What do you do when the music stops?

Crazy day...the ride times kept changing...1:40 to 3:40 to 5: 40 to 4:40...it kinda messes with you. The riders are braiding, grooming and for a few, warming up when the times change again.

There is so much that goes into the Freestyle ride...choreographed by the trainer and rider, it is a chance to show your personality through your music selection. The "test" is practiced until the movements sync with specific aspects of the music. It is creative and fun. At least it is supposed to be.

Jess and Coda entered the ring and rode down the center line. It was perfect! Everything was going amazingly well...high scores. Then, the music started to do something strange...it was almost like someone was turning the volume up and down. Technical difficulties...was it the CD or the sound system or the CD player...who knows? All I know is that my amazing daughter switched off the music she was hearing over the speakers and "danced to the music in her head". She rode her entire freestyle...flawlessly...to music only she could hear. And it was magnificent. I cried, as did Karen, for the failure of the CD...but later, when I really thought about what Jess did in the ring, I wanted to cry because I am so incredibly proud of her ability to overcome something so difficult and unnerving and still put in such a fabulous performance scoring a 66.75 and placing 7th.

All the riders this week at the NAJYRC deserve to be recognized for the achievement of making it here...they also need to be recognized for what it took to compete here. Nerves of steel...