Month: March 2025

We both know you’re only here for the good part. I respect that. Pull up a seat and settle in.

I walked the XC on Saturday after showjumping and thought the jumps looked fine. Really the first 7 were all straightforward and gallopy, before you started getting to the meat of the course. Nothing looked particularly big or difficult, which was a nice feeling to walk away with. BUT, this is the first show we’ve been to where Equireel was there, which meant tripods everywhere. If you’re not familiar with Equireel, they make/sell event videos of your XC ride by using tripods and mostly stationary cameras. They started overseas and have recently branched out over here to the US, so their team is still a bit new to all this, and at a show earlier this season (not in Ocala) there was some really not-great placement of tripods that caused some issues. Ya know what would be prime spook-n-spin fodder for Presto? An errant tripod. My friend Emily was the TD and I asked her to please please please double check their tripod placement and make sure none of them were in particularly spooky places.

Granted, I didn’t lose any sleep over it because I felt so crappy that night, I took two Advil PM’s and passed the F out. The coughing and the snot were a whole situation, I couldn’t breathe very well. Who needs breathing though? No one. Oxygen? Overrated.

They didn’t start the Prelim XC until Saturday afternoon, since a lot of our jumps were heading directly into the rising sun (anything that went toward the road in the above map – you really can’t see it early in the morning with all the shadows). Since I was towards the end of the two Prelim divisions, my ride time wasn’t until 2pm. I got up and fed the horses and then retreated back to my house in an attempt to stay out of the wind and pollen, lest I make my respiratory situation even worse. Either way, it wasn’t great. Both nostrils were fully blocked. It was about to be a mouth-breathing extravaganza.

Patreon folks – you have a full video of both my XC round and the course walk on your dashboard, courtesy of Hillary’s new gimbal. Let us know if you like that course walk format! Regular blog folks, here’s your usual photo course walk (with appearances by Hillary and said gimbal). You might have to click into them to see some of them better because of how WordPress formats the gallery.

When we drove into the facility on Saturday afternoon I saw Buck walking his horse back from getting eliminated at 14AB, and then when I got on to go to warmup I saw one of Caroline’s say nope at the coffin, so that was… confidence-inspiring. It didn’t really bother me that much though because 1) lack of oxygen to my brain 2) I was mostly just happy to see that they had moved the tripod I had been most concerned about, by 4AB. The tripods, y’all, they didn’t fill me with joy.

Anyway – Presto was once again focused and professional. He warmed up great, really rideable but also giving me that feeling where he was taking me forward a bit. We jumped maybe 5-6 warmup jumps and then headed down to the box.

Ellie told me to send him out in front of my leg from the very beginning and get him galloping up and in front of me. He always clicks in much better to his task if you establish your agenda right out of the box. Go forward, jump the jump, land, immediately put him back out in front of my leg. The first three came up great and he was eating them up easy peasy.

Presto was definitely registering his surroundings, like I felt him take note of all the flags on the way to jump 3, and the busy highway as we headed to 4AB. But that’s exactly what it felt like – just him taking note, not him being looky or wanting to suck behind my leg. He jumped great through the combo at 4AB, popped over the little rolltop next to the road at 5, the ramp at 6, and then made a really nice effort over the big bench at 7 as we headed back down into the main field.

Then we were on our way to the first real question on course – the palisade to the skinny brush. If you haven’t popped open the pic of the palisade in the course walk gallery above, that one is worth a closer look. It’s kind of a relic from days of eventing past, you really don’t see things like it very much anymore. You’re kind of funneled into the biggest middle section, which has a downhill drop on the landing. Looks and feels like you’re jumping off a cliff, which I think is fun as hell. Your opinion may vary.

Anyway, he jumped off the palisade great, and then we had 7 bending strides down to the skinny brush. Easy peasy, no problem.

After that we headed down across the field to the angled coops, which rode in a slightly short two. Presto is pro at the angled combos by now so that was also cake.

We turned back up the hill and had the other big skinny yellow table. My memory thought that it was further up the hill than it was, so my turn to it ended up being a little shallow and I opted to slightly angle it. Presto didn’t care, he just jumped it bigger.

