Fairfield County Hunt Club August Horse Show: Day 2

Confession: I only unbraided the top portion of Jamp's mane on Thursday night. I'm always very against leaving the braids in... except when it means I can sleep until 4 AM. My alarm went off at 4 (instead of 3:30!) Friday morning, so I could put the braids I took out back in. We had to leave by 5:30 for the 7:30 start time I thought I had.... Yeah. Prize list said 7:30 and the website made no mention of any changes. But apparently the ring started at 8. Oh well. Gave me extra time to lunge anyway!
My first class was the CHJA medal which would count toward qualifying for next year's finals. It was a big class with 17 in it. Our trip went well, just a little deep to the last jump. (Anyone notice a pattern here?) This class also has a flat phase that counts 50%. Unfortunately, Mr Lead Swapper fell off his lead in the flat phase for two strides and the judge saw. Boo. No prize for us. On the bright side, it did help us with operation get Jamp tired for Saturday.

Next up were two more adult hunter classes. And this is where it gets entertaining! We schooled fine and were waiting at the in gate for our turn. When I see the gate keeper, Russell, bend down and pick up a shoe. Looked an awful lot like Jamp's shoe. My trainer was staring at his feet and said, "yes, that's yours." Ugh. So I had to hop off and drag Jamp over to get it put back on. ALLL the way on the other side of the horse show grounds. Thankfully there were 21 horses in our classes so we made it back in plenty of time.
The first class started out fine.... but then when I came around to the outside line by the judge, I only half asked Jamp to move up to a longer distance. He hesitated, felt like he was adding one more step, but then just left the ground. It was startling! Even the judge exclaimed something along the lines of "Oh dear!". For real. I heard him! We recovered quickly though, and the rest of the trip was fine. OBVIOUSLY kept us out of the ribbons. But at least we only embarrassed ourselves once. Here you can watch:

The second class was nearly perfect. Right up until the last line. I found the right distance into the line, but Jampy got a little lazy and rubbed the top rail. It stayed up so no big deal really. He covered the seven strides perfectly, left the ground at the oxer, and knocked it down. Trainer said he just got lazy. Hey, at least it wasn't my fault this time! So no ribbons to take home on Saturday, but we did accomplish our goal of getting Jamp acclimated to the show grounds. (And maybe, just maybe, quiet!)

We sat in traffic for a bit on the way home, but not terrible. I think we were back around 1:30. Which was nice. Once home, I unbraided Jamp (fully this time) and gave him a bath so he'd be squeaky clean for finals on Saturday.  Did all the other necessities (rode Ducky, took care of Rio, cleaned the tack, etc, etc) and finally saw my bed around 9:30 pm.
Saturday morning came early! We'll talk about that tomorrow...