08/31/2025
The sport of Eventing is full of highs and lows, and when you are chasing big dreams with a talented but sensitive, young horse, you won’t be met with all wins on that path. Yesterday was our first intermediate at Seneca Valley. I was Thrilled with our first test as we are both new to the level. Salty was absolutely lovely and rideable and literally did everything I asked to the best of his ability. He left the arena feeling very proud of himself which is a huge win. We got a 36.8 with easy room for improvement as I refine my knowledge of the movements. A little secret: I have never actually been taught how to do an accurate and correct half pass, shoulder in, canter/walk transition, etc until this past week. I’ve just watched and done my best to recreate it on my own. So, I’m excited to fine tune both our skills moving forward knowing that he is both willing and capable. Aside from a terrible distance coming into a one stride in SJ (💯 my fault), Salty easily flew over his first competitive 1.20m course with one rail, again leaving the arena truly relaxed and proud of himself. I am very proud of Salty on xc even though we didn’t make it through. There’s no way to say it other than the jumps are huge and the questions demand accuracy. Those were absolutely the biggest jumps Salty has ever seen. I’m sorry, I have no interest in schooling 6’ wide intermediate level tables 🤷♀️. We got though all the big tables and challenging accuracy questions until the water (jumps 17abc of 22). Salty even dropped down into the water with essentially no hesitation, but final part of the combo was a tight line to a sharp angled corner on a left turn- all Salty’s (and my) challenges (water, skinny corners and right shoulder control). After the initial run out, there was really no reasonable way to represent. We tried, but it just wasn’t there for us. After running 3/4 of the course, Salty had already recovered by the time we got back to the trailers. So, even though we ended on a letter instead of a number, I am still very proud of my amazing young horse and know we are on the right track. We both just need a little more time and experience at the level.