Then we had the next combo – a skinny log stack, 5 strides to an up bank, 5 bending strides to a skinny brush wedge. This is where I made my first little booboo. The lines walked a little bit short, so I landed after the A and settled a bit. Turns out that was entirely unnecessary and all it did was put us a few extra feet off of the B. Presto, bless him, did some magic with his feet and clambered up it anyway, and I decided to reactivate my brain, put my leg on, and ride supportively out of the 5 to the brush. It was no problem, he didn’t care, but ya know… annoying misjudgment on my part. Sorry buddy, good boy.

After that we had a bit of a gallop stretch back up the hill towards the trees for the next set of jumps. We had a nice airy MIM oxer (this thing used to make me pee my pants but it’s fine now) which I just rode like a showjump. Presto was brilliant.

Then we wove through some trees to a big wide rolltop, after which we had the left turn to 14AB, so it made kind of a S. My instructions were to not come TOO bold at the rolltop, because I needed to settle, get him back, and then get to a quiet/deeper distance to 14A. That skinny rail had a pretty substantial drop on the back side (my TD friend said it measured as a 1.30m drop, max for the level) and then a sharp 90 degree turn to the big skinny corner. If you came flying through there you were for sure gonna blow past the corner.

Luckily the rolltop came up nicely out of stride, I got him back pretty quickly, and made the turn to 14A with a nicely packaged canter. We got to a nice deeper distance, landed from the drop, and made the turn to the corner. He had his ears on it from 3 strides away, no problem. Good kiddo!

After that we had a nice gallop over the steeplechase

and the Weldon’s Wall, before looping back over to the coffin.

Which is where I made my second little booboo of the day (so annoying). There was a girl walking toward my path, and she stopped but then started walking towards it again. I got entirely too focused on where she was going and ended up slowing my canter down more than I normally would have. We jumped in over the MIM rail fine, did the one stride to the ditch fine, but he jumped so quietly over the ditch that I really needed to close my leg and ride up out of the coffin for the 3 strides. I didn’t do that. I sat chilly and waited, which put him down to the angled brush on like 3 1/2. It weren’t cute. Once again he didn’t care – he’s clever and plenty scopey so he just patted the ground and popped out – but ya know… I didn’t help much there. Lots of pats and good boys once again. Sorry bout your mother.

But all we had left was the water, which he jumped through like it was a Novice (to be fair, I thought they gave us a really soft question here at the water, which I wasn’t complaining about), just cantering over the rolltop in, then through, and out over the skinny brush. It was boring. We love that.

And then, bingbadaboom, just a gallop over the last jump and through the finish flags!

I wasn’t even remotely going for time so I knew I’d have a lot of it, and indeed I did manage to accrue myself 12 time penalties. Still though, there were enough problems that it only dropped me from 2nd to 4th. I’ll totally take that! I really just wanted to log his first Prelim on a number, I had no expectation of being competitive. It’s also kinda cool to note that if we made time, we would have won. Things to aspire to!

Mostly though, I’m just super proud of him. He skipped around like it was easy, and honestly it was. He felt educated and prepared and super happy to be doing his job, such that when I did make mistakes it didn’t even fluster him in the lightest. That’s the feeling I want. XC is never going to be perfect, it’s about laying the groundwork so that you can safely and confidently handle it when things go a little bit sideways. That’s exactly what he did, and he did it with his ears pricked. Ellie said he looked entirely unimpressed and unchallenged through all three phases. He wasn’t even particularly tired at the end of XC. Music to my ears! I’d rather never move up at all than move up even one show too early, and I feel safe in saying that he was 100% prepared for the ask. As for me, I need to focus on being a little more proactive at the combinations.

I also have to majorly shoutout my support team for the weekend. Hillary was the groom extraordinaire, Michelle took all the pictures, and several people pitched in to get XC video (even the course designer – thanks David!). My friend Lija took him after XC to bathe him so I could try to blow out all my snot rockets and reoxigenate, I had friends hooping and hollering all over the place through all three phases… it was really exceptional support and I appreciate every single one of you.

And with that, we officially have ourselves a Prelim pony! Milestone reached. We’re gonna bask in that for at least a week before we start talking about what’s next.

Well guys, this was finally it: our move up to Prelim. I talked about it some in our Patreon fb group but didn’t really say much publicly, mostly because I was frickin scared to jinx it. If you recall, we were actually entered in our first Prelim last May, and then I promptly fell off and broke my ankle, and between that injury, starting with a new trainer over the summer, and Presto having the monster abscess that took us out of the fall season, here we were again 10 months later finally ready to take another swing at it. Quietly though, lest I tempt the horse gods. We all know they are volatile and vindictive.

