(Please scroll down for previous installments)
Final Day, August 7/8, 2009
Well, these are the final days of the 2009 youth world. We’re sorry we didn’t post a blog from yesterday, but we were very busy getting ready for finals that were today and spending every moment we could with our parents and trainers since it could be one of the last times for a long time.
Yesterday was absolutely great. Schimpff and Brightwell practiced the pleasure and equitation, and we all got together and had an amazing time together. We ordered loads of pizza and ate it in our hotel suite and talked and laughed like we always do.
Mrs. Brightwell had put together a book of all of our special memories and pictures over the past 11 years of showing together. There were some HILARIOUS ones! There were a lot of tears last night because we know that what we have shared has been one of the most special elements of our lives.
We have been the best of friends and grown up together. It’s sad to think this chapter of our lives is coming to an end. Of course, we all have plans for the future which include a Jewett ranch where we will all live and breed phenomenal horses and train them ;). Also, our different schooling will come into handy. One of us will be a vet, one of us will be a doctor, and the others will be some other profession that will help us on the ranch. For now, it’s only a dream, but hey, it could happen!
Today was the last day of the show. It was a pretty good one to end everything. Schimpff showed in the pleasure and got 9th with her horse Zip Past the Jag. Y’all probably know her by her gorgeous jackets with jaguar faces on them.
Brightwell showed in the equitation finals and got 6th. It was an all together exciting day. Rudy (the Nowacek’s golden retriever puppy) wore a spiderman jersey around the show all day for good luck and to support Brightwell because she LOVES Spiderman. During the equitation finals, Nowacek wore Rudy’s shirt, and Lexi wore a different Spiderman shirt. They are true friends and supporters! After the exciting day, we loaded the trailer in record time because believe it or not, the parents and BRAD helped out ha!
Then, we went to dinner at Trappers which was mmmmmmm so good. We are planning on playing this game called Mad Gab for a few hours in order to keep our minds off the fact that this is it. It’s over now, and who knows what will happen next. All we can do is enjoy these moments and never forget them. We are all separating this year as we go off to our colleges, but we are planning on doing some sort of “traveling pants”thing. We haven’t decided on the object, but it obviously won’t be pants haha!
Well, here is one final goodbye. Congratulations to all, and good luck this year! To all of the young youth out there, we cannot stress enough how lucky you are to be young, so take advantage of every second of it. What we wouldn’t give to be in 11 and under again….
Once and for all,
The Jewett Girls
Day 6, Thursday, August 6, 2009
Hey y’all! Comin’ at you again from OKC! Today has been another great day at the world show. The morning was full of watching the hunters do equitation over fences and working hunter. One of the young Jewett girls, Sammy Abner, did the eq over and had a great go until she chipped one jump. She is still very young though, so she has many more world shows to come.
Throughout the day, we also practiced and rode our trusty steeds. Schimpff practiced for the pleasure with the help of David Dellin and Brad. Brightwell practiced some equitation with Steph and had to do no stirrups for a little bit which is always fun……..HA. Then, Steph got on Fritz to pull him around, but the best part was she looked like an adorable little girl riding a HUGE hunter under saddle horse. It was great!
In the evening was the western pleasure preliminaries. Schimpff was in the very first split, and let me tell you, she had the loudest cheering section by far. She did a great job and made it through two more cuts all the way to the finals which are on Saturday. Jag (Schimpff’s horse) looked absolutely amazing. Nowacek didn’t end up showing it because she wanted to give Lugnut a little bit of a break.
While watching the pleasure, one of our best friends, Lexi Garza, and her father arrived. Lexi used to show with us on her big palomino, Charlie. The Garzas are the craziest, funniest people we know, and we LOVE them! After the pleasure, we girls went to dinner at IHOP, and had another typical trip. We had to wait forever for our food to arrive and the service was terrible. You are probably wondering why in the world we went back after the first failed attempt the other night, but it was late and we had a couple gift cards there :).
