Having one of only a handful of clear stadium rounds on Saturday re-invigorated my spirits, and I woke up on Sunday feeling ready to rock and roll. The XC course was touted as being soft and a good move-up course, but it wasn’t quite as simple as I was expecting, which I’m ok with. There were a few max height fences and tough questions, including a huge down bank (cue some nail biting on my part) and two combinations. Overall though it looked very do-able and inviting. The course walk pics are from very early Saturday morning, so prepare for some grumpy morning Bobby.

The first four fences were all pretty small and simple, and a good way to get into a groove. Fence 1 was a little ramp a pretty short distance from the start box.

Then we went off into the gross scrubby brush (sorry west Texas, but you’re ugly as sin) and weaved around to 2, a little baby log.

Followed by more weaving around to 3, which is the same little feeder thing we jumped in May at BN.

After 3 we popped out into a field and headed to 4, also a fence that we jumped in May at BN, just dressed up a bit. This is the field that has the windmill and the big metal chickens in it.

Back into the scrubby brush and weaving around to 5, which was a decent size fence set off of a very short/crooked approach and heading uphill.

We kept going up the hill and around to 6, a little… thing. With… dirt. And stuff. I don’t really know what to tell you.

After the enigma at 6 we had a sharp right turn and then went down into a crater, turned left and went back up out of the crater over 7. The fence itself was little and simple, this was more a question of control and steering and willingness to go forward, so we planned to trot it.

After 7 we had a decent stretch to catch our breath, then came back out into the field and rolled back left to 8AB. The A portion was a little rolltop…

And then it was a sharp right turn with 4 bending strides to the bank down. The bank itself was about 3′ and had a downhill landing that made it seem even bigger. This is the only thing on the course that I thought might give us a problem.

After the bank we turned right and rolled down to The Fort at 9, a nice inviting jump.

More weaving around more gross scrubby brush and then we popped out into the big front field where we had to take a hard right turn with a very short approach to 10abc, the water complex. The approach to this made it kind dirty, IMO, you would reeeeaaally have to get them back and get them turned and going forward again pretty quickly. But the A element was a nice inviting brush fence

followed by B, the water itself

and then out of the water over the tiny log for the C element that was more like a speed bump than a jump.

There was a little bit of a breather after 10 as you turned back through the field and headed to 11, a tall but simple bench
Then back into the brush and down the lane to 12, another basic log fence with a bit of a downhill landing.

Fence 13 was the biggest and most visually imposing fence on our course, a maxed out house about halfway up a hill. I figured by this point in the course we would have a nice gallop rhythm and it would ride well as long as I kept coming forward up the hill and rode to the base.

More weaving around other fences and we finally popped out at the last, a little train car.  

XC warmup was an even bigger circus than stadium warmup, so once again I trotted a couple laps, cantered a couple laps, jumped two fences, and stepped out to wait my turn. The first 4 jumps on course were small, so I figured those would get us into the flow well enough.

Henry came out of the box locked and loaded, taking me straight to fence 1 with plenty of enthusiasm. At this level I really want him to learn to WAIT and go to the base of the fence, not drag me to a flyer (which could turn into a train wreck if/when we go up the levels) so whenever I see the option for the close one vs the gap, I sit up and ask him to wait for the close one.

When we first entered the brush to head towards 2 I could feel him looking around a little bit. I told him he was fine and sat up and kept him in front of my leg, and he soldiered through the first 3 with no issue. When we popped out into the field for 4 he was staring hardcore at the windmill and I really had to stick my right spur in to keep him straight, but he went to the fence with no issue and jumped the snot out of it, because windmill monsters.

5 and 6 rode just fine, then we trotted down the crater and he said HAHA WHEEEEE NOW I CANTER AGAIN BUH-BYE MOM and basically deer leaped 7 while I stayed in the back seat and considered switching his XC bit to something other than a fat KK loose ring.

The plan for 8AB was to get the tiniest bounciest canter and deepest distance I possibly could to the A element, land, hang a right, and trot the down bank at B so I could make sure he saw it. He landed, turned to the bank, took me the four strides to it and jumped right off the damn thing without an ounce of hesitation, totally textbook. Well ok then. No more bank issues.

I had a little bit of a hard time getting him balanced back up for 9 (another point where I considered a new bit) but again he let me put him to the close distance and kept chugging. The turn to 10 was rough… he popped out into the field and wanted to just keep right on going, so I had to set him on his butt a little to get his shoulders turned to 10. Bless his honest little heart, as soon as he saw the fence he was locked on and went.

The last few fences were no big deal. The big house rode really well and he jumped it great just like I thought he would. Every time I checked my watch we were right where we should have been, so I just let him roll along and we crossed the finish with no problems. In fact, he was barely winded and was cooled down within minutes. Guess all that conditioning work has really helped. XC didn’t claim nearly as many victims as stadium, but we did move up one more spot. More importantly, Henry finished on his dressage score again. That’s my real goal. We also got another completion at Novice toward our qualifications for the Novice 3 Day next year. My pony was super, I have no complaints. Henry officially has two Novices under his girth… now on to AEC at BN before we go back up to Novice for the fall season!

