Another awesome Otter Creek weekend! I love being at Otter Creek, especially in the fall, the colors are amazing. This year Otter Creek was moved back two weekends because AECs moved to Area IV and were on the original Otter Creek Fall HT weekend so the show was pushed back two weekends, making the weather unpredictable.
The weekend started out great. We had a lovely weather on Friday for dressage. We worked hard and put in a great dressage test receiving a 31.7 securing us into 2nd place by .4 penalty points! I was excited to try and do my best at the show and possibly take home another blue ribbon. Next we had to focus on XC, which looked very tough this year and proved to be very challenging due to the number of eliminations and faults riders acquired on course. The Preliminary and Intermediate XC was delayed for two hours due to rain.
Meaghan Marinovich & I waiting for the rain to clear so we can run XC!
My little sister, Maggie Lund playing with Hannah while we wait to run XC.
We finally got out and were able to warm up. The course looked really tough this year and people were having refusals left and right. Otter Creek added a new water this year. The preliminary second water was a jump at the edge of the water two strides to a jump in the water. The first part of the course was running great for us, we negotiated through the technical questions and flew over our straight forward fences. We had just come down the Preliminary bank question and were heading towards the new water, Hannah chipped at the first question so I decided to circle her since the two fences in the water were not related (they were numbered separately instead of A and B). I circled her around and presented her to the second fence in the water, I pressed her on for a faster gallop between the last few fences to make up time. Even with the circle we only had 3.6 time penalties giving us a total score of 35.3 holding our 2nd place standing with only a .3 difference between first place.
Sunday morning was beautiful, with rain forecast for the afternoon, I was thankful to be riding earlier in the day and miss out on the rain. I warmed up and Hannah felt good. I went into the ring hoping not to have a rail. We jumped a double clean round and I knew I had at least secured 2nd place unless the 1st place rider had a rail.
I know every rider has that feeling when they are able to move up a place easily with a rail that they secretly hope that the rider in front of them will have a rail. As terrible as it sounds I think every rider has felt that at one time or another. When that rail drops, there are mixed feelings. In my case this is exactly what happened. Since there was a .3 difference in our scores, a rail would make a difference. The rider in first had been jumping a very nice round and had a rail on one of the last fences. At the same time you are happy because you moved up to first place you also feel bad for the other rider. If you haven't been in that spot where the pressure is on and you make a mistake and drop in placing, you will and you will also realize that it is ok. Everybody makes mistakes and it will happen at one point or another.
With the first place rider having a rail, we moved up to finish in first place. It was a great weekend despite the weather and I was glad to have had a great year and felt more then ready for another shot at Hagyard's Midsouth CCI* in a few weeks.
After our double clean Show Jump round.
We finally got out and were able to warm up. The course looked really tough this year and people were having refusals left and right. Otter Creek added a new water this year. The preliminary second water was a jump at the edge of the water two strides to a jump in the water. The first part of the course was running great for us, we negotiated through the technical questions and flew over our straight forward fences. We had just come down the Preliminary bank question and were heading towards the new water, Hannah chipped at the first question so I decided to circle her since the two fences in the water were not related (they were numbered separately instead of A and B). I circled her around and presented her to the second fence in the water, I pressed her on for a faster gallop between the last few fences to make up time. Even with the circle we only had 3.6 time penalties giving us a total score of 35.3 holding our 2nd place standing with only a .3 difference between first place.
Sunday morning was beautiful, with rain forecast for the afternoon, I was thankful to be riding earlier in the day and miss out on the rain. I warmed up and Hannah felt good. I went into the ring hoping not to have a rail. We jumped a double clean round and I knew I had at least secured 2nd place unless the 1st place rider had a rail.
I know every rider has that feeling when they are able to move up a place easily with a rail that they secretly hope that the rider in front of them will have a rail. As terrible as it sounds I think every rider has felt that at one time or another. When that rail drops, there are mixed feelings. In my case this is exactly what happened. Since there was a .3 difference in our scores, a rail would make a difference. The rider in first had been jumping a very nice round and had a rail on one of the last fences. At the same time you are happy because you moved up to first place you also feel bad for the other rider. If you haven't been in that spot where the pressure is on and you make a mistake and drop in placing, you will and you will also realize that it is ok. Everybody makes mistakes and it will happen at one point or another.
With the first place rider having a rail, we moved up to finish in first place. It was a great weekend despite the weather and I was glad to have had a great year and felt more then ready for another shot at Hagyard's Midsouth CCI* in a few weeks.
After our double clean Show Jump round.
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