Bryttany Buenger    

Young Event Rider

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2005 - Bryttany and Uptown Girl Take 2nd Place at their first Training division Queeny Park, St. Louis, Missouri, October 1-2, 2005

With fair weather over the weekend, we competed at Queeny Park, one of the few venues close to home, in the Training Rider division-no age bracket.  I placed third after an early morning Dressage ride with a score of 33.  The test went well with many 7s and 8s, except for a little "bobble." I was very pleased with the test, and when reviewing it on the videocam, it really couldn't have been much better.  The organizers of the event, the Harwoods', daughter who comes up from Florida every year to help, came over and talked with my parents.  She told me I was her favorite rider of the day, that I had the perfect basic balanced position.  She and the other event volunteers stood up and cheered for me after the test.  She said it was just beautiful to watch.  We prepared for cross-country less than 3 hours away.  I had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat and walk the cross-country course before heading back to the stables and putting studs in.  Cross-country went fabulously.  Wonder went steady, but we were a little behind on our minute markers. About three-fourths through the course, I had a chance to really open her up. Wonder loves cross-country.  My parents said that when I went through the water complex, the announcer said, "Bryttany Buenger loses her stirrup but she and Uptown Girl keep right on going.  What a great pair they make."  We ended up coming in about thirteen seconds under optimum time (even after being thirty seconds slow on our minute markers).  No time faults; no jumping penalties moving us up to 2nd place after cross-country.  Sunday morning comes along, a grey morning.  Showjump for intermediate starts at 9:00.  We implement our new strategy this day.  Get to warmup, walk and trot to loosen Wonder's muscles.  Pop over a few jumps, and if those goes well with nothing to fix, quit.  The course was grassy with rolling hills.  The sky cleared up and it started to warm up with just a slight breeze.  I watched the other riders in my division to see how the jumps were riding.  It was a hard course, but it rode beautifully.  Wonder had plenty of energy and jumped the two doubles with little effort.  We just had a little trouble with 6: jump 6 was an ascending oxer on the top of a hill, after a downhill jump and a sharp turn left.  We finish with 4 jumping penalties, no time penalties.  The first place rider (leading by 3 points) goes clean.  Places are pinned.  I am very happy to finish so well and this qualified me now for American Eventing Championships in 2006 in Training division.