Elimination at Otter Creek
published 10/3/2007
by Taylor
We left Thursday morning for the Otter Creek Fall Horse Trials. It took us about 5 1/2 hours to get there, it was in Wheeler, Wisconsin. We unloaded the trailer and set up Jasper’s stall and got him fed and taken care of before we headed to the hotel. Friday morning we got up early to go feed him, it was really cold! I didn’t ride until 4:00pm, so we decided to go to FleetFarm to get some things. When we got back, I bathed Jasper, my mom braided him, I tacked him up and off we went for my dressage ride. We had a good ride and I thought Jasper was really good … apparently, the judge didn’t agree. We placed 13th after our dressage ride, there were 16 in my division.
Saturday, my cross-country ride was scheduled at 2:22. We got there early again to feed Jasper and then we went to walk my course. It was a huge course, many, many acres and I had 17 jumps to do. One was a ditch that I was worried about and 2 were through the water. After I walked my course, we watched the training level riders on cross-country. Then it was time to start getting ready. I was very, very nervous. Then it started to rain. It was pouring during my warm-up and Jasper was not being very good at all, it made me more nervous. It was our time to go and it was still raining pretty hard. We started out and Jasper was really good! We finished our course and went clean, I was very exited! By the time we were done and I got him back to his stall it was pouring even harder! So we sat in the tack stall until it was time to give Jasper his dinner. We fed him and headed home, but before we left took a look at my score to see where my standing was. I was so surprised to see a big “E” next to my name!! What?!? How did I get eliminated? We asked at the office to check for us. Then we found out I missed jump number 12. Wow, that sucks. I was pretty down. But then I kind of laughed at myself, I just couldn’t believe I missed a jump, especially because we had such a good ride and could have moved up in our placing.
I decided I would like to finish the event and do stadium jumping on Sunday for a schooling experience. So we found the ground judge and requested special permission for me to finish on Sunday.
Sunday morning was beautiful out. We went to feed Jasper and then went to walk the stadium course. It was a very pretty course. Then we watched some of the other riders. We sat there most of the morning and around lunch time, it started storming. Around 1:30, they decided to call the event and wherever you were in your placing is where you would stand. I kept telling my mom they should have a special category/ride for eliminees.
Overall, I had a great time! It was great to take Jasper out and it was good experience for both of us. It was also a good learning experience to be better prepared and know my course better and also that we need to continue to work on our dressage. I wanted to share this with all of you, because even though I got eliminated, it was a great experience! And I thought we should share more of our discouragements with each other, because that’s what makes us better.
Be sure to take a look some of our pictures in the gallery.