I know Rolex bills itself as #bestweekendallyear, but for real they ain’t lying. I have so much to cover (boy, it was action packed) and a ton of media, so I’m gonna have to break it up into a couple posts. Plus I’m currently sitting in the back of an Uber on the way to the airport, and posting from a phone is annoying, therefore I can’t do this all at once. But alas – here’s a Friday recap!

I left off last week with our arrival on Thursday. Our camping spot was ridiculously amazing (for real like 100′ from the front gates) as was the RV rental that Hillary found on RV Share. 110% the best way to Rolex. We had a few too many ciders at the taco party on Thursday night, so we were able to sleep in a little on Friday and still have plenty of time to hit up the trade fair.

I know several other bloggers got a ton of stuff, but I’ll have to disappoint you right off the bat. My spending money was slim and I didn’t find much that I wanted anyway (aside from the $5700 CWD, of course), so I mostly just got a few shirts and some gifts. Apparently I cannot resist anything that is billed as a fundraising effort for an OTTB organization. 

After the trade fair we dumped our stuff in the RV (so convenient) and headed down to stalk Michael Jung. We opted not to get seats for dressage because I can’t sit there and watch the sandbox for a long enough period of time to make the purchase price worthwhile. Instead we sat by warmup and watched him get ready, which was way more interesting to me anyway. We were able to get right up close and see exactly what he does to prepare. 

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When he went in we just pulled up the live feed on Hillary’s phone and watched his test from our hillside.

Then we headed up to pick up our packets for the RK5K. Hillary might never forgive me for this but somehow I totally tricked her into running it with me. And although she is not a runner, she certainly is not a quitter either, because she dug in and got it done like a champ. Granted, I’m pretty sure she wanted to punch me for at least 60% of it, but we finished it together and hey… we got cool shirts and a few good stories out of it. There are certainly worse places to run than KHP!

Our total mileage on Friday between all the walking and the 5k was over 9 miles. We earned our pizza and early bedtime, especially since the next day was XC…

Basic summary of the day, if you’d rather just do a quick one-and-done, this video of Hillary opening our ciders with her Simko belt pretty much sums it up:

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But before all that, we started out the day in Nashville. 

First we headed to Hillary’s barn so I could meet Annie and Houston and Luna (all cute, of course) and see her barn owner’s super adorable new colt. He’s very handsome, and a total little wild hellion. Loved him, naturally. Not as cute as Presto 😉 but a close second.

Then we headed out to Lexington, with a quick stop along the way to pick up our accommodations for the weekend. 

Hillary drove it, I parked it (I’m used to a bumper pull) and we had everything set up and ready to go within 30 minutes. Our camping spot is literally like 100′ from the entrance gates, we have our own beds, a shower, a kitchen… this is absolutely, 100%, the best way to do Rolex. This must always happen.

Then we went to a blogger meet-up taco party where we possibly drank a wee bit too much before walking back over to our RV (and only getting slightly lost along the way, go us) and falling asleep. 

This morning we’re headed inside to hit up the trade fair and stalk Michael Jung in dressage warmup. I’ve definitely had worse Fridays. 

Oh hey there, guess what, today is ROLEX DAY!

I flew into Nashville last night to meet up with Hillary, and in a little bit we’re going to head down to Lexington, grab an RV, and set ourselves up in the campground for the weekend.

Not gonna lie, pretty excited about the RV. Beds, shower, toilet, kitchen, and we don’t have to ever leave KHP? Yes please. And considering the constantly changing forecast I think it’s a good idea that we didn’t try to tent camp.

We have a few things planned already, plus a blogger meet-up or two, but if you’re there and want to say hello, hit me up! Or if you aren’t going and there’s anything in particular you want pictures of, I can try to do that too.

I recently spent a couple weeks riding exclusively in my dressage saddle, letting my jump tack just sit on it’s rack collecting dust. I’ve tried to do a bit of a flatwork crackdown this year, asking a bit more of myself and my horse. But then when I put my jump saddle back on, everything felt weird. My legs had gotten used to being longer, my body more upright, and riding more with my seat. Suddenly I felt like a jockey on a racehorse. Granted, I have the opposite problem when I spend too many consecutive rides in my jump saddle and then try to dressage – I feel like my stirrups are 1000 miles away and none of my body parts will go where they’re supposed to. That’s when I realized that it’s really not that easy of a thing, at least for me personally, to constantly go back and forth between saddles and riding styles.

I obviously grew up as an h/j rider. The first time my butt ever even encountered a dressage saddle (a hard as rock, ancient brown Kieffer with no blocks to speak of) I was 19 years old, dipping my toe into eventing when I was fresh off a working student position. I had not a damn clue what I was doing (spoiler alert: still don’t). But back then I sure THOUGHT I did. I mean… I grew up in a barn where I sat on a lot of horses; green ones, made ones, rank ones, easy ones. I did a whole lot of flatwork on a whole lot of horses. Same thing, right? Ah, the naivete of youth. All I really knew was how to hold draw reins.