I picked Majestic for our first one because it’s the facility we’ve really spent the most time at. It also tends to not look quite as big and intimidating as some of the other venues can, at least to me anyway. It has it’s own traits that make it challenging, but we’ve shown there enough by now to be comfortable with it, so Majestic seemed like a logical choice.

Hillary offered to braid Presto for me, and you can bet your ass I didn’t turn that offer down. I haven’t braided him since like… early last year maybe? We tend to do mostly one-day shows, and everyone here is pretty relaxed for those. Braiding isn’t required, after all, and if you’re running under Prelim and/or at a one-day, it feels especially superfluous to me these days. Am I saying that because my horse is not exactly a patient and cooperative creature to braid and I hate doing it? Perhaps. Either way, it works for us. But this was his Prelim debut, and a two-day show, so… braiding seemed like the right choice. Hillary knows how much I hate it, and she offered to take one for the team and braided him for me at 6:15am. I nominate her for sainthood. He looked great.

It also worked out really well in my favor because I woke up that morning feeling kind of shit. My throat was a little sore and my nose was dripping like a freakin faucet. The cold and windy morning wasn’t helping at all, and I was mostly focused on trying to minimize my suffering and make sure my brain was plugged in for the tasks ahead. Braiding would have been extra miserable.

My dressage time was 8:48am, which seemed kinda rude but honestly – the vibes that time of day were immaculate. It was really quiet still because they started the day with just two dressage rings, one Open Prelim and one Prelim Rider. That meant there weren’t that many trailers there yet, and at no point was there more than 4 other horses with us in dressage warmup. It was so chill and lovely. Sign me up for that horse show experience every time.

Presto warmed up GREAT. Like he was quiet and relaxed and focused from the moment I threw my leg over. No shenanigans whatsoever. I practiced a few of the harder movements from the test, seeing if I was going to get any kind of resistance or yeehaw from him, but nope. He was just… obedient. I started joking that maybe I should take his temperature.

His test was much the same. Quiet, professional, obedient. One of the leg yields was a bit slow getting started – he was just a couple steps slow off my leg – and on the second 10m canter half circle I slightly overshot centerline a bit. I didn’t really go for it too much on the canter lengthenings because I wanted to keep my nice quiet test, so maybe it lacked a bit of sparkle, but overall I was really really pleased with him. No arabian impressions, no flagged tails, no yeehaws, no big mistakes. He even held together those counter canter strides with no complaints.

We scored a 28.3, which is exactly the same score we got from Peter Gray at our last Modified at Rocking Horse. I’ll very happily take that for a first stab at a Prelim test, especially when I can easily identify several areas of potential improvement for next time. It also left us sitting in 2nd after dressage, which is always a nice place to be!

After we got him back to the trailer and taken care of, I went over to showjumping to walk the course and watch a few of the early Prelim rounds. I dunno if it’s just me but I always like to watch enough to see one really really smooth, exceptional round (to see what I want to emulate) and one rough, not so great but survivable round (to remember that just because it isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world). Is that weird? I dunno, it’s just how my brain works. Type A problems.

Anyway, the course looked great. After doing the 1.15m rounds a couple days prior, the 1.10m honestly looked a little bit small. That’s NEVER a bad problem to have. There was plenty to do though, with a double combination, a triple combination, a liverpool, and a triple bar (haven’t seen one of those in a while!).

Warmup was, once again, blissfully quiet. So was Presto. Sometimes he’s mature and trained and it catches us all by surprise. We jumped a few oxers, ending with a big square oxer off a short turn, then one big vertical before we went in the ring. He jumped the snot out of the big square oxer and I found myself grabbing for mane only to remember that he was braided. It’s a hell of a lot harder to grab a button. This braiding thing is impractical, guys!

We went in the ring and Presto was honestly foot perfect. Focused, rideable, and jumping great. I resolved to myself that if I was going to make a mistake, I wanted to make one going forward, not pulling, so if I was ever in doubt about anything I just sat up and put my leg on. Amazing how much better that works. Presto was super happy to just go forward and do his job. So trained. So fancy.

This is the horse I’ve been wanting to feel, and he really stepped up to the plate. We had one of the best rounds we’ve put together in a long time and logged a nice double clear, keeping our second place spot.

