In spite of a markedly puffy ankle (mine, Butterball's legs looked great or I wouldn't have gone), Butterball and I headed down to Three Lakes on Saturday morning. If it had been a Majestic show I probably would've scratched and given my ankle the time it wanted. But, y'know, recognized entry fee + new venue + examination of the grading scale of sprains... Probably just a grade 1 given my low pain level (and for the record I'm not a tough horse person who doesn't feel pain, I'm a giant wimp)... All that led to the decision to give it a go but be prepared to scratch if I felt like I couldn't deal.
I love the one day format they do for Three Lakes horse trials: prelim, modified, and novice all run Saturday then training, BN, and starter all run Sunday. It's a smaller venue so this helps with parking. I had very civilized ride times, 11:37 for dressage, 1:51 for stadium, then 2:20 for XC.
Butterball got his bath at 7 AM Saturday morning. We tested out the Farnam whitening shampoo I had bought after Majestic in December when I realized feathery white socks needed some serious help to not be yellow. Overall I was pleased with it. Then he got loaded up into his box stall with 1 flake each of orchard and alfalfa and a lot of Tifton. By the time we finished up the two-ish hour drive he'd finished most of his special hay. The nice part of the box stall is he can also clean it up off the floor. When we arrived they were directing parking with an ATV. They led us to the end of one row, directly facing the dressage arenas. We were also conveniently right next to a porta-potty and trash can.
Dressage:
Ordinarily I would've walked Butterball around a bit since it was a new venue. But I was trying to be kind to my ankle, so I left him on the trailer until we had about 40 minutes before our ride time. Right before I took him off, with some trepidation, I put on my boot. It zipped up over the puffy ankle, thank goodness. I'd brought paddock boots and half chaps. But if I had to resort to that I wanted a sign that said "I'm not being disrespectful I just can't get a tall boot on" (sort of along the lines of "I'm not an asshole I just am not from around here and didn't know this became a turn only lane"). The dressage rings were in view of the first few XC jumps and dressage warm up shared a whole tape fence line with XC. But fortunately Butterball gives few shits about that sort of thing. We warmed up with our soft trot-walk transitions and some baby leg yields and shoulder fore. He felt soft and pleasant. We took a short walk break (and found a shoe people had been looking for, no I don't stare at the ground while I'm riding, why would you assume that...). When the rider before us went into the ring I picked him back up and put him back to work.
He was a bit up as we went around the ring the first time, but in true pony form it just took two loops around the outside before he was completely focused. Our test was overall better than last time, but the trot work wasn't quite as nice. The canter transitions were nice and prompt and softer than they have been at previous shows. He was a bit stiff in his neck and body after the walk work so the second trot serpentine didn't go as well as it could have, but other than that I was quite pleased. The scores mostly agreed with my assessment. Our right lead canter work was still the lowest piece, but we did pretty well for the left lead. It's interesting, I feel like with Ben I was rarely told something I didn't know in the comments. However, I've found the most recent test comments with BB pretty useful ie I didn't realize we were losing alignment in the right lead. It's also exciting to look at where we can be as we keep working on the pieces. With Ben so much of it was about his tongue out so it felt like there was little I could do to change things (which is actually incorrect, if we'd started with 10s then with the tongue we still would've had 9s...).
Our final halt earned us a 6. I really need to sort out how to make that better. Unlike the rest of the work where I feel like I'm making pretty good progress, I stopped schooling halts because they were getting worse and worse the more I worked at it. More crooked, less immobile, etc. I did briefly start doing them in hand because pony rarely halts square. He is bendy and elastic and that is lovely in a lot of things, but doesn't make for a good halt. I could certainly return to trying in hand until I can get some help in a lesson.
30.3, good enough for 3rd out of 12
After dressage I put my feet up for a bit. My friend who was parked just a few trailers down stopped by "you're not taking off your boot at all today, are you?". Me: "absolutely not"
Even in the boots you can tell the ankle is puffy. I'll spare y'all from the barefoot pictures 🤢. Plus as a very weird side note, twice in my life I've had random strangers ask to take pictures of my feet. Sooo not going to put them out there all exposed 😂
Stadium:
Stadium warm up was a bit hairy. It was on a slope and in a relatively small area. They flagged the jumps to go uphill at least and were limiting the number of riders allowed in. The stadium course itself had a slope to it too, headed downhill from right to left in the picture. We did a few warm up jumps and then headed in. It was a weird round TBH. Examining his expression in the pictures, I think he is much happier than he was at Majestic in December. But we sure chipped to a few of them. But I think because he is happier and feeling better in his body he jumped the crap out of most fences even from the chip. When we first came in he was a bit lookier about things than I was expecting, so there was more forward energy to deal with, but not necessarily the productive bouncy uphill forward energy. We got a bit of a weird spot to 1, but he took the appropriate spot, I just didn't go with him that well.
