The whole training ground is buzzing with people running around to get ready for the show. Horses hooves click against the ground, there braids tight against there neck as they walk by. Some are saddled and heading into the arena for there round, while others are just getting cleaned up.

Me and the girls are finishing up our braids now, since we all decided it would be better to do it in the morning then having to redo it. Dreamer is very calm, although he flicks his head up every few braids when he's a bit uncomfortable.

All of our rounds are later, the higher levels get to go first. We compete at 12:00, or more specifically, our circut starts at 12. I go pretty close to last, which means I can warm up for longer. Right now it's just before 11:30 so we have quite a bit of time to warm up in the ring and memorize our course.

I tie the elastic on the last braid, and it snaps into place. I notice the other girls are finished there braids to, so we all begin to brush our horses. Thank god I own a black horse, I can imagine Cameron really struggled keeping blue clean today.

I finish up brushing and tacking up Dreamer, and so do the other girls. I flip the reins over Dreamers head, and I walk towards the warm-up ring. Just like all warmup rings, it's very chaotic. There are probably twenty ish horses in the arena, either getting ready for the junior round or preparing for the show jumping in the eventing show. In the centre of the arena is three jump, a smaller warm-up vertical, a vertical set at 3'6 for juniors and an over set at a similar height.

I open the gate, leaving it open for the girls as we all walk in. I mount Dreamer, doing walk trot and canter quickly on both reins. Dreamer seems a bit curious about the other horses, but other wise ok. I then practice cantering him over the three jumps in the middle, waking up and then moving on to the other two. I'm surprised how I'm not that stressed, but it must be because of the bareback ride a few days ago.

Once I'm done warming up, I hop of Dreamer, giving him a pat on his neck. I walk him over to his stall, tying him up and going towards the show arena. There's a pieces of paper with the course printed on it, so I take one and start comparing the paper to the arena.

I memorize the order on the paper, while looking at the arena to decide where I want to turn to make up time and to get a good jump. I also memorize how many stride I plan on getting in the lines and combinations.

I get a tap on my shoulder, and turn behind me to see the girls. "Hey what's up?" I ask. I've barely talked to them all day, but I don't like to talk on show days because I'm nervous.

"Are you excited?" Carmen asks, a smile on her face, but you can tell she's nervous too.

"No," I laugh. "I'm more nervous then excited."

Scarlet takes a step closer. "Well did you know that when your feeling excited or nervous it's actually the same thing."

I knit my brows. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, your body and brain react the same way to both emotion, so technically your feeling except, not nervous." Scarlett explain, and her telling me this makes me feel less nervous.

I smile. "Thank you Scarlett, that made me feel better."

I hear the gate door creak open behind me, and notice Abby has opened the gate door. She gestures for us to follow her with her hand. "Ready to walk to course?"

I nod and we all start walking through the gate to walk the course. I'm pretty sure I know the strides but I just want to double check. I walk to the first fence, which is a blue single. The next fence is a red single coming off the far right corner, which then turns into a bending line to a black and orange oxer. The bending line has six stride between it for Dreamer.

After the you do a roll back to a green and white single on the angle which then goes to an in and out. After the in and out is a white oxer, which you then turn to a  4 strides line. After that, you turn to a yellow and black single across the width of the arena. There's a nice easy turn to a triple combination. Following that is a easy turn to a green single.

Then a not so easy turn leads to a pink single. Then there's an option of doing a wide turn or a really tight turn to a purple single. After that you turn to a line with two maroon oxers . Then there is a teal single going on a diagonal through the centre, which turns to the last jump, which is a turquoise oxer.

I stand at the base of the turquoise oxer, which is about the height of my waist. I scan over the course one more time, and I think I have it pretty well memorized now that I've walked it. Just then there's a click from the speakers and a voice starts talking.

"Could everyone make there way out out of the arena and the first rider meals there way to the gate with there horse." I can reconize Sherri's voice on the speaker.

Me and the girls walk out of the sandy arena, walking to find a space along the fence to watch the first few riders. The main turn people are messing up is the 9th jump to the 10th, which they seem to cut to small of a turn hit a poll, or turn to wide and have a low time. Guess that's the turn I'll have to focus on so I don't get a rail.

Carmen jumps off the fence about five people in. "I gotta go get ready, I'm going after the next one." She waves a quick good bye before walking away.

"Good luck!" I call out to her, I hope she does well.

After the next round finishes, Carmen shows up on her horse, her show jacket and pants all nice and clean. The person at the gate opens up and Carmen walks in.

"Yes! go Carmen!" Abby shouts, and me and Scarlett call out to.

Sherri does the introduction of Carmen and her horse, and just as she finishes Carmen canters a circle going to the first fence. Just watching her makes me nervous, I really hope she does well.

She does amazing turns to the first few fences, and doesn't knock any polls. She also has gotten amazing distances except for a few long ones. She's headed down the triple combination, and she goes through it gracefully, except she rubs the last poll on the oxer. I hold my breath as I watch it move, but it doesn't come down.

She does an amazing turn to the green single after that, and then a great roll back, but a bit of a short distance. I hold my breath again as I watch her take the small turn option to the tenth fence. She slices the purple fence, instead of  trying to do the difficult turn. Then it's the line and then the bending line. The last four jumps. 

