Sunday, July 27

Weeeeell, actually today isn't Sunday, July 27, but it's the update for Sunday, anyway. I kind of crashed Sunday night and left my faithful readers wondering where I disappeared to (right, guys?). Whatever.
So today, we all had our very last rides (awwww, sad face). I will definitely miss riding at the horse park. Starting, as usual, with Katey, everyone rode Training 2 again. Jess and Katey especially had stellar tests, which I did not get to see, being stuck in the barn with too much time to get ready but not enough time to see anything. Grrr. This time, in my test, Aly didn't just buck in the warmup. We bucked an entire 20 meter circle. But, hey, I didn't fall off, and the rest of the test was great. The professionals got some really sweet photos of her- she's like almost straight up and down, I swear.
From that point on, we really had to start packing up. They didn't even do turnbacks, which really surprised me, but I didn't complain. Just in case there was some kind of sick tie and they had to break it by doing a "pop turnback", we all took really extra good care of our horses and tack, anyway. Besides, kissing up to a Horse Management judge never hurt anyone :) Sadly, our beautiful tackroom came apart a lot faster than it went up: lattice, astro-turf, curtains, pretty shelves, custom saddle racks courtesy of Katey and her 4 years of construction class, and a whole lot of stuff. We went around trying to give away our family sized can of party peanuts (what were our mothers thinking???), but no takers. They ended up coming home in the backseat of our car. Heaven knows when we'll end up using them.
Finally, the moment we'd all been waiting for: awards!!! We marched in with our Northeast Region banner (the pretty one, not the ugly one) wearing our matching tie-dyed shirts that we decorated in Northeast Region colors. They started with Horse Management, which....WE WON!!!!!!!! We were pretty psyched, having earned only 3 points all 3 days, all of which were from formals. Then they announced overall, and we got 5th out of 13 teams, which certainly was nothing to be ashamed of. Last, but not at all least, they announced the musical freestyle category. With the 70.35 I scored on my freestyle ( I heart Elizabeth Feltmate), I got sixth individually!!! Everyone was really happy at the end of the day, and we owe so much to our AMAZING Stable Manager from Tri-State, Ariel, whom I am going to kidnap and bring back to Maine with me.
Sadly, the Champagne family had to leave, like, five minutes after awards. They were driving through the night, unlike Katey and I, who are leaving tomorrow morning. The vet "oiled" Aly for the ride home: that is, pumped her stomach full of mineral oil, water and electrolytes, via a nasal gastrointestinal tube (stomach tube that went in through her nose. When he pulled it out, it seemed to go on FOREVER), so she shouldn't be colicky tomorrow, which will be one less thing for me to worry about. He was really nice, and Aly behaved, but the barn seemed so empty without all of those horses. And people. We met so many people. Geeze.
-Marina DiMarco and Spare Me the Details, TR Dressage Team 8, Northeast Region.