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.