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Monday, November 15, 2010

Mario returns to the competition arena!!


Sunny showing some of the our winnings for the day....



You can tell I'm happy to have my competition partner back by the fact I'm hugging him!


What would normally be an unexciting day competing dressage was made very exciting this weekend by Mario's return to the show ring! Regular readers will remember back in April he injured himself and required some rehab and time away from jumping and the competition circuit. Whilst this is always disappointing with any horse it was even more so with him as he had had a great winter and was on fire to continue. I had big goals for him this year that we weren't able to get to unfortunately. As you may also remember this was pretty upsetting for me as I love all of my horses and invest a lot of personal time and effort into them, it's not just a job for me. Therefore you can imagine my excitement being able to compete him again finally. I was so excited I was even EARLY! I can honestly say, and my students can attest to it, have NEVER been early in my life! Anyhow he won a third and was very happy to be back out as a show horse. Add to this I unexpectedly ran into a friend I haven't seen for a long time (Mary-Beth) and I had a great start to the show.

The best part of the day however was the performance of Cole. He typically finds the dressage very tough and we've been working extremely hard on it. Finally it's paying off with a 3rd at second level and a good score and a 1st in the CIC 2 Star test. For this I must thank EEM event management having the foresight to offer eventing tests of choice. It is SO useful to be able to get the eventers out to dressage to work on that phase alone. On that same page I also think it's important to compete in pure jumping as well which is exactly what I'm doing this week. Cole, Ti, Mario and I are heading to Raleigh SJ in NC. I went to this show last year and found it extremely useful as the courses are BIG and technical. And competing against showjumpers adds a whole new perspective that I love. An added bonus is that my showjump trainer, Marilyn Meredith-Little, will be there and will be able to offer invaluable feedback about my actual competition rounds.

Next week I'll have the round up from that show and hopefully some photos so please keep checking back in.

3 comments:

Ross Martin said...

Katie Chadderton: You are a dead set legend.

Cheers Big Ears Ross Martin

marg said...

Great to hear of Mario's successful rehabilitation. Very excitiing!! Well done to all involved!!
Best of luck for the Raleigh show-jumping.
Will Mario jump at this stage??

Aslo White said...

Awesome!!! And so handy to have a ribbon-carrier...you may need to get a second dog to hold them all!