The best thing about shows during winter season is that XpressFoto is in town doing the show pictures, and their All Images deal is cheaper than buying just a few single photos by themselves, so… there’s LOTS of media! After we talk about the course, anyway.

The course opened for walking on Wednesday at 3pm, so I was there at like 2:50, ready to rock and roll. Hillary came with me, and I was glad for a walking buddy as I mulled over approaches and lines and strategies. My regular trainer was out of town at Carolina, and Megan was lined up to coach me day-of, but she wasn’t there for my first walk on Wednesday. Which is fine by me, because I liked having time to look at things on my own and consider my options.

There were a few things I wanted a second opinion about after my initial course walk – mainly the line from 5 to 6 (it was offset and wonky), the coffin combo (I hated it), and the second crater combo with the corner (I was pretty sure what the best line was through there, but wanted to double check). So on show day Megan walked those with me after dressage, I solidified my plan, and we were all set. For the most part it felt definitely doable, but there was also plenty of work to do in the combos where you really needed to be on your line and committed.

After we finished showjumping I went back to the trailer, put his boots on, gave him some water, put on my vest, and off we went to XC warmup.

Now, remember how I said that Presto had been quiet all day? Like to the point where I really thought the heat was bothering him? Turns out that was A LIE. We got to XC warmup and Presto lit up like the Fourth of July. Turns out he was just saving himself for the fun stuff. I can respect that. Even when he’s trying to run off with me and squeal and crow hop his way around warmup like a lunatic. He was a bit rank. Kind of funny how well he’s figured out the game by now.

Because of that, he got to come out of the start box and do the first part slowly, just to make sure he understood that he still had to be rideable. As you can see from the map, the beginning was winding and felt like it was jump jump jump jump in rapid succession. Really straightforward jumps for the first few though, standard fare to get you into the flow. He was quite respectful about all of it, and had his ears pricked just as hard as they possibly could be.

The first interesting thing came at 5, 6, 7.

The wagon was offset to the brush in such a way that if you wanted to jump both of them straight-on, you’d have to do a wonky little S curve in between the two. Obviously you need to be straight to the brush into the water at 6, since you had to land and bend left to the skinny in the water at 7. So if you wanted to straighten the approach to the brush without having to wind all over the place, the solution was to jump the wagon angled a bit from right to left, which then created more of a bending approach to the brush.

I feel like I had a hard time explaining that, so I drew a picture. I know, my graphic design skills are top tier.

Presto was superb about that… I made the turn, found the line, and it came up nicely. When we jumped the brush into the water he did do his patented little leap step that he loves when he’s feeling full of himself, which caused a bit of a misstep, and I had to really be like “Hi hello you’re not done, there’s a skinny for you in here, get to business”. He was like OH OKAY, GOT IT. It’s the first real question he’s seen since last fall, and I think he needed it to remind him that Modified is harder and he has to stay on task.

After that we only had one let up fence, a ramp, and then we were at the coffin. What I didn’t like about this combo was that the Training line went straight through and was the obvious path to catch the horse’s eye. Both courses had the same A and B, but Training just went straight ahead 3 strides to a brush at C, whereas we had to jump the ditch and do a YOINK to the left three bold strides to a brush skinny at C. I knew Presto would lock on to the Training C and I’d really have to make sure to get him off that line and onto the Modified line. Megan said to open my rein over the ditch, put my eye on it, and “just get it done”. Grit, it’s what’s for eventingdinner.

One thing helped me out a little bit here – there was a truck sitting in the trees to the left of the coffin, and as he took off at the rail he kinda slid his gaze slightly to the left. It worked out for me to get his focus to stay left, opening my inside rein over the ditch, and as soon as his feet touched the ground from the ditch I really closed my leg and was like THAT ONE OVER THERE, GO GET IT. His focus shifted to it immediately and he was superb over the skinny.

Then it was a hop over the collapsible table… I always love to see the frangible fences out there.

And on to the first crater combo. These two Law Firm Ocala jumps were new to us, we haven’t jumped them before. The first show where they made their debut last year, I remember them being a bit spooky for several people. The faux books on the front side of the first jump are a lot to look at, especially since you headed from light to dark with a downhill landing. I rode positively to that one, but Presto didn’t even give it a second glance. He jumped it and landed with his ears perked, looking for the next. By this point in the course he remembered that things can be harder and come up quicker, and he was eating up the challenge and looking for the next. Exactly what I wanted to feel, him getting sharper and more clever.

He popped up and over the mound out of the crater and locked right onto the hanging log. I got him there on a bit of a gap and it was on an angle but he was like I’VE GOT IT NO PROBLEM and off he went, no questions asked. After that we had a quick turn to the right to jump the trakehner. This was another thing he’s never jumped at the horse park before, and it’s right in a tree line in the shade, with a big dark ditch. It’s a spooky AF trakehner. True to form though, he didn’t even seem to notice any of that as he pinged right over, looking for the next.

I finally let him gallop a bit after that, since we had a long stretch to the MIM oxer (which he jumped out of stride like a little champ) and let him keep rolling a bit on the way to the next crater. He came back pretty nicely before the first jump, and I could feel him looking for the question he knew was coming. We jumped the house down into the crater on a slight angle so that we didn’t get hung too far down the slope, then turned to pop up the steep mound over the log.

And y’all… this mofo locked his eyes on that skinny and bounded up the side of the mound like a rabbit on steroids, leaving one out to the skinny. I think in his mind he was like I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING WOW HERE I GO but in reality it wasn’t great because we had 4 quick bending strides after that to a corner. I had to really work the brakes and the steering wheel to get to the corner, and as soon as he realized there was another element he literally threaded his body through the flags on the corner to make it happen. It was a superb cross country horse moment in that he tried his absolute guts out to put us through the flags like he knows he’s supposed to, but also… his overenthusiasm is the reason it was harder than it should have been. I don’t think he was particularly deterred though. Does he get extra credit for the exceptional effort even if he’s the cause of needing to make said exceptional effort? I’m not sure. Either way, next time we will try to be a bit more conservative up the mounds (at least I will… no promises about him).

After that the hard parts were done! We just had a few more until we were home. I really expected him to start feeling a little heavy by that point since 1) hot AF outside 2) he’s not at peak fitness, just coming back to the level. But no. I mean I’d run him pretty slow for the first 2/3 but still… he was plenty full of running, if he’d been allowed.

We galloped over the box, then came down the hill to the second water. By this point he was so full of himself I think it could have been on fire and he would have jumped it. He was positively GLEEFUL through the water, out over the skinny, and then over the last two tables to the finish.

We finished with a buttload of time faults that dropped us way down the placings, but that was the plan in the first place. My main goals for this show were 1) let him see some more challenging things again to get a feel for where we’re at before planning the rest of the season 2) maintain the rideability 3) get us back in sync 4) keep a balanced gallop the whole way around. All of those things were accomplished, so I’m super happy with that. He was so freakin happy to be back out, and he definitely needed to be challenged a little bit. Most of all though, I was just so relieved/elated to be sitting back on my super happy boy XC Machine again… he felt just like the Presto I know and love. All in all, a great day!