Anu was able to sneak out of the office for the weekend so on Saturday he and I woke up at 5 AM to drive up to Weatherford and watch Maggie compete at the Greenwood horse trials. She has recently moved up to intermediate and this was her second event in that division. For non-horsey folk, you can think of it like video game levels. If you're competing in eventing, you will do dressage, cross country, and stadium jumping regardless of your level. As you move up in levels (based on the experience level of horse and rider) you have harder jumping courses, more demanding time requirements, and more exact and complicated dressage tests. The level sequence is as follows:
Beginner Novice
Novice
Training
Preliminary
Intermediate
Advanced
So, as you can see, competing at the intermediate level is a big. freaking. deal.
We weren't able to come up for dressage, but we did get to see parts of her cross country ride (most of it is off in the woods, so the average spectator can only really manage to run over and watch a few of the jumps) and her stadium jumping round on Sunday. She was such a rock star! It was so much fun to be back in that environment, and the cherry on the sundae was the fact that she and Dante brought home a first place ribbon! Hooray!
Those of you who are friends with me on facebook will have seen the pictures I took, but just in case...
I really do miss being a part of the horse world. I was never much in to competing (because I wasn't all that great, haha), but to this day I have never liked any activity more. It isn't even just riding, I miss BEING around horses. Lessons, cleaning tack, being around the barn, training new lesson horses, teaching beginners, all of it. The unfortunate fact of the matter, however, is that horses are just
REALLY
FREAKING
EXPENSIVE.
Even if you don't own one! Lessons are expensive, the gear you need is expensive, every single part of it is expensive. Someday I'll be able to be a part of it again, but right now it's just not in the cards. Now let's all look at some pictures of me with horses, haha.
(This is the broken arm I got from being bucked off of a pony that didn't like me)
*sigh* meeeemorieeeees.....
Love and Kisses,
Daner
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Isn't that always the thing that some of our favorite hobbies are always freaking expensive. I've wanted to get back into martial arts for years, but lessons are always so expensive. Not horse expensive, but still out of my reasonable income expenses.
ReplyDeleteStill congrats to Maggie! I didn't realize that intermediate was so high up there (the name is misleading). I admit when I first heard that she was at intermediate, I was like: "Intermediate? Hasn't she been riding for years and she's ONLY at intermediate?" Little did I know that intermediate was really freaking advanced. Good job to her!