Lee Thomson

Well, a success on several counts. No puking. No falling off. I did
breathe, for both tests. There was laughter and stompage. And a ribbon.

For
Ruby I maintained a sense of humor (I burst out laughing at the halt,
she was that foolish) and a good thing too because she was classically
squirmy for most of the test. And – we had ring stompage! One section down,
but a majority of feet remained in the ring and we were not
disqualified. Final score 54.0% from an Extreemely generous judge. It
won us a ribbon! Sixth place, because all the ribbons I have won since
I restarted this process are Sixth Place!

Penny behaved verrry
badly for Bob, cutting corners, failing to canter, breaking from the
canter and finally plowing right out of the ring to eliminate herself.
I hopped on her and spoke severely for a couple minutes, and we had
some much better moments in our test. Again, the judge was generous. Penny broke the canter in the first canter circle, and then we failed the
last canter depart in (because she was tired and it was in a
mud puddle) but there were some very nice trot circles, and the judge
gave us 7s (out of tens!!) for the free walk to med walk transition, and for both
changes of rein. Final score of 57.14%, which is waay better than we
deserved.

Someone, watching me fret yesterday, asked me why I put myself through this. I had to think about it, and I had to think about after I was done with the day.

 So: I compete because I like to know how I stack up. I
like to have a goal. I like dressing up in silly clothes and prancing
around on a pony. I actually like memorizing my test, and practicing
it. I hate the nerves beforehand, and I have trouble talking myself
down from them. Once I am riding, I like being watched, and even
judged, and I loove the comments, because the judge is routinely on your side – they want you to do well, and they are sad when things go wrong, and they have useful things to say about what to work on.