Championship - Warm-Up

The first day’s rides were either USDF Region 7 Championship rides or CDS warm-up rides. The warm-up rides were just that, a warm up for the CDS Horse of the Year (HOY) Championship classes. The scores counted for USDF Rider Performance Awards, USDF Medals, and so on, but they weren’t used to calculate the HOY.

My ride wasn’t a disaster, but it wasn’t up to the caliber of work that we’ve been putting in over the last few months either. I didn’t necessarily feel tense, but a friend who has only ever seen me at clinics, not shows, noted the difference. I was glad she pointed it out because for my next two rides I focused on relaxing and letting go of the tension. 

First half.

My tension comes from a very strong desire to do well.  I am not out to beat anyone else per se, I simply want to do better than the last test I rode, wherever it was. And yes, I realize that this is a competition and someone has to be the winner, but honestly, my goals are always about improvement. I would rather be dead last with a 69% than win with a 62%.

Somewhere during the second half of the test, I gave myself a hard shake and tossed my tension out the back window. As I trotted away from the judge down the long side, I laughed out loud and told myself to get over the tension and ride my horse like I knew how to do. I wish I could say that my scores improved dramatically at that moment, and maybe they did go up bit, but there was no miraculous recovery. With that said, it was a steady eddy test with nothing lower than a 6.0, which gave me a final score of 62.500%. 

Second half.

Collective Marks

Pink is mine.

At first, I was a little disappointed in the score until I realized that I was competing against the best riders in California at the biggest CDS Championship show ever.

There were seven riders in my warm-up class:

1.     68.750%
2.     67.679%
3.     67.143
4.     66.964%
5.     62.500% (me)
6.     Eliminated
7.     Eliminated

So while a 62.500% isn’t worth a huge celebration, it wasn’t completely out of the playing field either. It was a huge show with a level of activity that we’ve never seen before. I went to bed that night pretty pleased with how we’d done. A score in the low 60s might not get us in the ribbons for HOY, but it was still a solid effort.

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Official Results

Continued tomorrow ...