Well, I finally did it. I made a mistake that even Henry the XC Magician couldn’t completely pull us out of. He sure gave it an impressive effort though, poor guy, and saved us from total disaster. That halo of his is glowing brighter and brighter.

First of all, let’s talk about this course. If I thought week 1 was a bit simple, the course designer came to play on week 2 because wow, all the courses were pretty tough. Big AND technical. People were getting eaten for dinner left and right at all levels. Bloodbath is the most accurate way to describe it. It was also Area 3 Championships, which had a couple of slight differences to their courses vs the regular horse trial divisions. They also experienced a bloodbath.

Our course (link to the full course walk here) had four combinations, all of which were serious questions for the level. There were a fair amount of maxed out height/width fences, but also a few “breather” ones scattered around the course as well. It wasn’t unreasonable, but it was definitely a challenging course. The most technical we’ve seen to date, for sure. That’s what I wanted, and that’s what I got. There had also been a lot of rain the day before so I put some bigger studs in, hoping that the footing wouldn’t complicate things further. The weather though – it was perfect. Around 80 and mostly cloudy with a nice breeze. This was Henry weather for sure.

Coming out of the start box you had a slight uphill to a simple hanging log at fence 1, your standard starting fence. From there we went up the big massive hill to fence 2. Like… you basically climbed out of the startbox and had to REALLY ride forward immediately to get going. This was a hint about how you had to ride the rest of the course. One I did not heed well enough later on. But fences 1 and 2 rode fine anyway, because we always come out of the box like our butts are on fire.

Hope you’re buckled in tight, cuz shit got real right off the bat. After you climbed your way to 1 and 2, fence 3 was a max square table, off of a sweeping turn after you came down that giant hill you just climbed. Better sit up. It actually came up out of stride really well and Henry pinged right over like he was enjoying a delightful brunch.

I couldn’t really take the time to enjoy it though, because right after that was the first combination on course, and it was tricky. I mean, on paper it seemed fairly straightforward. Cabin, downhill to skinny cabin on a slight bend. But there was an unused corner for another level behind the skinny cabin, in such a place where if you came down that combo straight middle-to-middle, you would land on the corner. I really only saw two options here: you either had to jump the first cabin angled a bit left to right and then veer slightly right to B, or you had to put a lot of bend in the line while you were halfway down the hill. I chose the first option, figuring it would be easier for my horse. Tons of people had runouts here. I watched 3 in a row go skirting past the B element (including my barnmate on her experienced Prelim horse). There wasn’t much room for error.

Luckily Henry latched on to B like a heat seeking missile, and marched right through that shit like he’d done it a million times before. He’s baller, y’all.

Fences 5 and 6 were let-up fences at this point – another table (Chatt really likes tables, I noticed) and then a small house on a curve as we kind of serpentined back toward the first water. We cantered through the water to a decent sized up bank, two strides out over a rolltop. Well, we were supposed to anyway. Here’s where I messed up. Knowing that last week I came through the water a little too fast and flat, I was determined not to repeat that, especially to an upbank.

But I took one too many half halts and lost power going into the water, then tried to correct it too late, which caused us to get to the bank too close and without enough energy to jump up out of water. Henry didn’t have enough room or momentum to get his feet up on the bank properly. He hit the edge with his knees as he floundered up it, but somehow managed to twist around, find a 5th leg, and get us up in one piece. How, I don’t even know.

And yes, I’ve already purchased all these pictures (I bought every picture they took from both weeks, actually!). Just waiting on the digitals. I thought it was too important of a photo series to leave out of this post.

For a second I thought we were both goners. That he managed to get his feet back under him and stay upright is pretty impressive. THIS is exactly why I have no interest in eventing a horse who isn’t clever with his feet. On a sloppier horse, or one with slower reaction time, I’d have been in real trouble. As it was, our near-fall left me up on his neck, about a millimeter away from going right over his shoulder. I felt him look at the rolltop and make a move toward it to try to jump it. Yeah, for real, he totally thought about trying to keep going. Trainer said later “I really thought he was gonna jump that with you on his head!”. Yeah, you and me both! Luckily he very wisely decided to veer left instead (thank you Henny) while I got myself back together. I managed to scoot back into the saddle, and we turned around, circled back through the water, and jumped up the bank and over the rolltop just fine on the second attempt.

