RMEC Northern Winter Classic: Saturday- Classic

One of the awesome things about the 4 week Northern Winter Classic Series is the prize money. Classes that offer a payout in a 2'6" division are VERY few and far between and at an A rated show, every little bit helps. Needless to say, with two horses attending, I had piled the pressure on myself for Saturday's $5,000 Classic.

There were two O/F rounds- the first Hunter Round wrapped up the Pre Child/ Adult division and that score, combined with the second Round Classic score, determined placings for the Classic.

Ellie went first and I liked her Hunter round quite a lot- I thought the score didn't necessarily reflect performance but there was also the addition of some new (and v nice) horses that joined the class who did not participate in the division. Hunters......and mare glare.

I see in the video that we didn't stay as straight as I would have liked coming out of the judges line which would end up being our downfall in the second round.

We biffed the first fence in a major way to start off our Classic round but had seemingly reorganized. The "Classic" component to this course was a bending line and after cutting the corner leaving the judges line, I didn't set my self up appropriately to get a nice ride into the first fence. Which also had a tiny little brick wall that pulled my eye right down to the base.

Ells could have been a touch more forgiving for my lean here, but I looked down, she stopped, and I fell off like a slow sack of potatoes. Of course this all happened at the fence FURTHEST from the gate = longest walk of shame ever.

I cleaned off my boots and climbed aboard Teddy- already worried about our lead changes and couldn't find the distance to a warm up fence to save my life. It was an exercise in compartmentalization to focus on the Teddy ride versus dwell on my tumble.  The first round was fine- a little deep to a few fences but Teddy makes everything look pretty good. A score of 77 landed us fourth going into our second round. 

Horses had been riding the Classic bending line anywhere between a 6 and an 8. Thinking back to the ill-fated Christmas Derby debacle (where the line walked a 7 and I had committed to 7 and it was actually 8)- I decided to take the slightly more conservative 7 strides. When in doubt- add!

Coming around to our last fence my only thought was, "for the love of God, Emily- don't mess this up." The course rode great for us for a score of 85 and second place.

Some ups and downs (literally) but a second place in the Classic and Reserve Champion in our Division!