Mia's first Novice show

Sunday I woke up nice and early and man did my shoulder hurt.  I took a couple of Aleve and went about my day.  Mia stayed clean overnight so a rewash was not needed, TWH was not as nice and K had to give him another bath.  I love TWH but I don't miss that part!  Nor the 30 minutes of brushing out his tail!  Mia's mane by her head was pretty crazy so I got ready to braid it.  As I started the third braid, I noticed that 3/4 of her mane was 100% flat, straight and beautiful so I scrapped the braiding and just banded the crazy section.  Lazyness wins.

We got wrapped up and Mia decided, again, that she didn't want to load.  She got several hard jerks on her nose as she kept backing up before she decided that she can go forward.  After the third request to load she jumped on and we went on our way.  I was riding first and quickly got up to the warm up ring in case Mia decided to lose her marbles again.  It was amazing, however, she warmed up like she was at home!  I kept her speed down to an almost crawl until I was 100% sure she wasn't going to pull any stupid antic and she then stepped right up into a nice forward trot.  She listened to all of my seat aids and wasn't being an ass at all.  YAY MARE!!  I kept trying to get better bend but she wasn't giving it willingly and I wasn't about to start a fight with her, in no time I was called into the ring.

Mia was very steady through the whole test.  I was smiling the majority of the ride because while it wasn't a perfect test, she was riding very well and there wasn't much I would have changed!  We walked back to the trailer and had a quick lunch before getting ready for cross country.  Mia was nice and forward and warmed up very well.  I had a nice chat with some friends who were volunteering and off we went.  Mia was a little squirrely over the first 2 jumps and, of course, knocked a rail down on one of the stadium jumps.  Boo!  After that, I started really slowing her down and then kicking her over the jumps and she rode much better.  She really likes going cross country.  We walked down a big hill and trotted a bit to eat up some time and was able to successfully clear the last 3 stadium fences without knocking them over plus coming in at only 20 seconds shy of optimum.  Yay!

The results were finally posted and we went from 6th to 8th after the rail.  If she had been clear, she would have gotten 5th!  It is certainly something to aim for, perfection, and I am quite excited for her possibilities.  K did very well on TWH, he is such a good horse.  He went double clear as well and ended up 3rd in their division!!  She is so happy with him and loves his attitude so much, he is doing really good at showing her the ropes of eventing.  Hopefully the rest of the show season keeps up like this!

PS.  If you can't tell, this was written over a period of time.  The first was right after the show, the rest was a week later.  I am SO, SO busy I have almost no time to do anything that isn't work, ride, pack.  Never fear though, I have another update to post in a couple of days