Finally, we were paying for our food, and the hostess decided to take her SWEET time doing whatever she wanted, making our night even longer. Then, she proceeded to tell us that we almost got the manager fired the other night when we got our meal 2 hours late and insisted that we get it for free considering the terrible service and awful wait. We have been to IHOPs all over the country, and we can tell you with certainty that IHOP in OKC is the absolute worst. We will not be returning….unless it’s another really late night and that’s the only place open haha.
As we were walking out of IHOP to the car, Lexi was talking about how bad the service was and not paying attention to where she was walking, and she completely ran SMACK into the side mirror of Brad’s truck. It was hilarious! We finally made it back to the hotel and had a great evening chat with all the parents. Good luck to everybody tomorrow! We can’t wait to watch the finals of the trail and western riding!
The Jewett Girls
Day 5, Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Well, good day everybody! Hope everyone is having a fantastic week, especially if you are at the world show! Today has been quite a roller coaster. We had trail prelims this morning and equitation this evening. In the trail, Brightwell had a good pattern except for the very first set of left leads, unfortunately. She went 13th, so we blame it on the unlucky number ha! Nowacek had a great pattern, but she had a couple ticks on the very last set of walks and scored a 219.5. Schimpff was AMAZING, but she scored a 225.5. Go figure with our luck this week, the cutoff for the finals was a 226. It was rather disheartening, but Schimpff was very happy with how she and her horse performed. Congratulations to all those who made it back to the finals!
After the trail, our day kind of turned into a fiasco. Our horses needed to be braided for the equitation since our class was directly after the trail. Steph found us a braider, and Fritz (Bright’s horse) got braided first. Lugnut, on the other hand, wasn’t braided until our eq. class was well under way. The braider had prior commitments which threw off the plan of being braided in time. Nowacek was 108th to go, but the pattern only took about 30 secnods to complete, so it was quite a frenzy trying to get everything together. Nowacek basically had to stand fully dressed with her saddle and bridle in hand ready to sweep Lugnut away as soon as the braiding was complete. Thankfully, the braider finished in time for her to have a sufficient warmup, and she had a really good pattern. Unfortunately, she did not get called back. Brightwell also had a great pattern and got called back to the semifinals.
In the semis, Bright had another pretty pattern and made it back to the rail. This is where it gets really interesting. As Bright trotted in, it was apparent that Fritz was feeling good…a little too good. There were 23 horses on the rail which made for a crowded arena. The announcer called for a canter on the left lead, and as soon as she cantered off, Bright knew Fritz was a wee bit fresh. He looked great, but he was so engaged in his back end that it was near impossible to sit. After cantering around the arena once, all of the sudden, Fritz bucked! Of course, the whole crowd gasped, and it seemed as if all eyes turned to the crazy horse. Apparently none of the judges saw it because she ended up making it back to the finals which are on Saturday.
We think it may have been the storm blowing in because it started pouring and thundering/lightening after our class. Sure wish we could get some of that downpour in San Antonio! All in all, it was a stressful day, but it ended up ok. Nowacek and Schimpff have pleasure tomorrow, and coincidentally, they jog in one after another. Until next time!
The Jewett Girls
Day 4, Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Hey again! This morning was the showmanship prelims. Nowacek and Schimpff both made it to the semifinals and had great patterns but did not advance into the finals unfortunately. Brightwell doesn’t do showmanship due to the lack in grace and beauty in her run haha! Softball player head to toe.
The reining and horsemanship finals were SO much fun to watch. In the reining, there was a three way tie for first, so there was a run-off. It was very exciting, and all three competitors did a great job. It must be nice knowing you are going to get a globe no matter what. The horsemanship finals was great as well. There were a lot of great patterns and only a few mistakes making it hard to guess the placings. Judging that class would be a tough job to have, no doubt. It was very refreshing and touching to watch Danielle Long win the class. She did an awesome job, and I’ve never seen anyone so happy. She’s from Alaska, which is a pretty sweet side note.
We also had the western riding prelims today. We don’t really want to talk about this class much, so we will cut to the chase and admit that we all choked. Our horses warmed up great, but we just didn’t perform like we can.
