After dressage, it was clear that the pressure was not on to win, and my only goal was to get through what looked like a pretty tough course. Keep in mind that this was Foster’s 3rd Novice, and while we’d been schooling Training level stuff, I still felt daunted by the test of putting everything together.

Before I even got to warm up, I asked B to school me over some fences and basically give me a pep talk before going in the start box. B filled in as student coach occasionally on the dressage team, and I trusted her to give me a both words of wisdom and a positive outlook before going on course. I am so glad she was there to see me off (Thanks B!!!)!

There was a bit of a miscommunication/misjudgment of time leading up to my count down, and unfortunately my time had started before I reached the start box. Nonetheless, I hit the start button on my watch and away we went!

XC time!

The fences I was most worried about were #7, the brush before water, and #14, another big brushy fence as soon as you popped out of the trees that invited a left hand runout. In particular, I knew he would be tired by 14 since we had literally just run up a small mountain, and he might not have as much ‘game’ left to tackle the question.

Enjoy the helmet cam and the sounds of ABBA (Hi, my name is Britt and I like Oldies)! I would have included the real audio, but all you’re missing are lots and lots of ‘good boys’ and my making a joke about the people scurrying becoming roadkill.

Anyways, it turns out I shouldn’t have been worried. I’m proud of myself for riding every fence, and for Foster tackling every element with confidence. According to my watch and the video, we came in 31 seconds under time, which just thrills me that my occasionally sluggish pony can actually make a Novice time easily, and that we could both walk away with a spring in our step! So, so chuffed with my Fosterpants.

With the warmup time debacle, I officially came in with 7-point-something time faults. But who cares, we survived! Sunday, onto showjumping!