United States Eventing Association

On the Road with El Dorado - Part 5

Despite having a few roller coaster works in the last week before the big event, Dorado’s first show went off without a hitch! I was beaming when we took our victory lap at the end – even though we were at the end of the line! – because he made it through the day in a great mental and physical state, and put his heart into it 100%.

The morning started with an uneventful trailer ride to the farm. When we arrived, I took my ‘baby’ off the trailer and let him look around. Boy, did he look around! He was enamored at the sight of all the “new friends” walking around. I could see the wheels in his head turning as he tried to take everything in all at once!

After taking a few minutes to settle in, we tacked up and headed for the warm-up arena. We got there very early in comparison to our ride time, but I wanted to give him a good opportunity to settle in to the arena setting before asking him to work. Plus, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from him in an arena with dozens of horses walking, trotting, and cantering around him.

For the first few minutes, the ‘OTTB’ in him made a stunning appearance! He tried as hard as he could to convince me that we needed to chase every single horse that passed him in the arena. While I appreciated his suggestions, I explained to him that we wouldn’t be able to play race horse today…we had another task at hand. At length, he began to see my point of view and settled down.

We took a few short breaks to breathe during our warm up, but we were as ready as we were going to be when our ride time arrived. Dorado, much to my delight, didn’t look cross-eyed at the big truck the judge was seated in and he trotted right down the centerline. He held it together for most of the test with only one major bobble, which came in the depart for the right lead canter. He wasn’t on the bit and he wasn’t moving as well as he could have, but for his first test on his first trip off the farm, I was absolutely thrilled with his effort! The judge rewarded his attempt at a test with a 51.1.

After the long walk back to the trailer, Dorado got a quick break before we tacked up for cross-country. This was the part I had been waiting for all week. He gets so excited when we school cross-country at home, so I hoped that that enthusiasm would carry over to the event. Guess what…it did! The course was short and the jumps were low, but Dorado had a blast! His ears were perked the whole time and he was searching for his jumps. And, true to his schooling form, he pulled me around the course from beginning to end. He wanted to keep going at the end…I can’t wait to get him on a longer course.

He came out of cross-country really well. He was starting to get a little tired, but we only had show jumping left, and I thought he could handle it. I thought that I was going to have to ride him hard over a few of the brightly colored fences. Yes, I have painted poles at home, but nothing like what lay before us. I didn’t want to tire him out in warm up, so I only took a few jumps. As we entered the arena, I knew that there were just eight jumps standing in the way of Dorado finishing his first event on his Dressage score.

Jumps one and two went off without a hitch. Jump three was a red flowerbox. If you remember the last blog entry, you’ll understand why I was partially dreading this fence! Much to my delight, though, he cruised right over it. The small oxer at four was no problem, and even the tall, bright blue and yellow vertical at five presented no problem. But jump six…oh jump six! I felt him backing off from the multi-colored oxer about four strides out. I drove with my leg and seat – no response. I moved to my stick – small response. By now, we were two strides out and I thought he was going to stop. As a last resort, I went to the voice. A rather loud voice. A voice that left my father, my groom Jody, and my friend Judy teasing me about it the ENTIRE ride home.

But the voice worked.

It was nothing near graceful, but he somehow made it over – diagonally and clearing it by about two feet – and he left all the rails in the cups. Now what I failed to mention a few sentences ago was that jump six was part of a related line. Not technically a combination, but a related distance. The next move he made convinced me that he’s playing the right game now.

After his effort over jump six, I found myself a little off kilter as we landed. Time moved in slow motion as I realized I had about four strides to get him from past the left wing of jump six to the middle – or at least the left edge – of jump seven. I balanced myself first – two strides. Now, there was little I could do to prevent it if he’d wanted to run out, but I glued my attention to jump seven and wished upon a star that he would at least consider it.

I almost started crying as he saved my butt by putting himself back in line with the jump and clearing it gracefully. Now, there was one jump left and it was just a plain white oxer. One jump away from finishing with no jumping faults. By now, his energy had dwindled and I could feel that he was running near empty. We took a slow canter up to the fence, he spotted it, and locked on.

The rest is history.

Even though we finished fourth - last in our division (yes, behind the 10 year olds…) - I couldn’t be more proud of him as we loped around the lap of honor. Nine months ago, Dorado almost died from Potomac Horse Fever. At the beginning of 2009, it took me two weeks to get him over a ground pole after someone tried to beat him over it. He jumped his very first, teeny-tiny jump a month ago. And even though he was beat by the end of the day, he gave every jump 110%. He showed his heart that day…he never gave up.

Dorado recovered quickly – both mentally and physically – and has resumed training as we prepare for the next one. I can’t wait to get out there again. We both have so much fun! The Dressage will be better so we’ll be more competitive, but either way, we did it. He finished his first event!!!

Keep a leg on each side,

Erica and Dorado