Mystic Valley Hunt Club Summer Premier

Since my plans to take Jampy to Vermont were foiled by Rio's current hoof situation, I decided to find a one day show to take Jamp to this weekend instead. Mystic Valley Hunt Club was hosting one on Sunday which was perfect. MVHC is about 35 minutes from my farm, and very easy to get to. Plus my classes were first on the schedule so I'd still have a whole Sunday to do chores and what-not when I got back.
I went back and forth on whether or not to braid. I ALWAYS braid for an A show. Generally I do not for B or C shows (this was a C). But I also really was hoping to show in the New England Medal and get qualified for finals. Unfortunately when I kept checking horseshows.com, I was the only one entered in all of my classes. Ugh. Usually this might make me skip the show all together, but I really needed to take Jamp someplace to jump around before Connecticut finals which are coming up soon. Plus, exhibitors often wait to enter until they get to the show for these little one days, so I was hopeful some more adult riders would show up. Just in case though, I decided not to braid. No point getting up at 4 am (instead of 5, because that's such a HUGE difference.... eye roll) if I didn't have anyone to compete against.
My helper (and photographer, photo creds to her for today's pictures), Jamp, and I arrived at 7:30 and there was only one other trailer there. That's not a good sign! I went to the office to pick up my number and was told, yep, just me in the adult eq classes. But that they would run them if I wanted to show anyway. So I said sure.

 We got Jamp off the trailer, and boy was he being a nudge! He didn't want to stand still, was kicking at the flies, and just being a general naughty pants. So on the lunge line he went. Where he proceeded to trot around like a 30 year old school pony. Giving up on that endeavor, I got on and headed into the show ring. This little show allows schooling in the ring before classes start, so I was able to jump around and make sure Jamp wasn't going to pull the runaway train impression he tried at Westbrook. He was surprisingly agreeable. After the warm up, I spoke with the gate keeper. I wanted to let him know I didn't need to do all 5 classes, that I just wanted to jump around and do what was necessary to qualify for the Stirrup Cup Classic they were offering. He said all I had to do was the flat and one jumping, so that's what we wound up doing.

Since there were no other competitors... we won all of our classes! Woohoo? The fence class was really pretty sub-par but through no fault of Jamp's. I got a little deep to a couple jumps, nothing terrible though. The bad part was when I almost jumped the wrong 3rd jump! I had to circle to get back to the correct fence 3. But otherwise the course was fine.

The flat went well too. It was nice of the judge to pretend she was testing me by having me sit the trot both directions.
The stirrup cup classic had some fancy prizes, which I couldn't believe they awarded given I had no competition. But I'll take it! I won a saddle pad, a leather lead shank with a solid brass chain, and not one ribbon, but TWO! A blue one for winning and a champion also for winning, I guess? I don't really know. But I'll take it! You can see all my loot in the photo at the top of this post.

Have you ever competed against no one? Do you find your less focused when you know you can't lose? I was. I need a little drive from other riders!