OHJA Medal Finals: Day 2

 For the lower medals (the 2'3" and the 2'6") the third and final round is held on the flat. There were enough entries in the 2'6" to separate them out into a junior and adult divisions, so I hopped on about half way through the junior division while the adults were finishing their warm up. We were riding in the big hunter derby ring and the warm up for that ring was a bit small. It was chaotic with the 2'6" adults and the 13 in my class all trying to ride at the same time. There was a couple of ponies I was sure I was going to run over, and apparently no one knows how to pass left shoulder to left shoulder anymore. Thank god no one was jumping or there would have been accidents for sure. 

The judge was calling for a lot of sitting trot and transitions between trot and canter in the 2'6" classes, so Trainer M had me doing that in our warm up. Maya's trot is not the most comfortable, and my back wasn't super happy with all the sitting trot. But she was listening well and I felt as ready as possible heading into the ring. 

The derby ring has really nice new footing that makes the footing in the other hunter rings look like absolute shit in comparison. I hope they replace the other footing with this for next year. 

The flat ended up being one of the most brutal flat classes I've ever ridden. There was a lot of sitting trot, lengthening the trot, two canters each direction, and basically no walk except to change direction. Going right the judge had us lengthen the canter. I was just behind a group of about 4 horses that were on the rail going past the judge and my first thought was "This could be very bad". I turned on the quarter line to try and avoid the pile up but as I was passing a couple of horses, I see one tuck his butt and then explode. The announcer quickly called for us all to halt, and in doing so Maya turned away from the horse bucking. I heard the pop of the rider's air vest go off and Maya scooted forward, spooking slightly at the noise. 

Thankfully the kid was ok and the horse stopped once she was off, so no more mayhem was caused.  We went back out on the rail and the judge started calling some of us into the center while continuing to test the others. I was one of the first called in, which was fine by me. The judge called again for a lengthened canter, and I could see all the trainers at the rail flinch. Like dude, this is a 2'3" local medal and you already got one kid bucked off. 

First time winning a neck ribbon

I don't remember what my final score was, but I know I got a 60something in the flat. We ended up dropping to 6th overall, which I'm still super happy about. For only riding Maya once before showing her, I'd say we did pretty damn well.