One Small Circle for Me, One Large Circle for the Win

While the show didn't go exactly as planned, I'm still very happy with it.  Tia was awesome, did everything I asked even when she wasn't sure.  I had one moment of panic while on course and if not for that we probably would have won. 

We got to the show a little before one, checked in and got Tia settled in her stall.  They opened the course up at 1 to walk, and I wasn't scheduled to do my flat class until 2:15.  The plan was to walk, change my clothes, get tacked up, then warm up on the flat.  The walk went pretty well, minus that both Jen and I  had trouble figuring out strides.  No distances between fences were posted on the course (the course pic is posted below) and we had to walk a couple lines twice.  Overall it was a pretty technical course considering it's a local medal final.  There were 2-3 make-it-or-break it fences and our plan was to just ride everything forward and go for it.

It started raining while I was changing.  The classes were being held inside but warm up was outside.  It was warm, around 70* and humid. I was dying in my hunt coat. We somehow got behind tacking up and I got on with about 15mins to warm up. Oops.  It stopped raining, yay!, and we went outside.  The outdoor ring was pretty deep and Tia was having a little trouble working in.  We schooled transitions, trying to make them as crisp and clean as possible. We headed over to the indoor a couple minutes before to relax and breath.

There ended up being 7 in my class, a few ponies, one somewhat wild TB who kept screaming, and a couple other horses.  I tried as hard as I could to find us a spot on the rail but kept getting behind the small ponies.  Tia was largest horse there, with the biggest stride, and I felt like we were lapping everyone.  We had to do a couple laps one direction and another lap the other way of sitting trot.  My leg hadn't really been bothering me until that point. When the judge called for the second sitting trot I thought I was going to cry.  I'm sure I made some lovely faces.

Jen said we looked pretty good, the only major thing was my hands.  I tend to have piano hands.  When we were just trotting or cantering around I could think about having my thumbs up, but during the sitting trot I was more concerned with the pain and not looking like a sack of potatoes and my hands reverted back.  We ended the flat class with a 4th, which I was surprised with.  As long as it looked better than it felt I'm happy!

We had about 45mins to wait till the over fences round, and I was scheduled to go 6th in the order.  I got off, grabbed a snack and some water, and let Tia graze for a bit.  Then it was time to get back on and school over fences.  We didn't do too much, a couple x's to warm up, then we worked on doing square turns to vertical on the center line.  Tia was pretty balanced, I just needed to ride her forward more.  We went back to ring to watch a few rounds before I went.

The first line was a flowing 4 strides.  I had to make sure we had a forward, flowing canter to make the first line.  Coming to it, I was slightly behind but she moved up perfectly thru the line.  The original plan was to ride fence 3 square, but after watching everyone before me try to do the same thing and screw it up, Jen decided to have me angle the fence.  Tia was slightly over bent coming to it, and wasn't too sure about the jumping on an angle thing, but we nailed the distance.  I had to collect her a bit in the turn to 4 then moved up to it but it flowed well. A lot of people had trouble in the rollback from 5 to 6; their horses loosing impulsion and chipping into 6.  I lost Tia a bit in the turn, but sat deep and pushed her forward to oxer.  It was a bit long, but much nicer than everyone elses!

Fence 7 is where disaster struck.  Tia was over bent again in the turn and didn't want to land and turn to 8.  It was a forward 5 or a tight 6 strides to fence 8, then a tight 3 strides to fence 9. Since she landed a bit disorganized off 7 I asked her to come back to me to regroup.  She took offense, flipped her head, and did her bunny hop short stride thing.  We ended up at five and half strides to fence 8 and I panicked.  I circled her off the fence, and came back to it.  I know if I had just sat up and kicked her forward she would have gotten out of it. The three might have turned into 4, but she would have figured it out. 

Coming back to fence 8 we found a distance and the three to 9 flowed fine.  Fence 10 was the hardest fence on course.  It was angled funny, and you had to ride past the turn to it to have a nice landing turning right. Almost everyone else got an awkward 3 strides to it off the rail with a wide right turn after.  Our plan was to almost hand gallop it in a two.  We nailed it.  The two was almost short and Tia was even pooping as we cantered up to it. I was looking right, opening my right rein, and she landed perfectly balanced and on the right lead.  We were able to shave off a few strides from where everyone else was landing and turning. Coming to the last fence I had to collect her a bit and we got a short stride to fence 11. 

We ended up 6th out of 7 (the 7th rider was actually eliminated for refusals).   A lot of people who were watching told me I would have won if not for the circle.  We had the most polished round and were able to ride the make-it-or-break-it fences (# 3 and 10) the best.  I am kicking myself for that damn circle, but I'm really happy we were able to make the hard fences look good.  For Tia, the point and shoot hunter who doesn't do turns, to be able to do fences like that is huge.  I could tell she wasn't sure or happy with some of them, but she did it, and did it well.  I am disappointed that we could have won, but there's always next year.  I'd say for my first medal finals I did pretty well.

Thank you Tia for being the best horse I could have asked for and for putting up with me!

