I was pretty amped when Emma suggested Eventing Bingo this year. I knew when I saw my cards that I wasn’t likely to get a full row, but thought I’d take a stab at it anyway. In a perfect world, my bingo cards would have been a little more Murray-centric. But I guess I’ll take what fate gives me.
Anyway, I figured with all of the 2017 updates, I’d update my bingo cards as well. And lookie here — with just a teeeensy bit of creative credit-giving, I knocked out quite a few more cells!
So sure, we didn’t compete in heavy rain by anyone’s standards… but in June, we had a crazy, aseasonal DELUGE and got nearly 1/4 of an inch overnight before dressage. I feel like doing dressage in the slop is really in the spirit of “heavy rain”, since rain in June in Camelot is basically an apocalypse-level event.
this court was the better of the two and it was still sloppy! okay, sloppy FOR CALIFORNIA
I also had no brakes at this event as we approached the trakehner. IÂ knew we needed to slow down and get a look at the fence, but could we slow? Noooope.
I somehow managed to finish second to last at two events, and third to last in the third I competed in this year. So I just modified my cards a little to make them more applicable to my status in the bottom 3.
At Camelot in August we had a pretty baller square halt. I don’t remember if the judge commented on it (too lazy to go get the test), but here’s the photographic evidence (thanks Kate!).
mmmm lookin’ so good with all that burned-off skin missing from your cannons
And in August I also fell off of my horse during a warm up day for XC. Camelot schooling shows let you school and warm up on the XC course on the Friday before the event begins, which is where I fell off and sprained my MCL. So I went ahead and gave myself “fell off in warmup” as well.
A rousing success it was not. There were a couple of rows there with four items selected, but not the fifth… which is a bummer but OH WELL. I can’t say that I’m sad I didn’t miss the finish flags or fall off in stadium!
In the end, I made a few modifications to my bingo card so that it more accurately reflects my season. Murray ain’t leaving any strides out any time soon, so I changed all of those to more accurately reflect his tendencies (deep spots and screaming). And how lucky is it to ride in a division where more than half the riders were eliminated?! Or get toted around stadium and XC on a sprained MCL, coming in a full minute under optimum to boot? Notorious OTTB, that’s who.
and look, we got Bingo twice!!
Zen and the Art of Baby Horse Management 