Rocking Horse Spring HT 2025: Day 2

Let's course walk first this go round, shall we? 

1- Ramp, tucked at kind of an awkward angle amongst many bright blue ramps

2- Big red, angled away from the parking area, up a bit of a rise

3- feeder

4- Two seater, just a short distance from 3 and in the shade under a tree

5- Mushroom table

6- Coop on mound

7- Yellow hut

8- coop

9- roll top, around the backside of the big oak tree you can see in the pic of 8

10+11- gulf coast aka water crossing to triple bar, visible directly across the water

12- White rolled table, quite a long gallop from 11 to here

13- