Grace Fulton has kindly agreed to do a few guest blogs for us, featuring her experience at her first Training 3-Day at Waredaca this weekend. Thirteen-year-old Grace was recently crowned the winner of the PRO Professional Junior Young Rider Training Scholarship Program, as well as being featured in our new series, EN’s Rising Stars two weeks ago. Thank you to Grace for writing this, and thanks for reading.
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The best way for me to entertain myself during long trot and canter sets is (obviously) taking artsy shots of the horses ears and beautiful fields.
From Grace:
As eventers, we all know that the preparation for a horse trials- or T3D- begins far before the jog outfit selection, the trailer cleaning, pre-packing, tack cleaning, packing, getting directions, or the ever-popular last minute packing. It starts with the formation of a plan, proceeds into the execution of that plan, and inevitably ends with the after-perfect-execution-of-plan-party. The formation of said plan usually starts at the beginning of each year, taking into account what qualifications are needed for your goals, your horse’s soundness, your budget, etc., etc.
Like most people, I set my goals back in December and January of last year, completed the qualifications throughout 2012, and now I am unpacking and setting up at the place I was aiming to be all this time. However, now that we are here, and having seen the course for the past few years, I can now set more specific goals. Leaving the show on Saturday morning via trailer and not ambulance would be great, but of course I hate to set the bar too high. There is always the possibility of getting lost in any of the three phases, going too fast or slow on A,B,C, or D, knocking rails, or receiving a less than optimal dressage score, and I usually end up with at least one humbling moment.
Leo the Lionhearted all settled in at Waredaca
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Yesterday I was very impressed with myself when I was sitting next to Yvette Seger at a dinner lecture, recognized her (with the assistance of some medical armband stalking), and worked up the nerve to ask her if she was indeed the famed EN Blogger- as in “THE Yvette Seger.” Luckily she was, and I was saved from weeklong embarrassment.
As for now, we passed the first jog with flying colors, walked the course, drove the roads and tracks, and even made an attempt at hacking them (cue Leo losing his cookies because of horses in a field that apparently look like cows). This would have been a prime example of the previously mentioned humbling moment, but no one but my dad and his horse were there to witness what could have been my untimely death. Now on to the best part – (not dressage) endurance day, where we will surely have a great time.
Leo is fit, we are both ready, and more than excited, which is all I can ask.
