To qualify for the AECs at the beginner novice level you must place 5th or higher at any 2 recognized events with no cross country jumping penalties. To qualify for the Adult Team Challenge you must have completed 3 recognized events with no cross country jumping penalties.
This seems pretty straight forward. I've never placed below 7th at any event I've been to and I'd been doing quite well in the schooling shows, even winning 2 of them! Not a bad track record for our first year out. Our first speed bump was that the decision to qualify for the AECs was made in February of this year. This gave me relatively little time to get the qualifications because the qualifying period started in July 2014 and only goes till September 15 of this year. Recognized shows don't happen every weekend and we missed a lot of good ones in the fall season. On top of that they are much more expensive than little schooling shows, with a lot stiffer competition.
So with our sights set on trying our best to even just make it to the AECs, I formulated a plan. Pine Hill in April, Texas Rose in June, Corona Del Sol in August. At this point you may be thinking, slow down just a gosh darn minute! I thought you needed two shows with a 5th place or higher. Why would you only put 3 shows on your calendar? Great question! I wasn't really thinking about it that way at first. I needed to step down off my high horse and realize that in no way am I ever guaranteed a top 5 finish, especially not at a show where everyone comes with their guns out ready to smash out their best test ever. Oh, not to mention I get a big case of pre-show nerves just on the drive to the show, and I'll be showing places I've never been before. All of these things are reasons we decided I should try to qualify for the AECs, but all of these things also have the potential to get in my head and make me perform at less than my best.
So, as they often do, plans changed. In March I got my tax return and decided it was off to Texas Rose we go! Fancy clothes, check. Fancy pony, check. Truck and trailer, check. I decided to put even more pressure on myself before this show by making Panda homeless. We had moved out of our other barn but hadn't quite moved into our new barn so he was living at our trainer's barn for a week of pre-show boot camp while his stuff was living... a little bit of everywhere. My trailer doesn't have a tack room so tack lived in my car, at home, in the storage unit, outside his temporary stall, and even some things, in the horse part of the trailer. So off to Texas Rose we head. And I really mean we. The whole gang was along for the ride, boyfriend, dogs, pony, every bit of tack I owned.
The drive was easy; few turns, not much traffic, got to stop at Buccee's. The facility was absolutely to die for with the big barns, rolling hills, lovely arenas, and people everywhere. Within 3 hours of arriving there had already been tears at least twice; once trying to coordinate with my trainers about course walks and warm up rides, and then the fact that there wasn't a hose at the wash racks (no worries, my middle name is over prepared). Without a complete blow by blow, I was really excited to find that I had every piece of equipment I needed and more. I also realized how heavily I struggle with show nerves and that the pressure I put on myself is enormous. We had a lot of fun. I bawled my eyes out after dressage for no particular reason and found out how proud my dressage coach is of me (I was almost done crying and then that made me cry all over again!). I had 2 really tumultuous jump warm ups. Luckily Panda is a cross country machine and told me to get out of his way while he did his job. Unluckily I had placed the fear of God in myself over a particularly colorful jump in stadium at which I basically stopped panda and then asked him to jump, which he did, but took a rail down with him. That rail was the thing that stopped us from getting 5th and ended us in 7th. But boy was it a learning experience! I will forever be glad of the decision I made to take my trainers' advice and go outside my comfort zone.
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| The only picture of Panda and I at Texas Rose |
All of the stress and anxiety I experienced at Texas Rose made my next show, Pine Hill, feel like a walk in the park! My friend Jen went with me and took her horse Bam so that made it even more fun, although her weekend ended less successfully than mine. Pine Hill runs their shows all in one day, unlike most other recognized shows, which run over 2 or 3 days. So while Pine Hill had it's own special kind of stress, it has been our home for so long that I felt pretty calm and cool compared to the inner tension I felt at Texas Rose. We scored a 29 in dressage which was quite exciting indeed. Our stadium round was solid. But it was our cross country round that really made me realize how much of a beast Panda is. We were held at jump 3 due to a rider falling on course. I was a little nervous about how Panda would take the pause in the action, but when we were told to continue he had a "Let me at 'em" attitude. A few jumps were the same as last year's course so when we got to those he tried to go on the old track. I couldn't believe he remembered it! His crowning achievement of that weekend was jumping the coal train car. It was a jump built to look like a coal train car with coal rock and everything. We had never schooled it, and a large crowd had gathered in the field because it was claiming quite a lot of victims. I remember breaking out into the field and knowing we were a jump away from it and just thinking in my head, "we are going to jump this if it is the last thing I do." I gritted my teeth and headed straight for it and panda sailed right over it without batting an eye. The whole crowd erupted into a cheer as we galloped off to complete the course and I had the biggest smile on my face for the rest of the ride. Good man Panda poo. We placed third overall.
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| Panda not liking his sleazy at Pine Hill |
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| Panda after seeing the vet and getting some Banamine |
Aside from being known as the girl who was sitting on a rock crying while waiting for the vet, I had a wonderful time. I made a lot of new friends and developed a lot of self confidence. I also walked the cross country course 6 times because the first 3 times I got lost. We put in our best dressage score to date, a 27.8. We dropped a rail in stadium because I made a dumb decision not to fix his lead and he cross cantered up to jump 2. Apparently some sort of demon was chasing us (me) during cross country because we came in 1 minute and 7 seconds UNDER optimum time which gave us 5.4 time faults. Oops. I was wearing my watch and everything, I was just too preoccupied with not getting lost and Panda did not understand the twists and turns of the course so I had to keep convincing him to let me steer. We ended in third at this show too, behind 2 of our new friends!
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| New friends and a great time |
With those 3 shows under our belts I feel more prepared than I thought I would to compete at the AECs. I can't believe I qualified in such a short time. I left room for more shows if necessary (this weekend is another TX Rose show, a few weeks from now is another Corona show, and in August there's ANOTHER Corona Show) but I am completely blown away at how well Panda has been able to do. I feel that I am working really hard and I feel that he is a perfect partner for me, but for our results to prove that time and time again is mind boggling to me. I'm so used to coming from the hunters where everything is so political. I feel like I'm living in a dream, my own dream! We will be shooting for another run before the AECs and several more schooling days. Stay tuned. Panda and I are officially on the #roadtotheaecs.
Please go check out our GoFundMe page for information on how to help us achieve this monumental goal. It is expensive to enter and travel to these shows and any little bit helps. We've already gotten $100 toward our goal through GoFundMe and another $250 private donation. I am offering rewards for different levels of help. Stay tuned for more on our never ending journey!
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