The only folks we knew had to drop out at the last minute with a family emergency, so I was little apprehensive--but right away I met some lovely folks who were lots of fun and helped me out with a few glitches. This was my first time running the generators and such and turned out my extension cord didn't fit well with the trailer. Luckily that was an easy fix and the AC was soon going :-)Bravo also scored deluxe accommodations in a roomy corral where he quickly made friends with the ranch geldings across the fence.
Saturday was our first ride and my first time in Open division. I confess that I switched over because there was only one other person signed up for that division on Saturday. Figured my chances were pretty good. LOL. But then that morning my new friends pointed over to a cowboy doing a reining pattern in the field and informed me that he was competition. Well, I said, there's no shame in coming in second to him! :-)
We got our list of obstacles-- Bridge crossing, raincoat, backing a figure 8 around two trees, trot cones, water crossing, and sidepass. I was most concerned about the raincoat as I really hadn't practiced putting it on and taking it off--and it turned out to be a real raincoat duster--which is very heavy and large and sized for a man--so it took me a lot longer to just get my arms in the sleeves, ha ha. But Bravo did great and waited perfectly still. In fact he did perfect or near perfect on everything and we scored a 115 out of 120--which is phenomenal! We actually came in first!!
After the ride we all took the horses to the swimming pond. This offered a few challenges--such as I don't think I've ridden bareback since I was 16 and that certainly wasn't on a stallion riding with mares, either!! But, I braved it--and Bravo did perfect, of course! He wasn't sure about getting in at first and as we looked for places to cross, he actually jumped a section--WOW! I'm glad I had my balance! I first led him into the water and got him pretty deep, but not to the drop off. Figured we just weren't going to go swimming, but I got back on and tried again and that first time he felt the drop off, he quickly got back to higher ground. I kept circling him deeper, though and then we did it-- just a few strokes--but what a thrill!!
He's biting the water--not sure what he's thinking, ha ha.
Sunday's ride was the big ACTHA Guinness World Record ride and a lot of people showed up for that. I again choose to ride in Open division and Steve and I again went horse to horse on the challenges. This time some of the obstacles were ones I hadn't really practiced on, so I was nervous. We had a tarp crossing, a box with a center piece that included a real rattlesnake (dead/stuffed) that we had to back around while staying in the box!!, a turn on the forehand with the horses front feet in a small box, a canter to a stop, trot poles, and backing an L. Bravo did amazing, we had some tiny issues but the only one that gave us any trouble was the turn on the forehand. The poles that made the box got messy and were then in our way to complete it well. But this obstacle got most everyone and even though I thought we'd blown it, we actually did pretty good. It was close, but again we won!!
Our two wins puts us at the top of the ACTHA points board for the season (which has just started May 30th) --since this probably won't last, I've gone ahead and taken a print screen, ha ha! But we're certainly going to try to keep the lead!!
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