EI - our first prelim

Woooo.  We learned a lot and have so much to work on, but successfully completed.
Quickly:
Icing is 20 minutes - 15 off - 20 minutes.  Whenever he exerts himself.
Scrub his legs with betadine after he goes through water, to keep from getting little infections in the little scratches.
Put baby powder inside his boots to help prevent rubs.
Wrap immediately after icing, unless it's so hot he's standing in the stall sweating.  Wrapping later doesn't help.
No hay or grain two hours before he goes cross country.
He gets a hack on Monday and Tuesday off after an event.

Our dressage was good in warm up, but he was resistant in test.  We need to improve that, so when I tell him to leg yield, he does it, and doesn't gnash his jaw and stiffen his neck.  And I need to SIT UP.
That's good though - we could do it in warm up - so we just need to move it over to the test.  And he did the 4 steps of rein back!!

Cross country started rough - he was good in warm up, but the first half (10 fences) were like he'd never jumped before.  He seemed surprised, would leap up over them like a deer, land in a heap, and then shoot off again.  Then we had a refusal at the down bank into the water (which apparently several horses had trouble with), which led to time penalties as well.  However, after that we pretty much got our shit together and the second half of the course (the bigger half) was smooth and great.  We had to scramble over a few fences at the start, especially the "roller coaster" with a dip.  He just wasn't listening to my leg telling him to go forward.

Show jumping warm up was spectacular.  Then we took a break while we waited and I fell apart.  So he saved me on the first fence (we got two rails, but Ashley and Katy said it was his left drift that got me), and then it went pretty well.

I'm going to San Fran for four days this weekend, and John said it's too long.  He was hard on me in the warm ups, but at the end said we saw what to work on the rest of the season and it was good I completed.  Duke came in 11 out of 21, but after dressage we were fourth from the bottom (18).  I couldn't have done it without John.  I wasn't shaky nervous, but I wasn't comfortable.