The Secret Life of McKenna & Dorito: Highs & lows

McKenna’s big move-up to training level has come with its fair share of growing pains. But she’s doing her best to keep her heels down and her chin up.

From McKenna:

It’s amazing how quickly the sport of eventing can knock you down. One minute you’re on top of the world; the next, it seems as if everything is pinned against you.

Needless to say, Surefire did not end in the “perfect world” scenario.

Dressage was awesome. Everyone kept asking me how my test was and to every person I would say, “You know, I honestly have no idea.”

Normally the whole time I’m in the ring, I’m focused on keeping Dorito’s head down, but this time Emily made me focus on the CONNECTION and my transitions. Well, she must know what she’s talking about because we scored a 39.6, an 11-point difference from last weekend!!!!!!!

Now jumping…

I did not have the best warm up–something was just a bit off. But I went in the ring and rode pretty well!! It was a huge improvement from my Seneca round, but unfortunately it was not enough to get me around.

Dorito gets in the ring and tries SO hard, and jumps so big, he ends up losing confidence as he goes around because of the effort he’s putting in. Also, if I made a bit of a mistake to a fence, he remembered it at the next and faltered a bit. He also has a hard time making horse strides, but the extra stride is tight, so when you have a max width and height square oxer, it becomes a bit harder, so that unfortunately was the last straw.

Does it suck? Of course it does. Am I bummed? Heck yeah. Am I bawling over it? No. Especially because I rode REALLY well.

We have a lot of re-evaluating and planning to do over the next bit, and we’ll see where it takes us. But just like Blake Shelton’s song says, “God gave me you for the ups and downs/ God gave me you for the days of doubt/ For when I think I’ve lost my way, there are no words here left to say/ it’s true, God gave me you.”