Now that the champagne has once again been replaced with coffee I can reflect on what a great weekend my team and I had.
The plan had always been to compete at in the Young Riders division at Devon following the NAYRC. Jess has been very involved with Dressage at Devon since its inception (Competing, judging, commentating, and retiring Orpheus), so its a very sentimental competition to us here at Blue Hill and we are all proud to have the most prestigious CDI in our backyard.
Thursday night was our first experience in the atmospheric Dixon Oval under the lights for ring familiarization, Topper was barraged with decorations that we may or may not have made scarier by shaking (corn stalks). That certainly set us up for competing in the ring the following day.
Friday was the Young Rider Prix St George, Topper was laying down one hell of a test until he thought he'd make it interesting and kick out in the 3 tempi's. Despite that, we still scored 67% to win he class.
Saturday we moved rings to the side Gold Ring, we rode very quietly for a fault free test to score a 71%, again taking home the blue.
Sunday was the day we were all waiting for, Freestyle test day. Topper was the last to go in the Dixon Oval, giving us his best freestyle in competition yet, dancing his way to the Sound of Music to 71.7%.
The clean sweep at Devon would not have been possible without coach extraordinaire, Jessica Ransehousen, physio Doug Hannum Equine Therapy making sure Topper had everything in him to bring us the blue (all of them!), my sponsors Nupafeed, APF, & Icehorse, Rachel Gross for making Topper look spectacular and to everyone who came to cheer me on.
What a great way to finish my Young Rider career.
Future plans? We're going to continue to work on the one changes, the piaffe and the passage to hopefully rise up to GP next spring! Stay tuned..........
Check out the DAD photo album on Facebook!
Photo credits Lisa Thomas
Mid-Atlantic Equestrian Services.
