Show season has officially begun, kicking off this weekend in Tyler, Texas (shout out Patrick Mahomes) at the beautiful Texas Rose Horse Park! We couldn’t have asked for better weather or more perfect footing and courses. It was a great weekend and the horses came out of the winter feeling fresh and ready to tackle another great season!
Hennessy Venom (“Vinny”) made the move up to novice this weekend, easily finishing on his dressage score for 3rd place in the Novice Horse division. While we heading into the weekend expecting him to jump clean, the biggest win of all was his calm and cool demeanor in dressage and his ability to keep his head on in the warmups. For a spicy, baby OTTB who still has the occasional track flashbacks in the warmups, he has improved leaps and bounds over the winter and we are so excited for what’s to come from him this season!
Hugo Boss (“Huey”) was out in force this weekend with his new leaser and they were absolutely on fire for Ava’s move-up debut to training level. I really want to praise this young rider for a minute. She is so mature beyond her years, both mentally and as a rider, and she has really taken the time to adjust and learn how to ride Huey in a very short time. Huey is very experienced, but he is not an easy ride. Within days of putting her mare to sleep (former sales horse Bust A Move, “Winnie”), Ava was stoically doing the work and taking my direction to figure out Huey and all of his quirks. I have never seen her get frustrated, or break down, or pitch a fit when things aren’t going her way and for that reason she continues to improve weekly. All of her effort through the winter cumulated to this weekend’s result, easily finishing on her dressage score for 7th place in a competitive training rider division. I have no doubt that with more time together, these two will be unstoppable this season and I’m so excited to cheer them on along the way.
I can’t thank everyone enough who makes these weekends so much fun. From the familiar faces catching up about life and horses in the warm-ups, to the barn family parked all over course for video and woo-ing as we go around, to the parents beaming ear to ear as they support their kids dreams, to Rick Dunkerton who probably answers a million emails a week, to the organizers for letting us still get out and about, to the kids running around with their dogs, and of course my amazing mother who remains my number one cheerleader… all weekend I looked around and basked in it, thinking about how blessed I feel to do this… we have a very unique sport and it’s weekends like this that I remember why I love it so, so much. All in all it was truly an amazing weekend out eventing and we are looking forward to doing it again at Holly Hill in a few weeks! 