Horse of the Year 2024 - Supremes

 With Wynnie, Faith, Erin's mare and my lovely helpers all shipped back to the farm with hubby, I had an afternoon to hang out at the horse park, never a sad thing to be stuck doing. I watched Erin ride her borrowed mare admirably in a huge championship class, then watched some of the big SASA classes until a thunderstorm arrived. At that point I beat a hasty retreat to Arwen's stable.

We spent a pleasant evening hand grazing when the weather allowed or just chilling while I scrolled on my phone and hung out with my fantastic horse. She was the most relaxed she's ever been in a show stable, snoozing away while I sat in the shavings. It was a very pleasant and contemplative way to spend the evening.

Hubby arrived back in record time, and I dressed her up in her clown suit to stay clean, kissed her goodnight and hopped into the car with hubby. We headed to my brother-in-law's house, where a hot dinner, welcoming arms, and a truly fantastic long hot shower were waiting for us. Erin kindly did night check and sent me a photo of a very happy and well-behaved dragon.

was she chill? yes. did I still put ropes over her door? also yes

The next morning, the class only started at 10:45. We got there feeling fresh and rested around 8. Arwen was totally chill and happy, so I fed her and then took her for a hack. She was a little up when we got out of sight of other horses, but settled beautifully and schooled really nicely in the arena.

Then, thanks to the thunderstorm the day before, the announcer let us know that the classes were running late. So I put the finishing touches on her mane and we wandered off to get breakfast and watch the working hunter... which ran really really short.

The next thing I knew, the announcer was calling the working riding class in---not only on time, but early.

Fifteen minutes of panic ensued. To Rain and Erin's total dismay, I simply didn't have time to sort out the last details of Arwen's turnout. I threw on her tack, scrambled on, and cantered across the warmup arena and into the Bob Charter. That was my warmup.

I found myself second in line, after the Appaloosa working riding champion. Arwen, to her intense credit, was totally relaxed. She didn't let my frazzlement bother her in the least. My frazzlement, however, was considerable. I realized that I hadn't gotten to picking up my test and had no idea what it was. Luckily the very friendly lady on the warmblood champion next to me told me the whole thing. Thank you very much, friendly lady.

With that our names were called, and sans warmup, Arwen and I headed into our second ever working riding supremes.

jumping is not my thing, can you tell?

I wish I could say I rode as well as I had the day before, because if I had, we could have ribboned. Instead, my brain fell out and oozed around on the floor. We cantered up and popped over the jump at number one, then trotted into a lane, halted, and reined-back out with no trouble at all. The wheels fell off a bit at the fan, where I sort of... didn't turn at all, necessitating some scrambling from Arwen.

We proceeded to a pair of barrels, one with a flag on it. She stood quietly for me to pick up the flag and trotted nicely around the second barrel, but my blazing adrenaline was starting to get to both of us, and she fidgeted as I set the flag down again. We had a very short distance to show a lengthened canter I went for it but didn't really let her stretch out, so instead we did a credible impressing of a bouncy ball to the last obstacle, a mat. She cantered onto it and halted nicely, but by then I'd overridden so much that she had resorted to Dragonmode and she piaffed merrily for five seconds instead of halting.

That brought an end to our Supremes test. I was a little bummed that I'd let my brain fall out again, but Arwen was a lot better than last year. It was by no means a disaster---just not the test we'd had the day before, which could have put us in the ribbons.

I felt a bit like I'd let her down as we rode out of the arena, then realized that this is absurd. As far as Arwen was concerned, she'd had a kick-ass time. She was glowing as we strolled to the stables and I couldn't have been prouder of her. I wasn't happy with my performance, sure, but that couldn't detract from the fact that we'd had an amazing weekend with horses and people we love.

This world is so filled with love and splendor that it takes my breath away sometimes. God is good.