The results from the horsemanship prelims went up today. Brightwell TIED for 15th. This is absolutely the most “bummer” news ever. I mean, it’s bad enough to get 16th, but to tie for 15th?! UGH. We have equitation and trail tomorrow, and we are ready to kick some butt. Stephanie (Brad’s wife) did some crazy drills with us to get us ready for the eq. She is a hunter trainer, so she knows her stuff and is very talented. One of her hunter girls, Sammy Abner, is here and showing in the eq. over fences and hunter hack.
We didn’t have time to eat a good dinner today because we weren’t done with everything until 11:45. That was depressing! The great part about our hotel, though, is that it has this little room next to the front desk filled with food to purchase. Nowacek is an expert at making EasyMac. Mmmmm it was delicious! Sorry this entry is so short, but we have to get our beauty sleep to be ready for our big day tomorrow. Can’t wait! Let’s just hope we don’t choke :/…good luck everybody!
The Jewett Girls
Day 3, Monday, August 3, 2009
Hello again everybody! Today has been a very relaxed day since we show no classes until tomorrow. We got to sleep in until 7!!!! It was amazing. We rode a couple times and cheered for our fellow Texas teammates in the reining which is by far one of the most exciting classes to watch. It’s way more fun to be able to hoop and holler obnoxiously while someone is showing rather than being dead silent. While we hung out at the show, Brad took his huge truck, the Peterbuilt, to the shop because it was becoming more and more possessed by something strange. When we were riding in it, the dashboard lights started going on and off and the radio volume would randomly increase without us pressing any buttons. It was rather frightening, but thankfully everything is fixed now. We also went to sign up for the trail warm-up and waited in a massive line for over an hour only to find out we didn’t even have to sign up. Instead of having an organized sign up sheet for the warm-up, it’s every man for himself. Talk about chaos! I guess we will see how that goes in the morning. Nowacek and Schimpff have the showmanship in the morning, and we all three have western riding in the early evening.
The Parade of States was tonight, but Nowacek and Brightwell decided getting sleep was a better idea considering we were supposed to get up at midnight to ride. Schimpffy went and represented the Jewett girls along with the other Texas members. To our suprise, we got a call from the boss while we were sleeping that we were going to get up at 5 instead of midnight. Has Christmas come early??!! This was the best news we have heard all show ha! Of course, Nowacek and Brightwell got all excited about this news and couldn’t go back to sleep for another hour or so. Watching “What Happens In Vegas” and eating delicious chocolate Haagen Daaz ice cream and popcorn has helped put us into a little food coma. It was a great way to finish the night.
We would like to wish everyone luck tomorrow, and we would also like to encourage everyone to have Tim the Trail Man in their thoughts to help him get through these rough times. We hope and pray that his father gets better. We love you Tim!
The Jewett Girls
Day 2, Sunday August 2, 2009
Well, today was not as successful as we might have hoped, but it was still a fun and adventurous day. It all started at midnight as we practiced for horsemanship. Then, we went back to the hotel around 3am to take a nap and return to the show around 6:00 in the morning. The wait for our horsemanship class seemed like days, but it finally came and ultimately went faster than we had hoped.
Nowacek and Brightwell did horsemanship and both had good patterns. Lugnut (Nowacek’s horse) got a little fresh in the lead change, but Brightwell made it back to the quarterfinals. With all the pressure to do an amazing pattern in this round, it seems Brightwell’s pants just couldn’t take it. As she mounted Fritz (her horse) to begin warming up, her pants split straight down the middle! (See picture)
Things like this always seem to happen in stressful situations such as these, but it was quite entertaining and lightened the mood a little bit. There was nothing that could be done for her pants immediately, so she showed the rest of the class with a little extra breeze in her britches haha!
The quarterfinal was a very tough split, and there were a lot of great patterns. Everyone went for it, and nobody made mistakes. Brightwell ended up making it all the way back to the semifinals for railwork. Sadly, she was left standing with the other four horses that didn’t make it all the way back to the finals. Even so, it was a great start to the show, and we are excited about the rest of the week.
