
I heard about the Road to the 3-Day Challenge thru the Waredaca Classic 3-day FB page and on the Waredaca website.
I have had a Training level 3-day as a goal for over a year.
The most important parts of successfully completing a 3 day are conditioning and preparation.
The prize for winning the challenge definitely played a part in helping me select what events to complete in.
I reviewed the list of 6 horse trials and selected the final 3 as integral to my preparation.
At Seneca Valley, we scored our lowest dressage score of the year, had a rail down in stadium due to a spook, and finished XC strong and well under the time in hot, humid conditions.
Old Tavern was the next event, and we had the winning score in dressage, 2 rails in stadium and a confident, bold XC round.
The last HT was Morven Park, 2 weeks before the 3-day. We were in second place after dressage and a double clear stadium round moved us up to 1st. XC on Sunday proved hard to make the time for most, but we finished 3 seconds under, barely breathing to finish 1st.
These horse trials allowed us to compete over similar XC jumps and get much-needed conditioning in a very systematic way.
Winning the Training challenge was huge! The free entries to the 6 supporting horse trials in 2022 will help me immensely in my show budget.
Most events don’t offer much in prizes at the lower level, so promoting this Challenge and what the prize is, is very important.