She jumps the two oxer. And runs the last rail on both but they don't come down. She's so lucky, and so far she's the first to not knock any rails yet. she does a tight roll back to the teal single after the line, and goes in deep to the fence, but her horse saves her. She sits up, taking a sharp turn to the final oxer. Her horse takes seven strides, and gets a beautiful distance.

Everyone erupts in cheers, but I think me, Scarlett and Abby cheer the loudest. She exits the gate patting her horse on the neck before jumping off with a huge smile on her face. Scarlett runs over, giving Carmen the biggest hug.

"That's a winning round!" I shout at her. "That was so good!"

"Thank you!" Her smile grows wider.

Abby raises her hand for a high five. "Your the first to get no faults, that was such a good round!"

Carmen returns the high five. "Thank you." Then her face morphs into worry. "Abby, Scarlett! You need to get ready you guys are going soon!"

Scarlett and Abbys eyes grow wide and they quickly run off to get their horses. Carmen does the same, to go untack her horse and put her away. Leaving me to watch the rest of the rounds surrounded by my own nerves.

The next round goes pretty well, and then it's Abby and Scarletts turn, and they go right after one another. Abby goes first an knocks the rail in the right turn I was talking about, but did pretty well other wise. Scarlett clearly got a bit nervous from that and took the wide turn, but her time was slower.

When there done, I congratulate them before going to get Dreamer. I take some deep breaths as I walk over to Dreamer, who is standing very patiently, giving me a look when he sees me coming. I give him a pat on the neck, before throwing on my helmet. I mount him, and head towards the gate, taking deep breaths before my turn.

We stop at the gate and watch as the rider before me finishes there round. Dreamer reaches back to my foot and starts licking my boot, almost like he's trying to comfort me. I smile at him, rubbing his neck to comfort him too.

The rider leaves the arena, and a new voice come on the speaker. "Now welcoming Calli Star riding her horse, 'a good nightmare.' " the muffled mans voice says as I walk into the arena. I walk around for a second, before asking for a canter.

I go up to the first fence, holding him for a good distance. I turn to the second fence and then hold again for the bending line to the oxer. Dreamer slows down a bit, and it feels like he's debating on refusing. I squeeze a little bit more, and we fly over the oxer, turning to the in and out which we do really well. We canter up to the oxer, and I can hear some one yell at someone else in the back.

Dreamer speeds up a bit, scared from the yelling, so  I ask for the long one, taking out a stride. There a turn to the yellow fence across the centre and we get a perfect distance. I turn him to the combination, and I can feel him want to turn away or run out.

"Your ok." I whisper to him and he calms down just before the take off. We land and I sit up doing a sharp turn to the green fence and having to hold back. "Good boy!" I say louder this time, he just did something really difficult.

I slow Dreamer down, so that I can do a nice slow turn for the sharp turn option. We do an ok roll back, but I go a bit wide and have to pull him in. We do the pink jump, landing on the right but slowing down and quickly switching. We do the turn and end up getting a pretty bad distance to the purple.

We rub the poll, but I don't hear it come down. I let out a breath, giving Dreamer a pat for saving me. I steer him tow at dark the line, which we do end up rubbing again.

"Only two more jumps." I whisper to myself and Dreamer, heading to the second last fence.

I land, sitting up and going towards the oxer. I can tell Dreamers  getting really tired, because I can hear his heavy breathing. We get a long one to the last fence, and hit the poll.

The crowd pauses for a second and so do I, watching as the poll rolls around a lot on the jump cup. It rolls for a bit longer, before staying on the jump cup.

Everyone starts cheering, and I give Dreamer the biggest pat, slowing him to a walk so I can walk out of the arena. "Good boy!" I rub his neck, dropping my reins on his neck.

I walk out of the arena, dismounting and giving Dreamer a hug on the neck.

"That was amazing!" Carmen congratulates me, and so do the other girls.

"Thank you, my turns were a little wide as slow, just to be safe. But I think it went ok."  I smile, it was a really good first show for me and Dreamer. "I point behind me, I'm gonna cool him out ok?"

They nod. "Ok," Abby replies. "We're gonna watch the last round and then see what every placed. Well tell you what you got."

I wave at them. "Thank you!" I give them one last smile before walking Dreamer back to his stall and untacking him, putting his tack away after. I grab a huge apple from the tack room, and feed it to him when I get back.

I grab a lead rope off the stall door, and Lead him to the wash stall, so I can cool him off. I turn on the hose and start spraying him down we're he's sweaty and to cool my legs. Just then, I look up to see Sherri walking towards me with a saddened look.

She glanced at her clip board, and then stops infront of me. I raise a brow. "What happened?"

She checks her clipboard again. "I'm sorry Calli." She sighs. "But we need to talk about your future here."

Hey guys!

This chapter is like 10 days late but I had no ideas what to write at first, but here it it's! What do you think happened?
Any ways... THANK YOU FOR 7k!!!!!
I hope this jumper competition was realistic, because I haven't been to many shows. 😅
Also I drew out the course I was talking about, so here it is.

I should have the next chapter out sooner then later because I already have an idea! Thank you for readying!