Road to NAJYRC: Teresa Harcourt

In our second NAJYRC blog of the day, California event rider Teresa Harcourt gets a much-needed confidence boost from a win at Woodside Horse Trials over the weekend.

From Teresa:

The Weekend That Was

Hello Horse Nation!

Just two weeks ago, I was ranting and raving about how I had such a short time until Young Riders. Well now I can really start to annoy everyone (mainly my family and friends) with my countdown of exactly SIX WEEKS to NAJYRC. Enough with this countdown stuff–time to talk about last weekend.

Last weekend, Flying Tail Farms (all 14 horses of ours) headed to The Horsepark at Woodside to strut our stuff. It was gearing up to be a busy weekend and that’s exactly what it was.

I would like to start out by saying what a great event Woodside really is. Robert Kellerhouse and all the organizers/officials/volunteers do an EXCELLENT job at putting on a top caliber event like. D-Day (my affectionate name for Dressage Day) drug on and on until my 3:09 ride time. Skip put in a very professional test even providing the audience with a few vocal acts (whining to all his equine onlookers). I started to get a little stuck in the beginning in the lateral work but then was able to push on and really work on producing a top-scoring test. We scored a 27.2 to carry us into the lead going into cross-country.

The day of cross-country was excellent weather. Although at times, I felt as if I was Dorothy in a Tornado with ToTo because of the wild winds Woodside provided for us. The footing was in excellent condition, which made me more excited to run to make time. Skip went out of the box with fire in his eyes. My eye wasn’t quite on target the whole time but that made for a perfect situation to practice riding the gallop rather than riding the fence. We ended up with a double-clear round to keep us in the lead.

Sunday dragged along as well until my 2 p.m. ride time. Although torturous, it gave me time to work on my mental game and concentrate at the task at hand. Yes, it would be wonderful to come home with a win, but really this show jump round was about being confident in my decisions as a rider and being okay with mistakes if I made them. I have been working with Daniel Stewart, a sports psychologist, in order to help me along in this journey for Young Riders. He has taught me (as well as Dayna, Shannon and Jackie McRae (my coach who built my eventing foundation) to trust my decisions as a rider and be confident. The show-jumping round at Woodside was just that–a confidence boost for myself that made all of my hard work pay off. Even though I took a rail, that is okay because my task for that round was to be confident and make decisions.

Skip and I won the Intermediate division at Woodside. I could not be happier. The weekend at Woodside was everything I could have asked for as a final outing before NAJYRC.  That weekend also showed me how many people are supporting Skip and I. I am one lucky girl to have amazing coaches, family, friends and overall supporters. Congratulations to everyone at Woodside! Candidates Camp for Area VI Young Riders is next week at Flying Tail Farms. It will be an exciting time for all of us to get together and work as a team. Time to keep counting down the days until NAYJRC and bubble wrapping horses.  Until next time Horse Nation!

Keep kicking!
Teresa