One down, one to go!

This was by far the easiest event yet, it was a little spooky to feel so organized so far out from the show. I kept wondering what disaster was awaiting us but nothing came and even the weather decided to cooperate for once! I know that the reason things are getting easier is that we have the most amazing group of volunteers that do an incredible amout for us. I really can't imagine the amout of work this would be without them so a huge THANK YOU to each of you, your hours of bark mulching, staining, painting, stall labeling, wrestling stinging nettle to find speaker wires.....the list goes on and on.....is truly appreciated.

 This event had a much different feel to it for me since for the first time, I got to be on the competitive side of things. I can't tell you how excited I was to compete since this was my first show since back surgery, I enjoyed every second of it! Secret showed that he has grown up a bit over the winter and managed to remain calm and rideable even with the invasion on the farm. He did catch me off guard coming out of the start box like a madman, I had taken him to NWEC the week before to school since he hadn't done xc since Sept and he was perfectly quiet, so his enthusiasm suprised me. I must admit I had a grin on my face as I was telling him "whoa" with tears streaming from my eyes from the wind rushing into them;) Aspen Farms students had very mixed results this weekend, those that stayed in the tack and finished did fabulously but we had a spill in the water, a spill in the liverpool and one on the beautiful new AF showjump built by Becky Mathews. Luckily all were fine aside from some scrapes and bruises, and have each now conquered their trouble spots. Congratulations to Laramie Maxwell on a 4th place finish in her first Intermediate, she had the nicest SJ round I watched. Alisa Sprouffske also had a 4th place finish in her second training, finishing on her dressage score. Lauren Benge gave her young star AJ a great ride around his second novice to make a big jump up the standings to 8th. Chelsey had a great weekend on all three of her horses, Rachel knocked the rust off from the winter with a 5th in the prelim, Lexy and her super pony had their personal best (so far) dressage score, and our new working student Jane got to ride her young mare in all the madness to prep her for her first outing at Whidbey.

We had a few new sponsors this year that added some excitement to the show. Thank you to Cavalor for the wonderful champagne and chocolate social on Friday, I think it's safe to say that we all enjoyed it! Thank you to Zeit Capitol for sponsoring our Challenge divisions, the possibility of being handed a check at the end of the weekend is a strange concept for us as event riders! Natural Migrations will be sponsoring the OI Challenge coming this September. I hope everyone had a chance to check out the Kerrits corners on the Intermediate track, they really turned out well. Thank you to Gallops and Toklat for your support of AFHT and for always being there for our "emergency" shopping needs. Please check out our sponsor page to see all the wonderful sponsors that make the event possible and provide the fabulous prizes we are able to give out.

We are looking forward to Inavale next weekend and busy getting all the horses that were slightly ignored over the weekend tuned up. I had a fabulous XC school yesterday on a horse that just came into the barn to be sold, he has done OI with a YR and he and I will be getting to know each other in the prelim at Inavale. Sadly, I don't think I will get to ride him long, he is way to much fun for someone not to snatch up!

Happy Fathers Day weekend to all those amazing horse show Dads out there and especially of course, to Iceman :)