First Show

I will be entering the show ring for the first time in 10.5 years at the beginning of April. I will be traveling out to Rancho Murieta, CA for the Golden State Dressage Festival. This is a big show with a lot of good riders and horses.

My childhood friend, Amanda Olson, offered me the chance to ride one of her client's horses in the show. This is a mare they recently purchased and the client wanted the horse to be shown. the client will be out of town and Amanda thought it would be good for me to show this horse and she is already committed to ride a lot of horses at this show. We will be showing Second Level.

Originally, I was planning on traveling out to Amanda's farm, near Carson City, NV, for a few days at the end of March to do some riding there. Also, this was the last person I wanted to consult with to see me ride to make sure I wasn't fooling myself about this comeback.

Amanda called me over the weekend to see if I wanted to stay an extra week and come to the show with them and show this horse.

I'm very excited to be returning to the show ring. This will be good for me because I will be going to a show where no one will know me, nor care about how I do. This would be much different than the environment will be in Seattle. So, I get the first show out of the way in a fairly stress free environment.

My sister who lives in Santa Cruz, will be coming up for one of the days for support.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

Memberships

Every small step I'm taking right now is big to me as this is solidifying and making "real" the comeback. I renewed (if you want to call a 11 year lapse renewing) my memberships for USDF (United States Dressage Fedreation) and USEF (United States Equestrian Federation).

When you sign up for USEF you have to declare if you are an amateur or professional rider. To qualify being professional you must show that you take in money for riding or training. Amateurs on the other hand cannot take in any type of monetary compensation or something deemed as equal value (For example: riding someone's horse for free board) There isn't a standard for results to reach the pro level but if you're not somewhat competent you'll get your ass handed to you in the open classes.

At shows, classes are divided into Adult Amateur, Open or Young Rider divisions.
Since I'll be training/coaching when I move to Seattle, I choose the pro designation. Now it feels very real to me.

Another Horse!

A big thank you to Naya True and letting me ride her mare Bella. Naya is a trainer at the farm I'm riding at in CO and she is letting me get on Bella 3-4 times a week. This is in addition to the 2-3 times a week I'm riding Gambini.

Bella is a small horse (~15 hands) which has been a change from the 17 hand horses I've been riding of late. She is coming back after some time off. A lot of what I'll be doing with her will be basic conditioning and getting her to engaged more from the hind.

Bella and I had a little "argument" yesterday in the canter and proceeded to canter a couple of circles with her ears completely pinned back. I can't remember a horse doing this to me before. After a little while, we got things situated and started working better together.

My goal before I leave CO is to get my seat and aids fine tuned so that when I get to Seattle, I'm not "hacking" around. I feel pretty good where I'm at, but I want to be able to have this second nature before I leave. I think that riding 6x a week should help me. I don't think I can do any more with my schedule.

I talked with Wendy Meyers yesterday, and there are a some things in the works with a couple of horses in Seattle. Until things are finalized, I'm not mentioning them, because I know that I'll jinx myself.

Thanks for reading!