Start of the Season - Traveler does it again!

DCC Traveler (my trusty stallion) and I had a very exciting weekend in May. We competed in our first USEA Recognized event of the year at Northwest in the Novice division. This time we competed in the Open division.

We did it, we finished and we placed 8th and in the ribbons and prizes.

It was probably the best ride I have ever had on Traveler but competition was a lot more fierce in the Open division.

Traveler had a fantastic dressage score!! Dressage is really hard for us, so

that was thrilling. And Traveler jumped every jump, didn't hesitate.

Here is Traveler - strutting his stuff in dressage.  We remembered our test (always good), he didn't do a "stallion scream" during the test (which has happened in the past) and we got our best dressage score to date.  All those 20 meter circles are paying off.  

Dressage was Friday and Saturday was cross-country.  The day we all live for and the whole reason we practice our 20 meter circles - just to make it through dressage to get to cross-country.  What fun!  We had a great run - no refusals, no run-outs, nothing but the wind in our face as we took every jump in stride.  I love looking at the cross-country photos.  You can just see how happy Traveler is - he lives for this.  His ears are forward and he is seeking out the next fence and ready to tackle it.

And here we are crossing the finish line.  Now on to Sunday - stadium.  Definitely more pressure for us.  88 seconds to complete the whole course.

I think we jumped the height of the standards on this jump.  He wasn't going to take any chances.

But that's not all.... I ride under the barn, O'Neal Farms, and my instructor is Karen O'Neal. Her barn was chosen by the esteemed TV company FreeMantle Productions who has brought you such great reality shows such as American Idol and Dance Moms. (HA HA) - to film a pilot for a possible reality show on horses, people and eventing. 

So this weekend Traveler and I were followed around (as were a lot of people) by the TV crew and filmed. They filmed us finishing the cross-country course and doing our final jumps (thank goodness, I nailed those jumps really well.) The possibility of this pilot actually being picked up by the networks and aired as a TV show is not really that high, and I am certainly not the focus of the show. But it was exciting to be filmed by a TV crew and they were very interested in Traveler since he is such a different kind of horse. Let's at least hope Traveler makes it to TV.

What a surprising weekend. I will let you know what transpires in the future and if Traveler will get "famous". HA HA. What a hoot!

Now to go out and feed the horses.....