2nd show - Mission Accomplished

I've got a silly grin on my face, and I think it's gonna take a few days to wear off. Our 2nd show went absolutely FABULOUS!!!

Goal #1 for Bohemian and I to have a good time - check! Goal #2 for me to *not* fall off - check!

We did 3 cross-rail classes, then we had to leave before we could try our hand at the 2' division, so that Laurie could take another gal from the barn to her dressage show. We did a non-judged schooling round, a hunter round (which we got disqualified from because I had splint boots on Hemie - oops!), and an equitation round (I didn't place, but I was competing against 8-year-olds on their push button warmbloods =P ). Our first ribbon still eludes us, but I'm in no hurry.

Okay, here's the photos:

Lovely facility, nestled in the Santa Paula valley just east of Ventura.

Clearly I need to work on my facial expression while jumping. But Hemie looks great!

One of the Strad Farms chipmunks!

I know I am biased but...OMG my husband and my horse look SO GOOD! Like male models! <3

Now for the exciting video...of crossrails. I'm sure it will be up there on your YouTube list with the Rolex and Olympics vids. Woo.  ;)  You can watch below, or there's a link. If you go to YouTube, click the "cog" on the bottom of the video towards the right, and increase quality to maximum. Video was taken with good resolution. =]

Or visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ-HyEEw_ZM&feature=youtu.be

I don't care that these jumps were tiny - I'm so proud of us. We got through 3 rounds (we didn't do any warm-up jumping before the schooling round, as the jumps were not set up yet in the warm-up ring!). We had no refusals, no meltdowns, minimal squirming and stickiness, and each round improved upon the last. Hemie was totally calm the entire time, including lots of standing around and waiting.

Thank you so much to J.D. for taking the amazing photos and for all your help and support today! Thanks to my amazing husband, Rick, for coming out to watch and for taking the video. Thanks to Laurie, our amazing trainer, and thanks to Laura for being a super fun show partner - you and Pascal looked great! Also thanks to Mike Levy and Steve Cross for putting on a good show (each one improves greatly over the last). The facility's website is: http://stradfarms.com/.