This Is How We Do It

After a fantastic week back in NC (which included falling off Freddie, Holly's four year old TB, incurring a painfully scratched elbow on my part) Allie, Maxine and I headed up to the Maryland HT II at Loch Moy  competing in Training, Novice and Prelim respectively. Allie and I charged ahead on Friday afternoon to set up our stalls in the surprisingly wonderful stabling. Then we each headed out to do our own course walks to get an idea of the course and specifically where we would need to walk with Holly to get some necessary pointers.
We then tacked up to do a school mostly working on getting basics established (bend, connection, etc) so that the following days would go well. The next morning Maxine and I schooled a bit when Allie did her pre-warm up ride, and while walking back to stabling Maxine and I met what turned out to be our lucky charm, Patrick the CWD guy.
I spent the rest of the day grooming for Allie and running into friends while Maxine took on her nanny job full force while watching Hailey. Allie finished 6th in her division ending on her dressage score of 39.1
Next day was an early one. I rode Apollo at 6 am to get any jitters out so that he could focus on me in our actual warm up. He wasn't in my right hand, an ongoing issue that we're working on, so the ride involved a lot of dramatic bending and moving of his haunches to get him straight. We were still working on that in our warm up but it was a lot better.
Our dressage test was one of my better ones. Although he did get tight in some of the transitions, overall it was a large improvement from what he has been doing.
2 double clear jumping rounds later Apollo and I ended on our dressage score of 39.6 putting me in 5th out of about 25. So now i've gotten a 5th, 6th and 7th at prelim!
Our little girl Maxine also had a fantastic day ending on her dressage of 39.1 (which all of us, except her, were convinced she and Ned Divine could do) earning her 2nd place at her first show with Ned!
With all 3 of us ribboning (and strangely ending with the same dressage score even though we had different judges at different levels) I think it was a fantastic weekend for the Holly Hudspeth Working Students.
P.S. With my pink ribbon and light green dressage test looked like baby HCH colors, then with Allie's green and Maxine's red ribbons we were just representing HCH all over the place!!