Sweetpeacefuldream Competes in KY

Saturday rolled in drizzly and humid.  Sweetpeacefuldream said she was ready to hunker down and rest under a blanket, but we had our day of competing ahead of us.  I took her out and hand walked her, then got her braided and we tacked up for our first round of showjumping at 2'.

She was wonderful in the warmup, hopping over the vertical and the oxer there with no problems, getting her leads easily.  When it was our turn we rode up to the Walnut arena, checked in with the ring steward there, and then headed in for our first go.  We had some folks from CANTER who took video and photos, but I don't have all of those yet so here are a couple Owen got with his phone.

I had two minutes at the beginning of our round to demonstrate to the judges that Miss Pea could lengthen and shorten her stride at the trot and at the canter.  We did our best, but being all alone on the far end of the arena was a little nerve wracking for her and she was more tense than she is at home.  Nevertheless she did the best she could, and when our two minutes were up (wow those went fast!) we cantered to the other end of the arena to start our course.  She looked pretty hard at the first three fences, but then said, "ok, Kim, if you say so...." and hopped over them for me.  By the end she was jumping well.  Video of this first round can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ7A5DEuV3g&feature=youtu.be

As we left the arena we had a lot of comments from the audience about how honest she was, and folks could tell how hard she tried.  I was super proud of her, and put her back in her stall to eat some more while we waited a few hours for our second round at 2'6".

In the afternoon there was the usual bedlam of the warmup arena with both good quiet riders and some folks who looked like they were out for blood.  Fortunately Miss Pea wasn't phased, and she just gave the other horses some cryptic looks that said, "what is WRONG with your human?" because she couldn't understand what some of the trainers and riders were doing.  I'm so grateful that Miss Pea trusts me so she just ignored the nonsense and focused on her job.

We entered the arena to jump a different course for our second round.  It was the same jumps, but in a different order and they were six inches higher than the first time.  Miss Pea did the best she could, and I was very proud of her.  In hindsight I wish I would have had her do both rounds at 2', because she felt a little over-faced at this height, but she left the arena being praised and patted for trying so hard.  As I walked out of the gate I was gushing over her saying, "What a GOOD baby horse!  You were so brave and tried so hard!  I'm very proud of you, girl."  A woman I don't know who was sitting near the gate stared at me and loudly declared, "she has a good trainer".

Owen and I went to dinner Saturday evening and we were perusing the first issue of Off Track Thoroughbred Magazine.  When I turned the first page I discovered that Miss Pea and I are on the inside cover!  We are the jumping picture with the black background.

While we were finishing our dinner an older gentleman approached Owen who was wearing the Bit of Honey Training logo on his hat and jacket.  He asked Owen "Do you train here locally?"  Owen was confused, thinking about his title as firmware engineer and how that isn't the same thing as a train engineer...  Not realizing the guy thought Owen was a racehorse/track trainer.  I responded and said that I am the trainer for retired racehorses, and we are based out of Colorado.  The poor guy was as confused as Owen, he didn't expect the wife to answer, and not in that manner.  Eventually we got it all straightened out and I gave the guy a business card, but we've been giggling about the encounter all weekend.  Owen has never been mistaken for a racehorse trainer before!

At the end of the day they posted results for all ten disciplines, including our group of show jumpers.  We came in 21 out of 43, which is incredible for a young horse who has been jumping once a week for four months.  We were discussing, and we weren't sure if a Colorado racehorse had ever even been to the Kentucky Horse Park before Sweetpeacefuldream this weekend.  We really accomplished something special here.

Because we weren't in the top three we didn't end up going to the finale to jump again, but we definitely weren't going to miss our Retired Racehorse Project Graduation!  At the beginning of the finale we paraded in with most of the other competitors in numerical order by bridle tag, receiving our diploma, medal, and embroidered saddle pad.  By this point Miss Pea was more interested in grazing than in being recognized, but she was patient with more of my human nonsense and participated politely.  It was very fun to have Arapahoe Park announcer Jonathan Horowitz introduce her into the covered arena, explaining he had the pleasure of calling her races when she was on the track.

At the end of the finale there were a few moments for the top ten finalists to explain why they felt their horses were deserving of the title America's Most Wanted Thoroughbred.  I was watching from the stands and gave some thought to this myself.  If I were to give a little speech about Sweetpeacefuldream I would explain that she is deserving of the title because she is stellar example of good care of the American Thoroughbred.

Sweetpeacefuldream is well bred, was owned by wonderful track owners, and had great track training.  She won as a racehorse, and then was retired at just the right time, with no injuries.  She had an appropriate let-down period.  She was then restarted nicely to become a show horse, and carefully brought along with jumping lightly under saddle.  Sweepeacefuldream is America's Most Wanted Thoroughbred because she has encountered so many good humans in her life who have set her up for success and enabled her to easily transform into a wonderful sporthorse after retiring from a successful racing career.  She has experienced the perfect recipe of good breeders, good track people, good aftercare people, and good trainers.  If every Thoroughbred received this kind of treatment over the course of her young life it would be a simple thing for this breed to retake the sport horse world by storm.