Numbers over letters…..blinded by the light

It’s been a long time since I was grateful for a number & not a letter at an event….

I suppose that’s a testament to how far I’ve come in my journey…..

There was a time when BadEventer had more letters than numbers on her show record……

Yes that’s really my show record & fortunately those days are over!

But whenever horses are involved things can come undone when you least expect it.

I had some pretty strange ride times this weekend. I’ve never jumped around prelim at 6PM before & I knew the shadows would play a role.

I just had no idea how much of a role.

The warm up was in a beautiful covered indoor, but all the warmup jumps were flagged jumping directly into the sun.

Here I am galloping one handed on cross country to block the sun so I can see the next jump.

Earlier in the day this was a non-issue but as the sun was going down I found my normally brave horse having a hard time reading the fences.

The first line in stadium was jumped away from the sun & we started out well.

But then we turned into the sun & the first “blinded by the light” fence also happened to be the liver pool.

My fancy pony doesn’t worry about silly things like trakehners or liver pools but today……..when we turned into the sun & the light was glaring off the water in the liver pool making it look like 2 spot lights…..my super star pony said

Hell no……..

And we stopped. In stadium. For the first time at a show in our entire career together.

I had felt my saddle slip a bit as we made our reining maneuver & I decided if the wheels were coming off…

I wasn’t going for the do over with a loose saddle so I paused to tighten my girth.

Yep. BadEventer stopped to tighten her girth during a stadium round……

We did manage to finish the course, but when the wheels started to come off – they REALLY came off & we took down far more jumps than we left up.