Pony Finals

I flew to Kentucky the week before USEF Pony Finals. We usually drive to shows hauling the horses but this time I flew and a hauler brought Bear and Biscuit. When we got there we filled the stalls with shavings and hay. The grounds were stunning and huge. On the first day I just hacked Bear and Biscuit. They were both good but a bit spooky as there was a lot to look at. The next day I showed Bear. It was very hard because he was spooking on one side of the ring and I kept getting scared and pulling him out of the two stride. I finally got him nice and soft while we were hacking in the fields. On Thursday I showed Bear in a different ring. He felt strong and I tried to halt him but I honestly lost my temper a bit and I should have been softer. I felt so bad about being so harsh and I was very upset. Then I calmed down by cantering him through the fields and trotting through the pretty cross country ponds with my friend Violet. The next day we pulled it together and got 8th out of 46 in our division. Unfortunately during the week of Pony Finals we were not allowed to hack on the cross country course. I finally got to let Biscuit see the course after many times just hacking. It was a schooling round. You have 90 seconds to jump whatever you want. I was really stressed about the time and Biscuit picked up on my nerves. We galloped around and I almost couldn't stop. I ended in tears. The next day Biscuit was good but we had a rail because I didn't use my leg as much as I needed. Bear and I hacked in the Walnut ring and he was amazing. The lines were easy because the ring is so huge. He was soft and felt beautiful. I was so excited to show him. The next day I showed Biscuit and we were clear and fast. The course was fun and pretty long. On the day that I showed Bear and Biscuit, I woke up very nervous. I showed in the model very early in the morning. I was super nervous. I went into the ring for my first model and he was standing perfectly but I was nervous so I kept tugging at him and making him stand badly. He has perfect conformation so if I had stood him up well I could have won it. I ended up with scores of 80.63, 80.00, 81.35 (Total 241.98) which is still really good. Next was the undersaddle which was amazing. He was great and we got scores of 84.87, 88.75, and 83.10. I was so happy with my boy. The next day, Biscuit was great and we went clear with a fast time. Our team went clear every day but the other teams had an advantage because they had teams of four so they got to pick the worst round to not count. If they all went clear like us, they picked the slowest time to not count. We ended up 5th and I was very happy with that. I didn’t qualify for the individuals because of my rail on the first day. Then I had my jumping with Bear in the huge Rolex ring. I was so nervous I thought that I was going to throw up. I was shaking and partly paralyzed. It went in a blur but Bear was amazing and every jump, lead change, and transition was perfect. We got 5th and were in the total lead for a while with a total score of 1007.48 points. We got 6th overall and won High Score Green Welsh Pony. I was amazed. I have the best pony in the whole world and we made our dream come true.