Bless Me Epona

Bless me Epona for I have desired more than I could achieve.

I have so many different levels going on with this one. I am sorely disappointed in myself. I did not ride well. I did not solve the problems that the day and the horse presented. She always takes awhile to warm up BUT in the warm up she was nervous because of parking on one side of it (which didn’t affect the show arena) and I didn’t end up warming her up adequately. I opted to keep her calm and not upset by not working beside the horse eating monsters. The other option would have been to try to work her through it and that is perhaps the option I should have taken.

Or not. It is hard to tell. But I was disappointed in my ride. She was sticky with no impulsion and she was inconsistent as h*ll. The two go together in that when she moves off forward, she is more consistent.

OTOH, we got a 64.5 which ain’t bad, and placed third in our group. Seeing the video, it wasn’t so bad. Well, except for her head bobbing and her not tracking up which was exactly what the judge said. The best part of the score was that I got a 7 on rider position/effectiveness which I would always always aspire to that. And she was absolutely beautiful. And the braid was finally nice.

And everything everything about getting ready was fun. The weeks long prep, the prep this week, the working yesterday, getting there early today, shopping the used tack sale, seeing all my friends.

My children tell me that there is an entire box of ribbons in the building from the old days. And a framed thing of my blue ribbons from Meredith Manor when I won Reserve Showmaster Champion. But I won that on the strength of a choose your line jumping class where it is going for it that matters -- where I actually took my calm horse and hyped him up before going into that ring.

Sigh. Truth is, I love it. I love all of it. I love seeing people I know and have fun with do well as much as I love doing well myself.

Thank you Epona for all the blessings you have visited upon me.