There were plenty of rails hitting the ground throughout the day in various divisions (fence 2 seemed to be a particular bugaboo for some reason? I guess it was kind of a harder “rollback” type feeling to have right off the bat?) and he’s certainly had rails here at this venue in the past, but he just felt – for lack of a better term – leveled up. Is it age and maturity? Is it the result of the training program? Probably both. Either way, I frickin dig it. I wanted the move-up to feel confident and competent, and so far we’d absolutely ticked those boxes in the first two phases. What an exceptional boy. All of it was just incredibly, delightfully, blissfully uneventful, like it was just another day at the office.

Of course, that was just day 1. After I walked XC with my trainer Presto got to go home, have a bath, roll in his sandpit, and take a nice afternoon nap in the sun. I got to shift my focus to the next (and biggest, and hardest) part. But that’s a story for tomorrow.

Whoooooopsy, last week got away from me and I only half-drafted this post. Now it’s Sunday and there’s a horse show to recap, but I gotta post this one first to get everyone caught up!

Lesseeeee, where do I even begin? First and foremost – Presto had a birthday. He’s officially an 8 year old now, which is bonkers. That’s like… a real horse. Not a baby horse. A full-fledged, card-carrying adult boy. Naturally, I got him his favorite thing to celebrate: treats and a new giant ball.

Since I last wrote, I think he’s had a couple training rides and I’ve had a few lessons. Ellie flatted him last week and jumped him last weekend (on his birthday!) and then I had a couple dressage lessons and took him to some schooling jumper rounds. The dressage lessons have been focused on practicing the Prelim B test, particularly this part:

I mentioned this series in my last post, which is when we first started working on it. We continued to hammer away at it, working on the timing and positioning and nailing down the accuracy. In the Prelim B test you do that series both directions, so it ends up being a large majority of the test, and it’s a more challenging series of movements than he’s had to do yet. Honestly though, he put it together pretty quickly, and with repetition just got better and better. With Henry I had to be careful not to do the same thing over and over because he would start to anticipate so much, but with Presto he tends to relax into the repetition and is easier to ride him when he knows what to expect.

I had gone home and played with it a bit in between lessons, and mentioned to Ellie that I thought it went better/more fluidly when I sat the trotting parts vs posting, and asked her thoughts. She said that she actually thought I should sit the whole test. Like the whole thing. Like all of it.

I have not spent a ton of time sitting this horse’s trot yet. Up until recently his life’s work has been to go forward and prevent him from getting tight across his back and behind the saddle, so it’s just not been of much focus. And well… he’s a much bigger mover (and much bigger in general) than any other horse I’ve had. I can sit Henry all day long. Presto has been physically more difficult, and I really just haven’t devoted a lot of time to trying. But ya know… that lesson was the day I guess, and she had me sit the whole thing. Even the lengthenings. I was dying, y’all. Thank GOD I’ve been swimming and working a lot on my core, but even then my abs were literally crying by the end. I might have to add some yoga in to my workout days. And like… actually start sitting the trot on this horse for real. The times where it really clicked in and I was sitting into him he had the best feeling, like 3/4 of him was out and up in front of me and he was so incredibly light and rideable. So ya know, add it to the list of things for me to work on.

At the end of that lesson she mentioned that she wasn’t gonna be able to make the scheduled 2pm time for the 1.10m jumper rounds the next day, and proposed that we do the 1.15m at 8am instead.

Heh. “It’s just another hole higher”. HEH. Yeah sure that’s totally fine. This is fine. Why wouldn’t it be? Noooo worrrrieesss hereeeee. I was like ok let’s give it a go but if we get there and it looks huge I’m making you jump him around first (listen, sometimes I am not as brave as y’all seem to think I am). She just kind of chuckled and agreed and said we would be fine. I was not convinced.

And then we got there and jumped around and guess what it was fine. It IS only a hole higher, and they had it set where honestly I think only like half the jumps were truly 1.15m anyway, so it looked pretty friendly and within our wheelhouse.

I made a mistake down the outside bending line in the first round, trying to add where I really just needed to put my leg on, but we came back around and fixed it. Presto was jumping really really well. He’s just really next-leveled himself lately. I was particularly pleased with how rideable he was. If I wanted to add one more, he did so without complaint (even if it wasn’t the best choice) and when I closed my leg, he went forward. He was straight, he was balanced, he was making a good shape in the air, and he was just genuinely a super good boy.

