The Horse Course (Riding)

We got to have a little warm up time before doing our riding course on Friday afternoon. Our draw had us going 8th, which was a little better than 2nd! I was ready to get it over with. I had more confidence in our riding that the in-hand, so I felt we would have a good chance at making the top ten at this point. When we entered the ring, we had to do a 90 second freestyle, then go through the obstacle course. Our freestyle time went well, we did canter circles, our flying lead changes, backing, trotting, and 360 pivots. He was a star going through the course, he is so good at obstacles, stood for mounting, trotted and cantered on cue and didn't run out of his canter circle. Backing up through the turn was a little close, but we didn't hit a pole, we went over the bridge with no problem, trotted right over the W poles, did our 360 and left the ring. I felt we did well.

The youth in-hand was after that, they made us wait until after the youth competition was over before they finally announced the results of the top 10 idols who would be in the finals! We were dying to find out, and when they announced it, all of our supporters erupted in cheering!! We made the top 10!!! Yay! Actually we placed 6th in the horse course, and our combined score placed us 5th overall.