From that we went directly to an open oxer at 8 (it had MIM clips. Fancy.) before we FINALLY had our first little open stretch to breathe as we went from the front field to the back field. I let Henry open up a bit here since we actually had a couple of galloping fences in a row. Two tables. Shocking, right?

Those rode really well. I was wondering if my snafu at the water would affect his confidence at all, but he just galloped up to both and launched right over, feeling as happy as always. Which is good, because fence 12, coming into the second water, was freaking massive.

It was a max rolltop with a good 8-10″ of brush on top at the middle, and very tall brush on either side. It was pretty damn close to 4′ at the center, and set a few strides out from the water. You couldn’t see the water on the other side until you got a few strides away, which made it even spookier. This was legit. This was gnarly. It was my favorite fence of the whole two weeks (I might be a little sick in the head, y’all), and Henry jumped the shit out of it. I had to sit and ride him a bit, he flicked an ear back at me a few times like “Mom? You sure this is safe?” but he trusted my judgment and he went. I’m so bummed that there wasn’t a photographer at that one.

We had a little jump in the water itself here too that you can see straight ahead, mostly just a speed bump by this point, then came out and turned left to… oh hey, another table.

Hope you enjoyed that short breather, because now we went to the coffin. A full coffin. With a really wide ditch in the middle. And a skinny fence on the C element. We had yet to even meet a half coffin on a Training course in Texas, something that I’ve been kinda grumpy about. Chatt made up for that in one fell swoop. Henry was absolutely brilliant here, it could not have ridden any better.

Fence 15 was a small bench (kinda like a “congrats, you’re not dead yet!” by this point I guess.) then down through an ominous bridge crossing and back into the front field, before immediately swinging left to another hanging log. That was all fine. Well okay, Henry’s eyes bugged out of his head a bit at the bridge crossing, you could hear running water below, but he never faltered from his gallop.

Then was our last combo on course – something they called the Helsinki Step. There was a decent size (about 3’6″) drop with a bit of a downhill landing, slight bending line right to a skinny log in 3 strides. Or on my horse – a cannonball, some flair, and then 2 normal strides. Because why drop down off a bank when you could pause at the edge and then launch straight into space like a rocket? And why launch straight when you could launch to the right? He definitely popped me loose here, but we dug in and made it out over the skinny. Not cute, not cute at all, but we did it. Someday he’ll actually just step down the drops. Maybe. Ok, probably not.

After that we had the iconic Chatt stone table before turning to the last, another hanging log, and through the finish. Those were both great, and he finished up feeling really good.

It would be easy to feel disappointed with this run, on the surface. Henry’s previously pretty beautiful USEA record is sporting a big ugly 20 on it, and it’s no one’s fault but mine. Those are definitely my 20 penalties, not his. He did nothing wrong. He didn’t say no, he wasn’t naughty, he wasn’t disobedient or lacking confidence. Quite the opposite, actually. But this was a hard course, and the combinations were tough enough to where you couldn’t make a mistake, and I made one. It’s that simple. It’s going to happen, I am an amateur after all, and I’m still learning my way at this level. Some days you get away with mistakes, some days you don’t. That day I didn’t. This is eventing… shit can go wrong in a heartbeat. Especially when you actively seek out bigger challenges for yourself.

But Henry rose to the occasion and answered all the questions eagerly. He was brave, he was smart, he was clever, and he was confident. He didn’t seem deterred by the fact that we almost lawn-darted up the bank, and he was still quite pleased with himself at the finish. How could I possibly be unhappy with that? He showed a lot of maturity and professionalism, and we were able to recover from the mistake quickly, put it behind us, and go on to have a really solid rest of the course. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more proud of that horse, and I’m proud of him pretty much all the damn time.