We did two rounds and neither one was perfect, but the second was better than the first, and I went home pleased with our first 1.15m attempt. Mostly because it really didn’t look that big or intimidating, and I didn’t feel like I did the over-defensive riding that I tend to fall into when I’m worried about something. We’re trusting each other more over the bigger stuff as our confidence increases, so it’s clicking and feeling like a more polished team effort.

Which is good, because SPOILER ALERT he was entered in the Prelim at Majestic for the weekend. Anyway, like I said, show recaps coming soon, but not today. (what a tease)

In related newsworthy, er… news… when I whined about washing my white breeches, my friend Lisa (everrythingishard on Instagram) told me to try Dawn Powerwash.

She swore that all you had to do was spray this stuff on and then throw them in the wash. No scrubbing or soaking or extra steps required. That sounded like my kind of washing, because I freaking HATE feeling like I’m out there in the crick with my washboard and my bar soap like it’s 1850. If I have to suffer through late stage capitalism at least give me my modern-day perks, please. I’m a one-step and into the washing machine kind of girl.

Anyway, long story short: she was right. I just sprayed it on really well and chunked these bad boys straight in the washing machine. It didn’t get EVERY SINGLE stain out, but it got the overwhelming majority for sure. Especially considering one of those pairs was still dirty from like… January. Because I waited until all my whites were dirty before I washed any of them. Ya know, as one does.

Now that I don’t have to use actual effort, I can (theoretically) actually wash my whites in a timely manner rather than months later. We shall all rejoice.

Not much else has been going on besides the usual. I did team up with EN for the first in their adult ammy “day in the life” vlog series, wrapped up (mostly anyway) retail season, teched for my vet at a PPE (more side hustles are always welcome), and wasted entirely too much of my life in a Ticketmaster queue for Sleep Token tickets only to find out that floor or pit tickets for the Orlando show STARTED AT $700 and proceeded to laugh my way right on out of that daydream. Which is too bad because I really did want to see Sleep Token (please don’t ask me how many times I’ve played Emergence in the week and a half it’s been released) but good lord.

I also owe y’all a WTW baby update, which will be coming… soonish. After the horse show recaps. I also need to write reviews for a couple things, particularly the Gatusos boots and the Magnawave. Preferences for which things should be first in the queue?

The downside of being in a program where we have lessons or training rides 3x a week is that it becomes impossible to document thoroughly. It would become a task of gargantuan proportions that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with and I think pretty much no one would be interested in reading.

That is the only downside. Well ok and the cost. But like… best money I’ve spent in a long time so no ragrets.

But I’m still navigating how exactly to summarize everything here on the blog. I suppose it could be a clinical day by day with general notes about what we did. Or I could just hit whatever highlights there may have been. Do the people have a preference for what they want to hear about? This is a problem I’ve never had before when even in the very best of times I was getting a lesson a week. But it feels pretty redundant to just be like “this is awesome I love it, Presto feels amazing” without more detail than that.

It’s also a bit more challenging because lesson video or media is not happening very often… it’s just not possible to have someone with me randomly at 2pm on a Tuesday or 9am on a Thursday very often. We work lessons and rides around my erratic schedule so it’s different every week. And I hate writing tons of word vomit with no photos to accompany.

So basically, what do y’all want to hear? It’s unlikely that I have time to update here more than once a week, so what’s the best way to cram it in here without being a) overwhelming, or b) not enough detail?

For instance, last week Ellie flatted him and jumped him and then I jumped him and flatted him. Her flat ride was his first real work day back after Rocking Horse (he mostly hacked and did stretchy flat rides, with a pole day) and he’s never quite as enthusiastic about dressage after he’s just run XC. He thinks the Runny Jompies should be a way of life and can be slightly feral about being a well-trained, obedient boy for his first proper dressage ride back. He was pretty good though, aside from one slight protest about the counter canter.

Then she jumped him, again targeting the rideability and reminding him that he still has to listen and does not indeed know everything (he disagrees). She jumped him into a line, leg yielded out of the line, turned around and jumped into the line the other way, leg yielded out, etc etc. Once he was being consistently soft to the base and leg yielding away without tightening his topline, she let him jump down the whole line. It was a pretty short and to the point ride – they usually are with his training rides.

