Fairfield County Hunt Club August Horse Show Day 1

Sorry I've been MIA for a little bit and missed Thursday's Threads last week! But I was playing horse show with Jampy from Thurs through Saturday, and it was completely exhausting. COMPLETELY! I swear my next horse will not require so much prep. ((yawn))
The days were so long, I figured I'd split them each into their own post. Partially because I don't want to bore you all at once... and also because I haven't gotten around to uploading video yet. #procrastinationstation
In years past, I haven't shown at the Fairfield horse show itself, I normally would just show up on Saturday for my medal final. But last year's misadventures taught me that Jamp needed to spend some more time on the show grounds. Ideally I would have gotten him a stall, me a hotel room, and the equine at home a sitter. But we don't live in an ideal world, and I'm still not comfortable leaving Rio and his fleshy foot home alone.  So trekking back and forth an hour and ten minutes each way it had to be. (And that was if there wasn't traffic. Which there was. Every direction.)
So Day 1 started bright and early, though was the latest of the mornings sadly. I got up at 5:00 to braid Jampy and be on the road by 7. He looked pretty cute:

Originally I thought we would show fairly early, around 10:30 or so. But apparently the children's hunter division grew three fold and we didn't go until around 2. Long day of waiting around, that's for sure. Without any warm up classes for my trainer to jump around first, I was a little nervous that Jampy would pull some spooky antics. But he didn't! He went around quite nicely, and even managed to earn a 6th place out of 21 horses in the adult hunters! I was proud given his non-huntery way of going. He did however fall off his lead behind in both classes in the same spot. Apparently the judge didn't see it in the second class (the one he got the ribbon for). That's Jamp though. He can't just behave. Always has to throw something in there.

After the hunter classes, we had a bit of a break before my New England medal class. I REALLY needed to win that class to get qualified for finals in October. And it's getting tough to find horse shows that can fill the class! No pressure though, right?
Finally after all the waiting, I got on around 4. Jamp warmed up fine, and we went in the ring. The shadows were all different now since the sun was getting lower and he was a little spooky to the first jump. He didn't get too crazy, but did jump up a little extra high. The rest of the course went smoothly, with just a little bit of a tight take off to the last jump. I was pretty confident I wasn't going to win, but was hopeful I'd at least get some points toward qualifying. But alas, the judge must have seen something I wasn't aware of because we got nothing out of 10 riders. I was pretty disappointed. I can lose pretty gracefully, but honestly this time, I'm just confused as to why. I really didn't make any very major mistakes. Jamp even stayed on all of his leads! Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

The drive home was long due to rush hour traffic. I think we arrived home around 6:30. I cleaned out the trailer, tucked Jampy in, took care of Rio and Ducky, fed everyone... And finally went to bed at 10:30. Day two to come soon!