5/15/10 - Garrods May Fest, Selection Trail #1, First Place!
All of our long, hard training has payed off! The F.A.C.E. Team had a very successful competition this past weekend, winning compulsories and freestyle. Palatine was absolutely amazing! He held a beautiful canter for each of our goes and recieved 7.0's as his horse scores. His stride was floaty and easy to vault on! We are so very proud of our horse! Thank you to Carolyn for longing us, we could never have done this without you! Also, thank you to all of the people who have supported us so far this year!
The day before -
On Friday morning, I met Rosey at the workshop where our uniforms were made. We were the first ones to see them :-) Rosey and I drove to Woodside, where we spent the whole day with Anna, Devon, Sarah, Anna D., Mari, and Mary getting ready for Saturday. We washed Pally, cleaned tack, loaded the trailer, fitted our uniforms, got our numbers sown on, and ran through comps and freestyle on the barrel. Pally got a break from vaulting and was ridden by Carolyn. Then, we all went home, ate well, packed, and went to bed. I fell asleep visualizing on Friday night, it was an amazing feeling!
Competition day -
We all arrived at Garrods around 10am on Saturday morning to get our hair and makeup done. Our compulsory go wasn't until 1:50pm. Around 12:45pm, we ran, stretched, and started preparing for our compulsories. We had an early lunch, relaxed, and visualized. We were in the warm up arena at 1:40pm, ran in to compete, and came with extreme happiness! Multiple people on our team his handstands and held perfect stands (Devon got a 10!), along with showing ease and finesse throughout all of our other compulsories. It was successful. After comps, we immediatly went into freestyle mode. Now, it was REALLY time to FOCUS. We stretched more, worked on things on the barrel, did runthroughs with music, and went to the warm up arena at 3:50pm for our 4pm go. We lined up in our creative "clump," and raised our hand for our music. O yea, we were pumped. Our music is amazing! Intense! Inspiring! I was ready to rock, and so was everyone else. Our freestyle was almost flawless. My flying parts were very solid. Every one was in awe of the ceiling fan! Then, as Devon landed his last backflip (soon to be a layout), we all realized that we just completed our first selection trial, and that we very well could have won. All we could think of is what was next to come when they would post the scores. About an hour after our freestyle, it was announced that we won the first competition, the first selection trail. The F.A.C.E. Team is a huge step closer to the World Equestrian Games! WHOOHOOOOO!!!!
Please continue to follow my blog and support the F.A.C.E. Team throughout the year! We need your help! Next competition - Woodside Spring Fest, June 5th and 6th.