Arbor Grove Show

Great first show of the season!  We started early, left the barn by 6:30am and got to the show about 7:30.  Two of the college girls were showing, and they both ride the same horse so we loaded Tia and Buddy up and off we went.  My truck is having some battery problems so Rick and Connie were nice enough to let us use their dually to haul, and all we had to do was pay for diesel.  I had hooked up Saturday afternoon so we would be all set Sunday.

I always feel like a badass driving this monster.

It was colder than I though when we got there, but luckily the rain held off all day.  We walked the ponies around a bit before tacking up and warming up. Buddy was really high during warm up and we had a couple discussions about striding in the lines.  The outside lines were a three and a four, both a little long for us.  We could get them, but Buddy was flat and strong on the landing so Jen had us wait and add.  There was also an end fence on the far side of the arena that was just a brick wall box with two tall potted shrubs as standards that we did a few times. Buddy didn't look twice at it but Tia, who is a been, there, done that ex A-circuit hunter spooked at.  Once Buddy had quieted down Nik and I switched so she could get ready for her trot a pole classes.

Luckily Nik was able to school some poles and Bud was nice and quiet for her.  Their rounds went well and they ended up with a 1st and 2nd! 

The ribbons were the size of her torso.

Buddy then got a couple hour break while we waited for my classes. I untacked him and put his sheet back on and brought him to the arena to watch. He literally fell asleep standing up and didn't move for about and hour. While we waited one of the college girls had her rounds.  They did ok, but this was her first show in a few years, and first real show (she had only done shows at her old barn) and she was really nervous.  They ended up going off course in the last round and Katie was pretty disappointed.

They had a schooling break before my classes (the 2'6" pre-adult hunter, eq and mini medal) so I got Buddy re-warmed up and popped over a couple fences.  He was a lot quieter than in the morning which was nice.  We schooled a bending line that we would have to do in our eq and medal classes and called it good.    Our first round was pretty nice, except I had to move him up to the first fence in the one outside line and ended up going for a long three instead of our plan for four.  We did manage to get all our leads and changes. We ended up getting a 4th for that round.

The second hunter round and our eq rounds were a bit of a disaster.  The last stride before the first fence in the hunter round Buddy tripped and we ended up taking the entire fence down. He was a bit discombobulated but luckily we had a long ride to a single diagonal to regroup.  He did jump the rest of the course a lot higher and scopier than normal.  Then in the eq class he ran out of gas and stopped at a fence.  It wasn't a dirty stop, but a slow stop.  I smacked him with my crop then circled back to it.  We made it around the rest of the course but I could tell he was done.  Even with our mini meltdowns we still placed in both classes with a 6th and 4th respectively.  I will say that there were only 6 in all of our classes.

There were two flat classes between my eq round and the mini medal so I got off to walk him out.  Jen and I talked about if I should scratch and she told me as long I was prepared to ride every fence fairly aggressively we could still do it.  Luckily Buddy regained some energy in his 20 minute break and we went first into the medal.  We were a bit slow and conservative in our lines, and I stared down the end box fence getting a funky distance to it, but overall it was a nice round and we got a 3rd.  They had the top two come back for the test and I was disappointed to be one place away from it.



Our loot for the day
 

I was very happy with how we did.  So we had a few oops and mistakes but I wasn't nervous with the fence height or trying too hard to find my distances.  I felt in control (minus the fence demolishing) during all of our rounds and we nailed almost every lead change.  We didn't place the highest, but we placed well and I'm proud of Buddy.  Now he gets today off with his BoT sheet and an easy flat hack tomorrow.

A complete 180

We had a lesson on Thursday, and Buddy was awesome!  He was listening, not fighting me, had a great rhythm and was for the most part getting his lead changes.  Compared to how he was the day and week before, it's a complete 180.  The day before my lesson he was pushy and fighitng me; flipping his head every time I asked for him to collect or a downward transition.  I was trying very hard to keep my cool and not pick on him but it was so frustrating.  I didn't have high hopes going into the lesson.

I talked with Jen before I got on and decided to do our flat warm up in the draw reins.  He was convinced he couldn't move out in them, but was soft in my hand and didn't protest.  When we were ready to jump I took them off and put his martingale on.  Jen had us start by trotting in and out of a line, going downhill.  The first time thru we had to stop and back up in the middle, but after that he was good and even a bit lazy.  From there we went to doing a left to right diagonal off a short approach.  As long as I was sitting down and kept my leg on him it flowed well.  We then added a second fence, making it a bending line in an easy 4. I had given my phone to Anna so we have video evidence!

Then we moved on to a different bending line, a vertical to an oxer in 5.  He didn't get the lead change as easy this way, but it was still very nice for us. After schooling both lines a couple times we tried to put together a little course, but I had run out of pony.  Going to the second bending line I felt like I had no pony power and couldn't see the distance to the oxer and pulled him out.  We did school the oxer by itself then worked on getting Buddy forward to the black fence and getting our left lead after before we called it a day. 

Considering how naughty and tempermental Buddy has been the past week or so, I was beyond thrilled with how good he was for the lesson.  Untill he got tired, it felt like we could go do whatever Jen asked and it was easy, no holding him back or trying to push him forward.  Let's hope he stays this way since we are going to our first show of the year next weekend!