Chehalis Valley Pony Club Horse Trials

Sunday Willig and I rode Nervous Novice at the Pony Club derby at Caber Farm. I was nervous, and he's the novice, so unfortunately, the level was correct.
I also had to go alone because Tom was in Colorado, picking up our new puppy, and I didn't get nearly enough riding in the week before thanks to that old ball and chain - work.
Regardless, we started late in the day which was quite nice (3:45 was the dressage test) although in hindsight, had I had a helper, I would have gotten there an hour earlier to go walk the course.
At Caber, you park the trailer in one field, and then it's a pretty long walk (10+ minutes) to the show jumping and x-country. Since Mr. W is improving, but not yet trustworthy tied to the trailer, I was there early, but not early enough to go walk the course. So I rode over to that side, looked at what I could see from his back, and then went back to warm up.
Phase 1 - Dressage:
He started out really, really nice - gorgeous movement, paying attention, sweet as could be. But as the minutes ticked by, his stress level started going up - it was an unusual amount of activity for us, and he started neighing for help. I interpreted it as "Hey! She's actually riding me out here! Can't anyone see this?! Help me! Help mmmmeeeeee!"
I took the Shannon approach to the dressage test and rode about 30 minutes, took about 10 minutes easy the test and a half before me, and then warmed him up again so we were ready to trot right from warm up (big open field) to the test (still big open field). Like the nervous novices before us, he was kind of scared of the dressage stand, but unlike the other nervous novices, he got right over it AND decided instead to be nervous about the horses on the path way off in the distance.
Which is what I think led to ... a frowny face in the comment section on the second move. It's hard even to call it a move since it was a trot down the long line, but he did a weird sproingy 4-feet-in-the-air buck spazzy thing. I went to whip him and yank him around to do it again, realized we weren't off course, we had just stopped, and then went on with the test. He got a handful of 7's, one 8, a couple sixes and a couple fives, and then a 4 for that, and a "quite naughty" next to the frowny face. The judge also thanked me for not falling off, and in a rare witty moment, I said it was my pleasure.
She also said the free walk was not well shown (on the test), and I'll have to ask Mike about that, because he didn't do as well on those at Peteton either, and I suspect it's a nerves at the show thing, since Mike had us work on it at home.
Phase 2 - Show jumping:
We went to the trailer, changed tack, headed over to show jumping, very, very quickly looked at the map of the course, watched one rider ride it, went into warm up, where he WAAYYYY over-jumped each fence. There was enough time in the air for me to think about whether he might buck when he landed, which is a pretty long time in the air for my slow brain. Our barn friend's trainer was there and said he looked good but was way overjumping and I nervously laughed and decided what the hell - let's try the fences.
They had a colorful and fun course set up, with a lot of extra jumps and a LOT of stuff along the sides - people and covered sitting areas and a loudspeaker and the dreaded sign on the side of the road from when he went there for training. So because I wasn't very comfortable with the course (first time never walking it), I spent most of my time trying to look for and remember where the next fence was, and the remainder of my time trying to get him to look at the jump instead of the person/tarp/other fence/whatever could catch his attention. He didn't hesitate at a single fence, and I rode him the Shannon-style - where I sat a few 'strides' (sometimes we were trotting) out and urged him forward, thinking "confidence". I was actually pleasantly surprised with how effortless he was over the fences and how he didn't try to refuse them.
Phase 3 - Cross Country:
We went back to the trailer, where I switched clothes (and what a relief to get out of my long-sleeve shirt and show jacket!) and headed back over to the course, where, since I couldn't walk it, I watched a couple riders do it. Since it was Nervous Novice, thankfully they didn't go really far out in the woods, so I could see the route they each took, even though I couldn't see all the fences.
I had a mixup with the ring steward - there were 5 riders before me so I asked if I had 10 minutes, she said yes, I went to warm up, made two laps (and one spook at the flags) and then she called me. So we popped over the cross rail and shot over to the starting box.
Again, the height of the jumps was no problem - it was all the other stuff to look at and be scared of: big fences, spectactors, jump judges in chairs, jump judges in chairs in the woods, horses off in the distance, people on their bikes/those weird little motor scooter things. But again, I looked at the jump and lined us up, asked him with baby half halts to look at the jump, and squeezed him - from a gentle, "pay attention, I'm pointing you at that jump up there" to "hey! (smack!) there's a jump coming up!" and rode the Shannon-style, what I think of as really, really defensive, sitting before the fence thinking about having my heels jammed way out in front of me. Thinking about "helping" encourage him over the fences is a big help; Jessica riding him is a huge help - he just floats over them now; but I think, oddly, it also helped that I didn't walk the course. I didn't know what was coming, I had to look for the fence after he locked on to each fence, and so I couldn't be anxious about a "big" one coming up because I didn't know until we were on it. Now, 2' is never big, but the green roll top sure looked big, and I thought "Shannon will have my hide if we refuse this" and that was the one that got a smack with the whip - not only was it kind of big and intimidating, but it was heading right towards all the tents and other horses and activity and people jumping around and he just had a lot to look at. And, just like the other fences, he cleared it like an angel. I made myself a little hoarse yelling "Good Willig!" and "Good boy!" the whole way around the course. Also, we went through the water (at a walk) no problem.
So that was it. He ended up in 3rd place. I ended up eating humble pie because I guess we're still in the confidence building stage in Nervous Novice, but most importantly, I had fun on cross country for the first time since I got him. And so I'm willing to live with some more nervous novice if that means that sometime (soon, I hope) Beginner Novice gets as fun as nervous novice was. Although I had been so nervous I wanted to scratch and just give up, I'm really glad that I did it. Even if the sproingy-buck thing bugs me. I can feel a lot of his agitation now, but that one took me totally by surprise.