Oh yeah and as for Bobby? He won. Told ya.

I have to admit, I went into Saturday feeling pretty defeated. Sitting 12th of 14 after dressage is not a place I’m used to being, and I felt like our shot at finishing in the ribbons was completely blown. But there was still a tiny glimmer of hope left, because Corona is known for eating people alive in stadium. At the May show there, Bobby and I were the only two clear in BN. I figured if I could pull off a clear we would at least move up a little bit in the standings. Since we hail from Jumperland, stadium is our easiest phase, but we are still far from guaranteed to go clear at a place like this. I knew if I made a mistake I would pay for it. I also knew that if I kept Henry’s shoulders up and kept coming forward to the base, we had a good shot.

Bobby and I didn’t do stadium until 7pm on Saturday so we had aaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllll day to sit around. Our other barnmate Sherri did her dressage just before noon so that helped break up the time a little bit, but it was still a really long day. The weather ended up being overcast and unseasonably cool, so we totally could have just gone ahead and done stadium in the afternoon. Around dinner time a light rain started up and kept going for the rest of the evening, which cooled things down even more.

This of course made for a pretty exciting warm-up ring. There were a lot of pros in our Novice division on their green horses, and what happens when you put a bunch of green horses in a busy warm-up ring in the sprinkling rain with a nice cool breeze? Chaos. Mass freaking chaos. I got in and got out as quickly as possible, trotting a lap each way, cantering a lap each way, jumping the vertical once and the oxer twice. Even just doing that, one pro in particular used my horse’s butt to stop her runaway, which neither Henry nor I appreciated. We got the hell out of there and just walked around outside of warm-up and waited for our turn.

The course was pretty much all singles, with a couple of tight turns on the downhill slope that claimed a lot of victims, rail-wise. Fence 2 and Fence 7 came down a lot. If your horse was on the forehand or you didn’t keep a good rhythm, you were not making it around clean. We had a hard rub at 7 where I let him get a bit flat, but I guess we accumulated some karma points after dressage because it thankfully settled back into the cups. Otherwise it was a pretty smooth round and he especially jumped the oxers really well.

We were one of only 3 people in our division to go clear (Bobby was another) and we moved all the way up from 12th to 5th. Yes seven places. Everyone was tightly packed enough after dressage to where you just couldn’t afford to add 4 to your score. Corona remains the crusher of stadium dreams, but it sure worked out in my favor.

I’m a nerd and did the math for stadium throughout all the divisions – only 18% went clear. That statistic drops to 15% if you throw out the Starter division. 15%!!!

After stadium when I got off Henry and loosened his girth to walk back to the barn, the show vet came over and asked me about him. He said that he’d been sitting there watching all these rounds from P/T on down, and he just wanted to let me know that Henry was his favorite. He said that he was so impressed by how he walked in there as calm and professional as could be, turned it on and did his job perfectly, then walked out again just as calmly. He said it was a pleasure to watch a horse do a job he obviously loved. I have to thank that very kind man for coming up and saying that to me, it really made my day. After having had my spirit crushed a little bit by the dressage judge the day before, it was a taste of sweet redemption for my unassuming little brown horse that always tries so hard for me. It makes me happy when other people see that quality in him too.

Tomorrow – on to Cross Country!

I’m trying to find something to say about this day that doesn’t sound like whining or sour grapes. That could prove to be a little difficult, honestly.

It started well… we rolled out of the barn around 7am and arrived at our destination in west Texas well before noon. We were one of the first groups to arrive so we had lots of room and time to unload and set up out stabling area. AND, since our group was the first to send in our entries, we got the best stalls/spot on the property. Major score.

After settling in we tacked up the horses and took them out to stretch their legs. The facility has a trail running all the way around the perimeter of the property, so we had a nice little light trail ride and then put them away.

Bobby and I both had volunteered to do our dressage on Friday evening to help speed things along on Saturday, so we pretty much sat around the rest of the afternoon and played the waiting game. Finally 6pm rolled around and I hopped on to head to the warmup.

Our dressage at home has been kind of tense and crappy the past couple weeks, for some reason he’s been in canter-canter-canter mode, so I was really just focused on coaxing Henry through the test without him getting upset. Our warmup was mostly walking and halting and trotting and walking and halting and leg yields. That tactic has worked really well for me, almost like boring him to death a little bit so that he settles.

As soon as we started trotting around the outside of the dressage ring he screamed once for Halo, and I got a little concerned for a second. But he went in and honestly tried super hard to be a good boy. He was a bit tense throughout, his little mouth was chomping at times, and the trot-canter transitions & halt were of course not good (they never are), but otherwise I was super pleased with him. Not our best effort but certainly not our worst. Fairly steady, at least, with no major loss of rhythm or disobedience.