Yet that first foray into eventing still really didn’t hammer the point home to me, despite my bad dressage scores. I ventured back to my h/j roots, still thinking I was pretty awesome at flatwork. Maybe even more awesome now that I’d had some actual dressage lessons. I mean, my ragtag crew of various hunter and jumper project horses could all do shoulder in and leg yield and walk-canter transitions by the time I was done with them. I did serpentines, I spiraled in and out, I bent and counterbent. That was definitely more than most of the other horses in the barn did, therefore wasn’t I pretty great?

Yeah.

No.

Switching back to eventing in 2014 was a real kick in the pants. I was mature enough by then to have a healthy respect for dressage, but really the first thing I learned was that I know nothing. The flatwork I was doing was not dressage. It wasn’t even all that correct, now that I know what correct actually looks like. “Real” dressage is hard, it doesn’t come naturally to me, my position isn’t good, and I have to really focus on every single step to even be semi-passably decent at it. Add to that the complication of discipline where dressage isn’t sole focus, and constantly going back and forth between saddles. It’s not as easy as I want it to be.

It’s funny, because when I switched disciplines I thought the XC would be the hard part. I was wrong. But for as much as I’ve struggled with the dressage (and as much as I still sometimes dread it), the more I learn, the more I actually like it, and the more I find in it that applies to and compliments my jump training. I’m glad that I didn’t go running and screaming back to the jumper ring on any of those thousand occasions that I contemplated it. It’s not fun feeling like you’re shit at something, but it does make me try harder to be less shitty.

Has anyone else switched disciplines in their riding career? What was the hardest part for you?

On Sunday I hauled Henry down to a new-to-us place for some XC schooling. Independence Foxhounds is, as you may gather from the name, homebase for one of the foxhunts in Texas. I never knew that they had a whole XC course at their facility though – and an awesome one at that. They have a full course of jumps from Starter through Training, including three different bank complexes (an Irish, a sunken road, and a double bank), a trakehner, some combos, and water. The terrain was open with some rolling hills – Henry’s favorite (ok, mine too). I really really loved it.

To be honest I was a little worried about how this school would go. I really hadn’t jumped in a couple months, so on Friday I set up a little Novice sized stadium course at home. It was shit. I don’t mean like kinda shitty, I mean like I forgot how to ride completely. I’m glad there were no witnesses. Poor Henry. So when I climbed aboard on Sunday I figured there was probably a 50/50 chance I would die.

As we trotted around the field to warmup, Henry entertained himself by spooking at all the Starter fences. Apparently the smaller they are, the scarier they are. Don’t mind my big brave Training horse, guys, he’s just over here trotting sideways past the 1′ tall telephone pole while snorting loudly. Trainer thought she was really funny when she gave us our warmup course that involved trotting the first Starter fence each way before cantering the first fence of every other level. Henry was rightfully terrified of the tiny pole but leapt over it. The N and T first fences were much less scary, he said.

After our warmup we started stringing together more fences, and I did my patented pull and lean to the second one (causing a really impressive bunny hop over it because #hennyisasaint) before I pulled my head out of my ass and let my horse keep coming forward. Amazing how much better things work when you do that. He was a champ over all the T fences and especially at a 3 stride rolltop to rolltop bending line. He was hunting the jumps and taking me to them, and we quickly got our mojo back.

Until we got to the bank complexes. Sigh. That stupid Irish bank at Pine Hill has really killed his confidence at banks. He wasn’t being naughty, he just genuinely is super confused by banks now and doesn’t trust them. He couldn’t figure out the down, so I got off and lunged him up and down it a few times. Once he popped down a couple times, it all clicked for him again. I got back on and didn’t have a single problem at any of the banks for the rest of the day. The sunken road was FUN (first time doing one of those!) and he happily popped up and down the double. Obviously we still have a problem that we need to keep working on though.

Henry also tackled the water like a machine (it’s honestly kind of weird how much he likes water, he actually SPEEDS UP to it) with a jump in, bending line to a jump out. The Trakehner was no problem either, or the bench or the rolltop or the table that I wanted to throw up on. I really hate tables. Especially square ones. I want to burn them all. But I didn’t pull and Henry jumped the snot out of it, so all was fine. Apparently his mental block is banks and mine is tables.

Overall it was a very useful schooling. First, we discovered an awesome new facility. Second, we know we haven’t solved the bank issue yet. Third, all of the jumps felt easy and nothing looked particularly big. It’s nice to be able to say that about Training fences. And fourth, we actually jumped again. Probably a good thing considering I entered Training at a benefit show in two weeks.