I think the worst part was that they originally did not have my 20 recorded, and I had to go to the office and tattle on myself. That’s not a fun task. But honesty is always the best policy (I don’t want that bad karma!), and someone else deserved the ribbon spot that I was unjustly occupying. Without the 20 (and the 2 time penalties from all the time I took clinging like a monkey and then circling back to re-jump) we would have been 3rd. Big big ouch. But we still managed to hang on for 6th, which tells you just how much havoc that course wreaked on everyone. It felt a little bit like a dirty ribbon, but my horse absolutely deserved it, so I happily took it. This one is all his.

Even though I didn’t get the storybook ending that we competitors always pine for, I still had a fantastic time. We learned a lot, we had fun, we made improvements in some areas, and we found a few things we need to work on in others. I’m 100% satisfied with that, and really proud of my plain little brown horse.

My stadium time was only about an hour and a half after dressage, so I didn’t have a lot of time to waste in between phases. Or, alternately, a lot of time to stress about stadium. We saw the course for the first time that morning, walked it, and then went off to do dressage things. I kind of prefer that.

Henry wasn’t even sweaty after dressage (the weather on the 2nd weekend was SO MUCH NICER than the first! It was cool and overcast and breezy.) so I didn’t bother bathing him. I also didn’t bother looking at scores. I was happy with the test he’d put in, so what did it matter? I went and watched a few Prelim rounds to get a feel for how some of the lines were riding, then by the time I cleaned him up, changed all my tack, and got us both ready, it was time to get on.

While my ultimate goal for stadium is always a clear round, my REAL goal this time was to not make any stupid mistakes. Specifically don’t crash, or don’t do something so stupid that my horse can’t bail us out. Aka don’t repeat Week 1’s performance.

When I first got on, Henry still felt really quiet… a little bit behind my leg and just not as sharp as usual. I figured the previous 10 days were catching up with him, so I opted to take my whip with me in the ring (I usually don’t) for some extra oomph. Turns out, all that really did was make him more flat and strung out, so… maybe not next time.

Some of the rounds I saw before mine had been pretty rough. Really, a large percentage of the rounds I saw all day were rough. The courses were quite demanding, and rails fell left and right in every division. I haaaaated the start to our course – an oxer to vertical line coming diagonally across the ring, followed by a quick 8 bending strides to another oxer heading directly at the gate. I mean… way to come out swinging? Who made the course designer mad?

That rode fine though, and then we turned up to a double in the same spot as the one I messed up the first week. This time I didn’t mess it up (yay, redemption!) but I didn’t whoa enough in the line after the double, causing us to get a little too close to that square oxer and taking the front rail with us. Womp womp.

The rest of the course actually rode nicely though. The weird little rollbacks toward the end of the course were just fine (sat up! did not pull!) and Henry jumped them well. The last line was a little oddly placed but we got in fine, and came down to the last double – oxer to vertical. By this point Henry was just a little too flat. He tapped the oxer, but it stayed up, then tapped the last jump, and it fell. Womp womp again.

When I was in the warmup Trainer asked if I knew my dressage score and I said no. She asked if I wanted to know before or after stadium, and I said after. I don’t need incentive to feel pressured! So I was kind of bummed when I came out of the ring and she told me, and found out we’d been in third. Adding two rails to that sucks. But most of the division fell victim to that course, so I still only dropped from 3rd to 6th.

At least I didn’t try to kill us this time. Baby steps?

 

Okay, now that I’m back to a real computer let’s kick off this Week 2 recap party!

Since our new pre-ride tactic seemed to work really well Week 1, I repeated the same kind of prep. On Friday morning I hopped on him before we left Alabama, just for a quick 10 minute walk trot, going from stretchy to regular walk and trot. Just enough to get him to take a deep breath, basically. On Friday when we got to the show grounds we did the same thing. I think I was on him total 10 minutes again, maybe. He went right to work and was super, so we quit while we were ahead.