When I saw that the score was a 38 I wasn’t very happy – our worst ever. When I got the test itself and read the comments, I was even less happy. When I saw that we ended up 12th of 14, behind horses that were explosive, had their noses way behind the vertical, and/or were flipping their heads the whole time, I might have had a bit of a moment. We got the same score as a horse who did all of it’s canter work traveling completely sideways and barely kept all 4 feet on the ground. I kept watching the video and reading her scores/comments, trying to see what she was seeing, and 75% of the time I just couldn’t.

Comment on this turn: unbalanced

Comment for this canter circle: heavy on forehand

Comment for this canter-trot transition: crooked

I sent the video and the scores/comments to my dressage trainer at home and he at least validated my feelings by saying “That’s bullshit”. I guess sometimes the judge just really doesn’t like you, and this was our day.

That said, I really could not have been happier with Henry. I felt like he showed a lot of maturity to keep himself together even though he was tense and nervous. A few months ago that would not have been the case. He did everything I asked him to do, when I asked him to do it. The pieces will get better as we go along, and I thank the judge for her opinion, but this score sheet is going in the trash. I don’t disagree with the score I got, we all know how subjective the actual numbers are, but I definitely disagree with where we ended up in the pack as compared to some of the other tests I saw.

Tomorrow – on to the fun stuff! And a bit of redemption…

Because after the last 5 things, it wasn’t long before 5 more things showed up on the need list. Most of which are Riding Warehouse’s fault, as usual. I get those emails that are like “See what’s new at Riding Warehouse!” and I’m like “That sounds like a great idea, please show me what’s new, this will be super! Clicky-clicky!” and we end up with more posts like this. To my credit, I only bought one of the 5 things on the last list. Granted, I tried to buy another but it was sold out. Details.

1. Kastel Denmark sunshirt in yellow. Because last time everything was navy, and because my life needs more  yellow, and because Kastel is my absolute favorite.
2. Ovation Fashionista H belt in navy. Ok, more navy, I know. But the price is right, it’s cute, and we’re going to pretend like the H stands for Henry. The only way this belt could be improved was if the horse was a unicorn.
3. Tuffrider neon peach breeches. I can’t really explain this one, except to say that I’m in a really big peach/coral phase right now and I feel like these would go well with my plethora of navy things.  Don’t judge me.
4. This brown CWD dressage saddle. Go ahead, look it in the eyes and tell it you don’t love it. Can’t, can you? I dig the brown dressage tack.

5. Which means you’re gonna need this to go with it – PS of Sweden’s newest model, the Get Set. Word is that they will eventually offer interchangeable nosepieces for it, too. Oh the possibilities.

After you’re done either drooling over everything or questioning my taste/judgment, don’t forget to go check out the Unicorn Contest. As of right now I have no entries. Zero, zilch, nada. So I guess Bobby and I get to keep all that awesome stuff for ourselves instead of give it away!

The end of August in Texas is still basically mid-summer for us, so it’s still hot as hell here. There are very few recognized horse trials in the summer because of that, but the one we’re going to this weekend has a pretty good way to work around it:

Basically everything happens either before noon or after 6pm. Because no one wants to ride in 100 degree heat with 50% humidity. No one. But at 10am it should only be about 80 (granted, with around 70% humidity) and at 6pm is should be about 90 (with more like 35% humidity), both of which are better than 100 degrees in the mid-afternoon sun in West Texas where there’s not much shade.

I’ll be bringing a lot of ice, ice packs, and fans.

I will also try to keep our warm-ups under 15 minutes. Mostly walking before dressage, and just a quick canter and a couple jumps before Stadium and XC. This will be Henry’s second Novice and the rumor is that the courses will be set soft (and the XC speed is only 350mpm) so I just want him to hop around and get more confident at the level. We only need 3 more completions to qualify for the N3DE next year, so that takes a lot of pressure off. I’ll go with the same plan I had at Greenwood and Texas Rose with the dressage: calm and quiet, even if it means leaving points on the table. He’s still easily frazzled by dressage and Novice Test B doesn’t flow so well for us, so this will be our standard tactic for a while to come. I would not mind getting back another dressage test with comments like “lazy” and “needs more forward”. For this horse that’s a win.

Coats are waived so I’m gonna go pick up a purple sunshirt to wear in honor of my mom. It’ll match Henry’s purple braids.

It’s been a long 12 weeks since Texas Rose, I’m beyond ready to get this fall season on the road! Corona this weekend, AEC in 4 weeks, Greenwood 2 weeks after that, and then wrapping up 3 weeks later on Halloween at Pine Hill. Let’s do this. Also, Bobby is moving up to Novice this weekend because peer pressure totally works. And he’s going to kick everyone’s ass, as usual, including mine.