Pipestave Horse Trials

Otis and I competed in our first event of the season on July 7th at the Pipestave Hill Horse Trials in West Newbury, MA. We entered the "Grasshopper" two phase division since we have not yet had a chance to school cross country. I really want to do some schooling before we enter another three phase.

We trailered in with my friend Liz who was in the beginner novice division so we got to the show grouds a while before our 11:00 dressage time. It was going to be a super hot day so we parked the horses in a shady spot near some trees and I set Otis up with his hay net and some water.

Otis had never been to this venue before, so I walked him around the grounds a bit and then walked him over to one of the dressage rings to watch Liz and Dreamy perform a lovely test.

Once it was time for us to get ready for dressage I peeled on my breeches, tacked Otis up, and gulped some gatorade. Otis was a bit tense and disctracted in the warm up, but otherwise very well behaved. I walked him over to the dressage ring to wait our turn, and got to see Liz and Dreamy jump their final jump in their cross country round. Otis was very good for our dressage test. He was still a bit disctracted looking at all of the sites and sounds, so it wasn't one of our best tests, but he was very good. We ended up in first place at the end of the dressage round!

We had three hours in between our dressage and the scheduled time for stadium but I noticed they were running about a half hour ahead of schedule so I tacked Otis up early so if we got the chance to jump early we could head home earlier than planned.

He did a pretty huge bunny hop over our first practice fence, but was really good for the rest. It was so hot out, so I didn't want to over do it in the warm up. I told the ring steward we were ready to go, and waited our turn. Otis was awesome for the staduium course. He bunny hopped the first jump, but did the rest of them really well. He was getting a bit crooked in between the fences, but I was able to straighten him out in time to make it over the fences. I think he was just getting really excited everytime he landed that he wasn't really paying attention to where we were going next! I exited the ring with a big smile on my face! What a fun round!

With our clean stadium round we were able to stay in first place and take home a blue ribbon! Despite the heat we had such a fun day, and I am defintely ready to do some more eventing this summer! There is a cross country and stadium schooling day coming up in a couple of weeks at this same venue, so I am hoping to attend that, and hopefully enter a three phase in August!

Otis showing off his ribbon!