On Saturday my ride time was at 10:51, so I got on at 7am and did another 10 minute session. There’s something about these quick little 10 minute rides that really help settle his brain. It’s like they’re enough for him to loosen up and relax, but not so much that he starts feeling pressured or gets worked up. I took him back to the barn, bathed him, braided, and slowly got ready.

I got back on at 10:30 and walked up to the ring to find that they were running early. My ring was finishing up a break, and then there was only one person ahead of me. I think I warmed up for maybe 8 minutes before the steward asked me if I was ready. Henry felt relaxed and happy, so I went ahead down there about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Another few minutes in warmup wasn’t going to change anything for the better.

They had all new judges for week 2, none of which I was familiar with, and we were in a different ring. As soon as I got down there, said good morning, and gave them my number, she asked if I was ready and blew the whistle. Alrighty then. Nobody needs a full lap around the arena anyway, right? I see how they were already running so early.

I trotted up centerline on the most rideable version of Henry that I have ever had in the dressage ring. It’s amazing how much easier things are when they’ll let you use your legs and ride them forward into the hand. It’s taken literally years to get him okay with that. The first half of the test was pretty decent… he came bangin up centerline like a real horse, then we tracked left and went straight to those stupid 10m half circles. These have always been challenging for us, it kind of takes away some of your momentum there at the beginning and tends to get a tense horse a little stuck. They weren’t amazing this time, but they were the best we’ve done in the ring. From that movement you go straight to canter. He was reasonable about that, a bit hurried in the transition, but for him decent. The lengthenings on the circle will never be great, so whatever. Next time we redo the tests can we please keep the canter lengthenings on a straight line? My horse is built too downhill for this crap.

From that you go to stretchy trot. His was fine. He stretched a little but he’s never as good with this movement in the ring as he is in schooling. Tension makes that difficult. Then it was the walk work, medium to free to medium. All that was actually quite good for him. Last fall/this spring he was going through a serious jigging phase, or would try to launch back into canter as soon as I touched my reins. That seems to be gone now, knock on wood. I only did about eleventy billion walk transitions at home.

After the walk he definitely was more tense. The canter this direction was not as good, and the transitions weren’t as balanced, and the trot lengthening was bleh. He stayed with me though, so that’s okay. At no point did he tune me out and turn into a panicked 2×4 (his favorite go-to panic maneuver).

For the first time I felt like we put in a test that was kind of reasonable. It’s still not up to what he’s really capable of, and we still have a lot more tension through his topline than he does at home, but he never really got stuck or up and down or on the verge of explosion. As usual the comments were mostly about improving suppleness in his back (trust me I know, I’m sitting on it!) which really is just his tension showing.

Our score was 32.4, his best ever at a recognized Training, and was good enough to put us 3rd after dressage in a field of really nice horses. THIRD. Henry. What?! He also got his first ever 9 on a recognized test. There were still plenty of 6.5’s but nothing scored lower than 6.

I’m pretty darn pleased with that. There’s still a lot of room for improvement from both horse and rider, but to see such immediate payoffs from the little bit of tweaking we’ve done in the past month has been really encouraging. We were near the top both weeks of Chatt after dressage, which is NOT a place we typically are, we have always tended to land solidly in the bottom third of the field. Plus he improved from week 1 to week 2. I really feel like we’re on to something with this and for the first time I think maybe, just maybe, he’s finally starting to get this sandbox thing. Maybe?

Sorry about the radio silence on Friday. I really really hate trying to write blog posts on my phone and by Friday I just Could Not deal anymore. Apparently I don’t skip days very much, since I had several people message me and ask if I was okay. Ha!

And I definitely have a whole lot to recap from the past few days, and the show, and all that stuff. Buuuuut as I type it’s midnight on Sunday and I’m in the backseat of a truck somewhere in the middle of Louisiana, and of course that means I’m still limited to my phone for writing posts. For my sanity, the real recaps can wait.

