King Oak Farm Fall H.T.

It's been a full year since my last event and I was really hoping for better results than the last one too! (Wesman got himself eliminated in Stadium by literally backing into a corner- so typically.)
But little Finnegan was feeling fine the week before and I was excited to finally go to an event!
True to my style of epic preparedness I got to the barn in in the morning, five minutes later than I wanted, only to find that my horse had yet to eat his breakfast because he was still outside and covered in dirt! Luckily my times were late enough in the morning that I could give him a proper bath and braid him before Dad came down with the trailer. It was so wonderful to be able to braid little Finnegan's forelock! (A feat, unfortunately, not regular enough with baby Wesman.)
We pulled into King Oak with a good amount of time before my Dressage test so I ran off right away to walk the cross country. Most of the fences have been there year after year, and the course looked great. One addition that I had not seen at King Oak before was two roll tops before the water on a three stride bending line- Pretty tough for the level, but at the time, I thought nothing of it.
When I returned to the trailer (with a PRIME parking spot right next to the cross country start box) breakfast was served.After some pancakes it was time to yank little Finneus out of the trailer to get ready for our debut.
Warm-up for Dressage was great! He was stretching into the contact, bending beautifully and completely tuned in... The actual test, not so much. By time the whistle blew we had only gone one length of the ring and did not have time to go completely around- so when we were in the ring the voodoo in the woods next to the arena were a lot to handle! The test was tense but accurate and we received at 39. Tied for 10Th place (not that we had any goal set aside from finishing!)
I was very anxious about stadium for reasons still unknown... Our warm-up was rushed and our performance in the ring was unfocused. Turning from the second jump to the third Finnegan slipped on the hill and we didn't get it together soon enough to make it over the jump... I think the stop freaked him out and he stopped again at the third. Bummer. The TD allowed us to go jump around cross country permitting we didn't die.
We trotted the first little inviting log- because we had nothing to lose! and finally got into a rhythm after the third jump. Turning to 6a I had completely forgotten how difficult the 3 stride turn would be to 6b and he soared over the a. We called it quits after that. No sense running at something that isn't there.

So we didn't finish, but we did learn a lot.
It's just some days I feel as though the eventing gods have it out for me...

Pony Club is trying to pull together a schooling day at Apple Knoll soon...and we are entered in Ethel Walker in October.
We shall see...