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Saturday, August 11, 2007

CN North American Junior and Young Riders’ Championships
Presented by Gotham North and UlcerGard

The Highs and Lows and Lessons Learned as a Young Rider
By Bonnie Efird

Things Don't Always Go as Expected

Saturday arrived and I felt pumped and prepared for my test, ready to fix my mistakes from Thursday and ready to live up to my “reputation.” Maggie felt highly energetic and better than ever in the warm-up. We entered the ring and began our test, but two movements into the test, Maggie spooked. I have yet to determine from what. Horse monsters perhaps? Something on the side of the arena by A had scared her and every time I got down to that end of the arena, her eyes grew wide and she became stiff as a board. No matter how hard I squeezed and kicked her forward, she stopped to look into the woods catching me off guard. Although I knew I would get highly penalized on my submission scores for Maggie’s inattentiveness, I also knew I must keep going and make the other movements twice as good to receive a decent score.

I smiled as much as I possible throughout the rest of my test, despite being frustrated and embarrassed. As soon as I made my final salute to the judge, I let out a big sigh. I thanked the judge and patted Maggie on the neck, assuring her that there were no monsters lurking in the woods.

I felt like a complete failure as I exited the arena and saw the low scores flash up on the board for everyone to see. I felt that I had let down myself, my family, my trainer and my friends. At least, that’s what I thought.