Inavale was hot!

95ish Friday and Saturday, maybe only 85 on Sunday.  Despite the searing heat, it hailed from minutes 4-6 of my cross country ride (with a 0% chance of rain) and just before I show jumped (2% chance).
The negative is we got 4th, after being tied for 5th after dressage and cross country.
The positives were:
- I felt that our dressage was much, much stronger than last year, even if the score didn't reflect it.  I think the pictures showed it too.  I could tell it was a picture of a trot lengthening and a canter lengthening just by Charlie.
- Charlie saved my bacon once in cross country and once in show jumping.  He is an honest gentleman.
- I was very, very, very nervous about cross country after the first time I walked it.  After the second time, I was still pretty nervous.  The third walk was with John, and that made me feel a lot better.  The fourth walk was a half walk and it was just to cement what John had told me.
- I watched the upper level riders and it was surprising how difficult a time they had.  It made me feel better that even they make mistakes.
- Charlie was an absolute rock star in show jumping.  I did pretty well (there is a photo of my head looking at the next fence from the center of the air over the fence - go me), until the triple, and then somehow I just completely fell apart over the first fence, stood straight up to get out of Charlie's way over the center over, and then Charlie the champ finished up on his own with me hanging on his mouth.  Thank god for all those grids with John and Charlie just dutifully doing his job, unlike some of the bad horses we saw.
- The cross country had a big wide table (fence 5), then an angled three log into the water, out a ramp, to an angled ramp, two strides, down bank.  I was on Charlie's neck in the water, and so again, like a true workhorse, he just took us through the ramp and down bank as smooth as could be.
He is a super, duper horse.
Then we had a HUGE trakhener, a few giant log piles, a "lion trap", and then an uphill with a hard left turn to an up bank, one stride, log pile.  He did them all like he just loved his job.
I can't say enough good things about what a good boy he was.  He is an amazing horse.
I wore my dressage jacket even though they were waived, and we messed up the halt, but he did really well for 8 minutes of warm up.  I did a super light warm up for cross country and I was worried about the heat, 420 mpm, and 6 minutes, but then we were fast!  5:23 instead of 6:01.
I hung up a fly sheet for shade the end of the second day, and had a little battery powered fan going.  He got sweaty just standing in the stall and didn't eat as much as normal, but peed and pooped pretty well.
It was fun.  I think I'll need to do training again next year, but that was my original thought anyway.  1 year BN, 2 years N, 2 years T, and then 3-4 years P.
The good part was I had even more time to think between the fences and in the dressage movements, I had a little better working knowledge about what the course was asking for and how to work it, and I felt like we did a really good job together, even with the hiccups in getting started with the show season this year.