After the four hour horsemanship class, we made a late night run to our favorite restaurant, IHOP. Where else? It seemed as though everyone else had the same idea. IHOP was, well, HOPPIN. Basically, if you were in boots and spurs, you were at IHOP. There was a 45 minute wait for our table. Finally, we were seated and oh so hungry. We immediately ordered all of our food when the waitress asked for our drinks in order to speed the whole process up. Luckily, we had some fun yelling conversations across the restaurant with Robin and Jenny Frid and Bruce Walquist to pass the hour and a half long wait for our food.
IHOP must have been missing about three cooks who were replaced with an array of interesting characters including (nicknamed by us) Flip-flop Boy, Nose Picker, Lover Lady, Tongue Ring Lady, Mohawk Man, and Hard Working Red Shirt Guy. Finally, our food arrived after being told it was “coming in a couple minutes” about ten times. We ate SO fast once the food was set down in front of us. Thankfully, our meal was free after having a nice chat with the manager, and we got out of there around 1:00 in the morning.
It has been a looooong day, but it was another memorable one, nonetheless. We cannot wait for our next event which won’t be until Tuesday, but for now it is time for bed! Goodnight and congratulations to all who made it back in the horsemanship.
The Jewett Girls
Day 1, Saturday August 1, 2009
Coming to you from Oklahoma City, we are The Jewett Girls. We have been best friends since we were five years old and we literally live within two minutes from each other in San Antonio, Texas. We have been riding with Brad and Stephanie Jewett since we were eight. The picture here on the left is from 2001. From left to right we are Amanda Brightwell, Carey Nowacek and Carrie Schimpff.
We refer to each other by our last names (kudos to anybody who can pronounce all of them correctly). For Schimpff and Brightwell, it is the last youth world show while Nowacek still has one more year. The important thing, though, is that this year is the last youth world show we have together. Our dream is to be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in every event we go in. Whether we accomplish this goal or not, the journey to our current destination has been more rewarding than any piece of hardware we bring home (or at least thats what we tell ourselves and each other!)
So far, our world show trip has been surprisingly relaxing. We are trying to treat it just like any other horse show. Of course, hidden inside each of us are those stupid nerves that make sure we know this is THE WORLD SHOW!
We arrived in Oklahoma City Thursday evening and endured unloading the big, black Jewett trailer. Considering we three girls always handle all of the heavy lifting (who knows where Brad goes during these times), you can only imagine how amusing this must be to witness. At one point, we stacked eight western and two English saddles in one cart, and it’s no wonder we always seem to break our cart’s wheels. If Brad only knew we were the culprits…guess we’ve blown that now!
After what felt like an eternity, we were finally settled in our little nook in Barn 6. Now it’s time to go munch out HARD (translation: eat a lot of food). Our strong appetites are often a topic of conversation within the Jewett barn. The parents always joke that we are going to eat our way out of the prizes. Let’s hope this doesn’t actually happen. Oh, wait…gotta go…our popcorn is ready!
On Friday, we rode our amazing ponies a few times, ate and took a couple of naps in the chairs. For the record, people see us sleeping throughout the day, but we really just get all of our work done at obscene times in the morning. I guess you could say we are somewhat nocturnal.
Saturday was a great day. We got up at 3:45 a.m. and had a splendid early morning ride followed by the usual IHOP breakfast. The last time we ate at IHOP, the waitress accidentally spilled four glasses of ice cold water and 3 coffee mugs on Nowacek. It was awesome only because Nowacek was not seriously injured. It must have been karma because she ALWAYS spills her drinks at dinner, but this morning’s IHOP run was successful and yummy! We then took great naps and went to the movies.
So far, this is not a typical world show at all. Usually we would never even think of leaving the barn to go see a movie. Tonight we have a few pre-show rituals we are going to indulge in. These rituals are a secret among the Jewett Girls, but they MIGHT involve temporary tattoos that happen to have glitter on them….MAYBE.
Anywho, it’s about that time we sign out for the day because we need to get some rest before our midnight ride in the show arena. Sunday is the beginning of the end, and we can only hope and pray that our horses will stay sound and that everything will fall right into place.
Wishing everyone luck,
The Jewett Girls
Nowacek, Schimpff, and Brightwell
