=inexperienced) moments, but he happily cantered around both the show jumping and the cross country courses. Now if I can only teach him not to whinny all the time and not to paw incessantly in the trailer we'll be set!
Rufus put in a good performance too. His back was bothering him quite a lot on Saturday, and I considered not competing him at all. He seemed much happier on Sunday morning. He warmed up well, so we gave it a shot! He put in a nice dressage test. Rufus was a bit lazy in the stadium but found the cross country to be very easy. He finished in 8th.
Pete is learning and growing from day to day. The rain and cold and the long wait for his turn made his dressage test a little tense. Part of the training process is knowing when to push and and when to back off, and Pete is ready for a mental break! His inexperience showed in the show jumping when he was a bit late to focus on one of the jumps, but he too excelled at the cross country. I'm very confident that these are just growing pains, as Pete has shown a certain talent and enthusiasm for the sport in the past two weeks. He finished in 6th!
My photographer (aka Dad) got stuck in Atlanta last night, so I will have to post pictures when he makes it home to Minnesota. Back to unpacking, and more soon!
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