Two he was looky at and I was late to the balancing up - it felt similar to our XC lesson where I learned that if he has the appropriate balance he is waaaayyyy less looky.
3 and 4 were okay
JT had warned me not to let him get rolling down the hill too much to 4, and I mostly followed directions.
5 and 6 were again okay, they rode in a short 7 or a long 6. I knew we were going to do the short 7 so should've gotten the work done sooner in the line.
8A we got deep to the base (and then he jumped the snot out of it again) and we did 3 in the 2, but JT had warned me it was a long 2, so I wasn't shocked, but was more than a bit annoyed with myself by this point.
We finally got it together to ride a nice 8, 9, and 10.
Finishing up strong over 10
My friend drove up to see us go and got all the media for us!
Cross Country:
We had driven down and walked the course Friday afternoon. Typically I would have walked it again Saturday morning, but y'know, the ankle.
Something relatively close was burning on Friday, so it was hazy with little chunks of ash dropping. Fortunately it was clear on Saturday. But this is the iconic Three Lakes view that I reaalllly hope there is a gallop picture of BB in front of.
My friend helped me get Butterball ready for XC and then we headed over to warm up. We let a few people head out before us because JT wanted us to have an effective half halt. We worked on it until I could gallop forward and then half halt enough to do a 10m canter circle on the grassy slope of the warm up area. Once we had that, we headed out of the box
1- straight forward and at least one height down from the max of the level, I think because there is so much to look at. I thought it was small and insignificant when I walked, but was grateful for it once we were going (as seen in the video above, he was a bit looky)
2- we were still finding our groove at this one
3- ramp
4- Bench, we were more on the same page starting at this one
5- water, but a bit of a spooky one, it was pretty reflective and there were things to look at. I did a decent job half halting and getting him back to a pace where he had some time to think. He was a good honest pony and splashed on through.
6- table
7AB- half coffin. After 6 there was a right-hand turn into this treed area. I definitely could not find 7AB at first and took a good hard look at the BN 7 that was a little to the left of this picture. Eventually I found it. I did not half halt enough coming up to it, but he's a GOOD BOY and not ditchy and did it for me anyways. You'd think after sounding like a broken record here about half halting I would've fixed this sooner, but y'know.
8- table. There were some people walking the course who pointed in the direction of 8 after watching me get lost on the way to 7. LOL. From 8 on he felt like he was jumping SO WELL. And I was consistently too conservative in my release as he was jumping that well though, I'm sorry bud.
9- roll top
10- small log stack at the top of a hill. There was a flat entrance to this crater thing and then it rose up around you. He jumped this great and the uphill helped with the balance.
11- Brushy roll top, not meant to be a gallop fence though because...
12- down bank. I 10000% didn't half halt enough, but again, see above with the ditch, he is a GOOD BOY, and jumped right down. After seeing the majestic pics with my hands up as we went down the bank, I tried to shove them into his mane as he went down.
13- Triple bar, right along the side of another lake. This was kinda spooky, but he was a very good boy. Then you turned left and galloped between the lake and another pondish thing
14- Table - very good boy over this too
15- another water crossing. I think the bottom might've been funky in this one because he cantered in and then tried to slow almost to a walk. I didn't feel him slipping though, so maybe it was just close to the end and he was tired.
16- Roll top after you galloped back across another raised road between the ponds
17- Wood pile, he peeked at this a bit, but WENT from the right spot, good boy!
18- Gate, a very upright vertical, so we were instructed to get our show jumping canter on here.
19- Cabin, the final fence!
There were A LOT of time faults in our division, but we finished 8 seconds under optimum time in spite of our zig zagging in the trees on our way to 7AB. This was good enough to move us up to first! It's kinda funny, I've never placed first in a recognized event before and there have been stadium rounds I've been way more proud of. In my head I always thought that people who won had it all together, but that is actually incorrect in my case. Anyways, disclaimer aside, we got a nice Three Lakes cloth bag, a belt, AND a photo frame and gift certificate towards a picture from the event, YAY!
I made Ryan come out the next day and take pictures of the perfect pony. He said he wanted to document my ribbon with my ankle 😂
