Fair Hill

What a crazy year it has been. I can not believe my season is over and it's time to"rest".
I feel very driven right now and would prefer to be focusing on an upcoming task.
I'm sure all my horses will do dressage shows this winter. I will continue to work my rear end off on both my show jumping and dressage.
Summer shows so much promise and really surprised/amazed me at Fair Hill. She is such a young horse still. She has matured much slower then the thoroughbreds I'm used to. Man was she mature this week though. She took in the crowds at Fair Hill and rather then get upset or scared, she got excited and more obedient.!? It really is like she wants to do big things. The harder the challenge, the more focused she is.
This really rung true in the jumping phase. There were some solid questions with some bad lighting. Summer just focused  read the terrain, told me i didn't need to do anything and shined.
I am so excited for next year with Summer. I feel like her body is finally established enough to start training a bit harder which will help produce the dressage scores she deserves.
Beast and i continue to grow together.
This weekend was the hardest challenge we have faced to date for so many reasons.
Beast has changed physically so much. At plantation my planned striding was not always on point and i had to adjust a lot on course. What i mean is when you walk certain questions from jump to jump, usually it can be performed in a straight line (shorter distance) or a bit of a bow (longer distance). Beast has historically been a bow kind of girl. We generally opt to put an extra stride in. With the work we have done on her back and the change in her way of going, Beasts stride has changed significantly. Her gallop stride has also gotten much longer.
Anyways I had to walk my course with this new horse in mind. I think i did a good job but i could have done better. I just read an article by Doug Payne and he wrote about his thought process while walking the course at Fair Hill. He looks at each question, finds what could go wrong, what the terrain does etc, and then has a plan A,B and C.
This is something i will now do. I need to work on being Pragmatic. I am by nature not a planner or very practical or organized in my thought process. This is an area that my horses need me to improve on at the upper levels.
I think some things can only be learned by experience and i am grateful to have had a world full of experiences from this weekend.
Beast is so special. She will do whatever i tell her to do. I just simply have to always know how to tell her.
I can not explain how much that horse gives me and how amazing that is to me. She was so upset on course after her first run out that her confidence immediately wavered in herself.... Causing her second run out a few later.
In that moment i thought about retiring and as i cantered to my next fence i promised her i would at least give her a good ride to a few jumps before pulling up. I gave her a good go at the next two fences and she immediately gave me her unwavering belief in herself simply because i believed in her. (She then tried to run off with me a thru the coffin).
I dug deep, let my Puerto Rican alter ego take the reins and did that course and that horse justice.
That experience will forever be etched in my mind.
While i still lose sleep at night because of my run outs, i do know i could have never learned what i did with out that experience.
I simply decided to do her justice again and ride well the next day in show jumping. I had a ton of horse underneath me and actually flat schooled in the am before her later jump round. She felt relaxed and confident and better yet, she felt like she trusted me completely. We changed the day before. We changed as a team.
I will never be the same rider again. I will never be the same horsemen again. I am so in love with this sport and am so amazed by the horses that are as well.
I am so amazed by the people at that event and the experience that we all shared.
I am so beyond amazed with Sharon White and her ability to be everything that she is. I am in awe of her.
I can not thank the people enough that helped me or cheered for me at Fair Hill or along the way.
Alexis truly out did herself the entire week despite my sudden silence that would take over as i tried to focus.
She had that horse looking like a million dollars and catered to Beasts every neurotic need.
My husband and his unwavering support and belief. I am most amazed in his willingness to do whatever it takes to further my journey. He is the one that often has to help me pick up the pieces and keep life in prospective.
Hunter and his help.
Kelley and entertaining my weird need to just have her at the start and finish.
Kim and her Kim ness.
Sharon and Nick and everything they do.
Katherine and her doses of reality.
Stephen, Sharon and Vanessa and their amazing instruction.
The amazing Jeff Beshear
Team orange who would tell me to calm the f*@k down......
And everyone else that has pushed me good, bad or indifferent. Life is short and things can change so quickly. I am going to continue this journey and always try to do right by my family, horses, friends and myself. Every experience is what it is and this one was beautiful.
Sorry about any typos I'm not so into proof reading.