Series Finals

So after my first day in my new job, my Aunty and I skipped off down to Hawera for series finals arriving at midnight and I wasn't that amused to hear on the radio reports of a weather bomb that was meant to hit the whole North Island but specifically Taranaki where Hawera is :( Ah man not ideal at all. Arrived at midnight and had to be up the next morning for an 8am start. Still not the end of the world. Then I sat around all day waiting for my class.

Warming up for that 1.20m class was not good, my eye was terrible, I couldn't see a distance to save myself and I felt out of practice. I just had two rails both from waiting rides when I should have ridden up. Still she jumped awesome it was my riding that failed. That night we all went to bed with showground gossip about how bad the storm was going to be. And sure enough we were all woken up at 4am when the wind started to just hammer the truck, so much so it was like being in an earthquake. The roof started to lift of the indoor and they had to evacuate all the horses stabled in there. The roller door got blown off and the iron was damaged but mostly intact. The wall from ring 1 just disappeared apart from one stand, never to be seen again. The picture above is from Patea which is down the coast and they got absolutely hammered.

We fed more hay at 5.30am and then the wind eased about 6 and after all the adrenaline we all slept until 9. I got up and with the dropping wind came absolutely pounding rain. Connie was in an outside yard and despite a magnetic rug and a 2000denier 300gram of fill heavyweight winter rug she was shaking like a leaf. She ended up getting tied in gings indoor yard with ging for the day just to get her out of the weather. A bunch of people left though so later in the day I managed to get an indoor yard for her, that backed on to my friends yards so Connie was still with her buddies.

That day was cancelled and most of the series finals were held on the Saturday so I never got a chance to try and make the top six, which is pretty disappointing. Still finishing 15th is good and there is next year. I am considered an amateur until I place at 1.30m or higher. Much more lenient rules than in the states.

Would you believe the next day dawned beautiful and clear and the ground really wasn't bad so I went ahead and jumped in the 1.2m championship class and the little horse jumped super, really forward and keen and bold and jumped a good clear round. Unfortunately I couldn't jump off because my ride for Connie to get up to my new home was leaving. Nevermind eh a really good note to go into HoY on.