Mostly I just want to say that my horse was so spectacular these past couple weeks and I couldn’t possibly be more proud of him. My heart almost can’t handle how fantastic he is. He’s not perfect, I’m not perfect, but he’s my wildest dream come true. That horse tried his little heart out for me both weekends, and I can’t ask for more than that. He is a quirky little weirdo but I wouldn’t trade him for all the tea in China. How I got lucky enough to stumble onto this horse, I have no idea.

Chatt Hills was also really fantastic. The barns are incredible, the footing is lovely, and the courses – both stadium and XC – were challenging. It was 100% worth the trip and I’m so glad that I decided to go, even if it was pretty spur of the moment and a little last minute. The venue is top notch, Georgia was beautiful, and the weather this past weekend was phenomenal.

The second weekend also drew a lot of vendors since it was Area 3 Championships, and I got to meet a few people from companies I knew through Instagram. Everyone was so nice and great to talk to. I can’t wait to share a couple of these great small businesses with you guys. Also, shout out to the $2 snow cone vendor. They’re the real MVP of the show series.

I learned so much that I can’t even wrap my head around all of it right now. About my horse, about myself, about riding, about showing, and yeah… even about life. There’s always more to learn and more perspective to gain. The group that we went with really pulled together and rallied, and it felt like a genuine team effort in every regard.

I feel pretty lucky to have had the opportunity to go, to own the horse that I do, and to be able to make these memories. Is this even real life? It was a great time and I can’t wait to do it all again next year (although I admit my vote would be for Coconino again). But for now, Henry gets to go home and enjoy an extremely well-earned summer vacation.

After the show ended on Sunday we packed all our stuff up and headed back to “base camp” a couple hours away in Alabama. That way the horses could get turned out, the humans could get a little R&R, and we could do some schooling before heading back to Chatt Hills for week 2.

And what have we been up to since then? A lot.

Monday was your typical post horse show day of errands and laundry. The horses got turned out immediately when we got home on Sunday and stayed out until early Monday morning. They seemed happy and refreshed. I got to work washing all the saddle pads from the weekend in the barn’s washer and dryer, and getting all that red Georgia clay out of my XC boots.

Then I ran some errands, including a trip to the real fancy Walmart in Leeds, Alabama. If you have never been to a Walmart in a small town in Alabama, I highly recommend. It’s everything you would expect it to be. 10/10, must see.

Due to the possibility of someone coming to pick up the jumps that were in the ring, we moved our jumping day up and did some grid work on Tuesday. We set up a crossrail, one stride to vertical, one stride to oxer, and then a small plank 2 bending strides to the left of the oxer and a small plank 2 bending strides to the right of the oxer. You had to think fast, have good body control, and slow the feet down a bit. This was a good exercise for pretty much all the horses.

The only real casualty of the day was my finger, which got a plank dropped on it while we were setting jumps. It doesn’t hurt enough to be broken, it’s just swollen and kinda funky-looking. I rubbed some dirt in it, it’s fine.

Yesterday morning I got woken up at 3am by flashes of lightning and distant rumbles of thunder. Sound familiar? Yeah I pretty much had a repeat of last week’s warrior dash, just a new middle-of-the-night version. I’m getting pretty good at dragging lots of horses up the hill to the barn at once. Seriously Alabama, we aren’t friends anymore. There was a 5% chance of rain overnight. FIVE. I released a lot of expletives when I opened my radar app.

After a change of clothes (because I was literally soaked through with sweat) I managed to get back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep before getting up to feed the horses. Once everyone else showed up we all hopped on for a quick dressage school, then headed out for a trail ride over the mountain. We went up, we went down, we went through, we went under… it was legit. We’re definitely not in Texas anymore!

Today we’re doing more intensive dressage rides and running through our tests, then tomorrow morning we head back to Chatt to do the whole thing over again.

I could really get into this whole adult summer camp thing that I’ve got going on here. I’ve got my pony, I’ve got some books… all I’m really missing are the s’mores.

And Presto of course. But the barn worker sent me a video of him the other day and said he’s doing just fine. I’m sure I miss him way more than he misses me.