Have no fear, I’ll cover Corona Horse Trials in just two posts, since I sadly have almost no pictures and video from the show itself. I do however have a lot of pre-show shenanigan pictures that absolutely deserve their own post.

Barn Buddy Bobby and I ended up being the only ones from our Austin contingent that went, and of course when we loaded the trailer and drove out of Austin on Friday morning it was raining. That’s all it does here anymore. And then along the way the clouds parted, the angels sang, unicorns had rainbow colored kittens, and WE FOUND THE SUN. It was a mere 3 hour drive away and boy was it glorious to finally see some blue sky. You might be hideous, West Texas, but you win a million bonus points for Vitamin D. Our moods instantly became cheerful.

We got there, unloaded, got the boys settled in, and then got on to ride around. They hadn’t been turned out or ridden since the Sunday before, due to how much rain we’ve gotten, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Henry neighed for Bobby’s horse Halo a couple times, but settled well so after a brief school I went for a little walk and let him chill. After we put the boys up we grabbed out adult beverages and our course maps and headed out to walk XC. We did the first walk fairly normally (well, ya know, with a drink in hand)

but there were a lot of really confusing twists and turns through all the brushy scrub in the beginning of the course so we walked it again. That’s when I mapped it with My Course Walk and Bobby insisted on starring in every picture. Well, except jump 1 because I forgot to take a picture of that one. Ooops. If you want to see the whole thing on My Course Walk, click here, but here are all the jump pics:

Course Walks with Bobby really can’t be beat. I’m not saying that’s the best thing ever posted on My Course Walk, but… it is. Obviously we take ourselves very seriously and have zero fun at shows.

You also might notice that a few of those jumps are a little big for BN. They were. Unless I’ve suddenly shrunk and now my hip is only 2’7″. I wasn’t going to complain though, because I’m already planning a fall move up to Novice and figured this would be a good way to test him over a few bigger fences. I wasn’t really worried about any of it in particular – it was big for the level in a few places but overall I didn’t think any of it would be a problem for Henry. It was a course that was really looking for forward positive riding, and that I can handle. The real test would be to see if I could remember where the hell I was going, weaving through that maze of scrub. It’s funny how our Texas events can have such completely different landscapes. Two weeks ago at Greenwood, just a few hours east, we had lush green fields with rolling hills and big trees. Not so much at Corona, but the sandy footing has held up well to our rainy spring so it worked out perfectly.

We walked the stadium course, which was pretty twisty and challenging (I thought it was really going to separate the men from the boys) then grazed the ponies and headed to the hotel. Saturday was the hard part – DRESSAGE.