Where do I even begin? Preparation for the makeover was similar to preparing a futurity colt to run at the BFA. We had 10 months to get everything, I thought we needed, learned & working. Grace was at a decent point going into the makeover, I was making fairly good passes through the pattern at practice and shows. I didn't really know what to expect once we got to the Makeover, but the excitement was over the top when the day finally came to head up to Kentucky! We left early on the morning of Wednesday, October 26, 2016. We had a fairly easy trip, only running into a detour or two, nothing out of the norm for when Brittany & I haul somewhere together. We always have some kind of interesting situation to happen, haha. We arrived at the Kentucky Horse Park that afternoon and I was just in awe of how beautiful the entire place was, not to mention how big it was. We got everyone settled in, checked into our hotels and got back to the park to take the horses to open arena, in the indoor where we would be competing the next morning. Walking our horses down to the indoor arena gave them a different disposition than what we were used to. They were more excited and just had this air about them, we wondered if they thought they were at races again. However, once we got in the arena they settled down just like the horses we had known them to be. We worked the pattern and both my horse, and Brittany's gelding, worked great that evening. We were able to get a sense of the ground and how big it really was in there. Thursday morning came and we made our way to the barns early to feed and get ready for our first runs at 9 am. Grace's first run didn't go as we had hoped. We caught the second barrel going into it, and I knew with that I was most likely out of the finale on Saturday. However, I didn't let that control the whole situation for our next run. Normally I would have pondered on that run and that hit barrel, but I took a step back and looked at the whole picture. I had a horse that retired from racing a year before making these runs, changing disciplines completely and adapting fairly well. I went into the second run, that afternoon, wanting a clean run. I was going to play it safe to ensure that I had a clean run, and that is what we did. Like I had mentioned before I knew that we wouldn't make it to the finale, having our +5 on our first time, but I was happy to know we had checked off a big goal on our list. We prepared, we went, we ran our race. I was very happy to have Toni Hindall there watching our second run. Toni works with Second Stride, Inc, and she is the one responsible for Grace getting there to them. She came to see us after our second run and gave Grace some loving and reminisced about her days of competing. We enjoyed the next couple of days watching different disciplines and making a trip to Keeneland. We love going to the races and dreaming about taking all of our favorite horses home to restart them, doesn't everyone?! The finale was on Saturday and it was so neat to watch all the top competitors and horses, in each discipline, compete and see the winners crowned. I learned that we ended up 5th in the barrel racing, and got a check I didn't even expect, along with a fancy pink ribbon at the party that Saturday night. We spent the evening talking with other barrel racers about our experiences, and got to chat some with Stuart Pittman about changes we thought could help in the barrel racing. It was a fun few days in Kentucky. Lots of new experiences that made the trip even more memorable. I kept saying I wanted to do it again, but to do that I would have to sell Grace and that is just not something I could even think about doing. So if you had the question in your mind of "Would she do it again?", the answer is yes, if the circumstances were right for me to do it. If you get a chance you should give it a go too!
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