We came back the next day and I jumped him, working on the same exercise. It definitely helps me get a feel for exactly what she’s doing and what we’re going for, to follow up directly after. Again we didn’t do a whole lot, just the same leg yielding exercise, then we jumped down the line. Since he was good for that we added a one stride and a bending line too, focusing on maintaining that rideability. He was superb.

Sunday we did a dressage lesson, working on elements from a new test. Particularly this series: leg yield from the rail to the centerline, turn, canter, lengthen the canter on a half 20m circle, back to working canter, 10m half circle back to the rail, trot. This series probably would have turned him into a bit of a pogo stick a few months ago, but he was actually quite good for a first effort. Before we started that we did a lot of shoulder fore on a circle (to make sure he was in the outside rein), and then shoulder out down the long sides (as a prep feeling for coming off the rail to leg yield to center line). It was fun to work on some new stuff.

As for Rubes, he’s getting rides when and how I can. We’re almost at the end of retail season, which will open up my schedule tremendously. Until then I’ve just been maintaining him where he’s at, and working a little more on bending and stretching. Once I have more flexibility with my time and can get him back on a 5-6 days a week schedule, we can resume with building on to his education.

He’s such a happy boy though, and loves to work. Anytime he sees me coming he’s like “ARE YOU COMING FOR ME? HERE I AM.” and presents himself to his gate whether I’m actually out there to get him or not. I feel bad when I’m not. Sometimes he just gets scritches and a “Sorry buddy, tomorrow, I promise!”. He’s getting used to having a less predictable schedule/routine though, which honestly I think is good for him. He struggled so hard with that in the beginning.

Oh, btw, we were selected as one of the pairs to be featured on the OTTB on Tap podcast for the road to the RRP Makeover, so make sure you’re subscribed to that! It’s a great podcast, so even if you don’t want to hear from me (who would blame you) you should listen anyway.

As for Henry, well. He’s been struggling on and off with a foot bruise for the past month or so. As soon as it’s almost better he decides to act like he’s 2 instead of 18 and takes himself for a gallop around his field and then is like “oh dang, my footie is kinda owwie now”. Yeah, bro…. what a mystery. He’s always been super prone to bruises this time of year so it’s nothing too surprising. I did get on him one of the days he looked sound and he spent the whole time pretending he was an actual dolphin. Perhaps he’s taken the retirement thing a bit too far.

I’d love it if his feet would get on board and he was reliably rideable again, because I find myself really wanting to go home and work on the things Presto and I do in lessons. Rubes just isn’t that far along yet, but Henry has the buttons. If I could ride him some and work more on myself and building the muscle memory more, that would be great. Someone tell him to stop being a dingbat about his footie.

In the meantime, Presto and I did enter another show, and now I’m obsessively trying to make sure he doesn’t do something dumb and hurt himself before then. Ya know… my life’s work.

Also, he’ll be 8 in a few days, can you freakin believe that. EIGHT! WHAT THE F

I had a nice 35 minute gap between SJ and XC, so after my jumping round we went back to the trailer to put all of our XC stuff on. Studs and XC boots for Presto, and my cross country vest. We both took the chance to have some water (it was hot by this point in the day) and then I got back on and headed over to XC warmup.

Walking the course the day before, I felt like the course itself was pretty straightforward.

I only had 2 points of concern – the trakehner and the half coffin. The trakehner because, much like the one at Ocala a few weeks ago, it was in the middle of a field off of a long gallop, with lots of distraction in the distance, and it had a footing change right in front of it. I thought it might be a little spooky. As for the half coffin…. ha. So. It was utilizing the exact ditch that Presto had his massive meltdown about at that schooling day in 2023 before we figured out the ulcers. Like that exact ditch. Of all the ditches on this property and all the various ones they use at the level, I really just didn’t want that one to be on the course. Therefore, naturally, it was. And that half coffin was tricky in that you went through this little patch of trees, hung a sharp left, and it was only a few strides to the ramp at A. Superrrrrrb. Cool cool.

But ya know – it is what it is. I didn’t lose any sleep over it, I just didn’t love it. The rest of the course gave me zero pause.

XC was running a little late so we ended up walking around warmup for a while, which kinda worked out. Alex made it down there on his Modified horse and was able to give me a few last minute tips, mainly about revving the engine and keeping Presto up and in front of my leg. I was able to combine that with a couple things Ellie had told me to do in warmup, then headed over to the box and away we went!

