Thursday, June 22, 2017

Guess Who's a Superstar??

This weekend past, Mr. Ritchie headed back to Langley with Jessica to show third level at Thunderbird's GOLD show.  You can absolutely call me a PROUD MAMA, because they came home with RESERVE CHAMPION open third level!  They missed out on champion by only 0.2%!!  Had they scored 1% higher on any of their three tests, they would have taken the cooler home.  This was only their second ever show together, their very first gold show, and there is no sign of them slowing down. 


Langley was wet and moderately unpleasant during the three-day show but Ritchie showed what an "old pro" he is already at 7 years old.  He stayed with Jessica, who recently had a fall off a training horse, and did what he was asked to do. 
He placed first in both of his third level-test 2 tests.  Sunday he rode test 3 for the first time and, although he maintained a fantastic score of 64%, he placed third.  My question to Jess each day was "Did you have fun??"  "YES!!" was always the ecstatic answer.  With that kind of enjoyment, it doesn't matter to me if they came in first or last.  The fact is they're having fun!  All of the pretty ribbons and prizes are just icing on the cake.

Since then, Jessica has advised me that we need to do one more gold show at third level as it will qualify them for a number of awards with Equestrian Canada. 

She's also been invited to California for September as a working student.  When she asked if she could take Ritchie down with her, my answer was an immediate "Of course!!"  We'll make it happen as it's an incredible working experience for both of them. 

I miss my horse but I'm having a bunch of fantastic adventures myself... stay tuned!!

And Happy Horseing!