The first 4 jumps essentially circled around warmup, so I knew I really needed to send him out with purpose and get his mind on the job at hand. Plus I was determined to go faster this time so I wanted to set the stage right from the start. We jumped 1 and I took the most direct, ground-saving route I could to 2, only getting straight for a few strides before it.

That one came up great out of stride, so we were off and running again to the next, which was the first big, wide table on course. This one went directly past and then turned away from all the trailer parking, so I made sure to keep him extra focused on me and not all the other horses and goings-on. We made the turn to the table and he jumped it great.

Then we had the steeplechase at 4, which I saw a long one to but Presto was like “ma that’s maybe a little too long, haven’t we been working on finding the base?” and he put another stride in. Smart boy, really. After that was the first combo at 5AB, which was a rolltop on top of a mound, then down the mound and 5 slightly bending strides to a skinny brush. He was absolutely spot-on there and made very easy work of it. Then we had the tan table (my brain called it the Naked Table, since it has no colored stain or paint) to the XXX table (it has three X’s on the front, that one isn’t my fault).

The Tiki hut combo rode great too. He was just really on it and I soon as I put my eye on anything and closed my leg he was like YUP GOT IT. Easy peasy, picking them off.

I wish there had been a photographer at the big MIM oxer before the water because we got there perfect and he jumped the absolute shit out of it. We landed, turned right, and made out way down the slope and through the trees to the water. I thought he might give it a little peek before he put his toes in since he hasn’t seen that particular water in a long time and it’s kinda dark/sus, but no, he was absolutely laser focused on the B from the moment we jumped the A, and he never wavered.

After that we finally got to our long gallop stretches of the course, and I tried my best to keep coming forward and save as much ground as possible on the way to the next table. He jumped it fantastic.

Then, before you knew it, we were at the trakehner. I made sure that he was up in front of my leg and listening as we headed towards it, but I totally felt him do the same thing he did with the one at Ocala. He looked at it from a ways away, clocked it as just a log, and then put his eye past it to keep soaking up the sights further out in the field. We got there on the perfect distance but at the last second he went HOLY SHIT THERE’S A BIG DITCH UNDER THIS and popped in another tiny little step as he peeked down at it. Yes my love, I have been saying for the past 20 strides that you should maybe pay attention to what’s in front of you. Whatever. He jumped it, just like an awkward deer with surprised Pikachu face.

Then we had the next combo: a ramp, 5 bending strides to a corner, 5 bending strides to another ramp. This rode like it was the easiest little gymnastic exercise in the world. He couldn’t have been better. (This is also the point in the course where I run out of photos because all the photographers were in the first half.)

I sliced the approach to the brush table a little bit to save some distance, and again he jumped it super. Then the next steeplechase, no problem. Then we went into the trees, hung a sharp left, and were upon the half coffin. He definitely felt slightly surprised to see it there off the short turn, but I just closed my leg and clucked and he kept coming forward, no problem. Big big big “GOOD BOOOOOY!” after that, and a big pat. Guess I can stop being haunted by that ditch now.

After that was a pop over the log cabin, the next skinny mound combo (which again rode like a simple gymnastic, he was dead-on), the bench, and the last log box. I finished feeling like SURELY I made time, and walked over to ask the finish line volunteer what my time was (I don’t wear a watch, I want to prioritize good decisions over worrying about time, so I don’t see the point) and lord y’all. I was still 8 seconds slow. Apparently I am just a granny, because I really felt like I was flying and cutting off as much space as I could. Womp womp. Ultimately it didn’t matter, my 3 time penalties didn’t affect my placing this time, and we ended up 6th and the highest placed amateur. I’m just annoyed at being slow when I thought I was fast. It’s fine though, Ellie said we’d work on the speed/efficiency part some more.

Ultimately I was really happy with the round. Aside from his surprised Pikachu at the trakehner (which he didn’t even think about stopping at, he just took a peek) it felt exceptionally easy. He was locked in and I felt like I made good decisions. I’m relieved to have gotten back out to Rocking Horse after such a long hiatus, relieved that it went well, and honestly I’m even relieved that the one stupid ditch was on our course, because now it doesn’t have to live rent-free in my head anymore. Plus Presto recovered and cooled down really quickly after XC and was not at all tired the next day. That’s about all you can ask for.

I have no idea what’s next on the docket for us as far as shows go… the March and April schedules get a bit weird for us so we’ll have to see how things pan out!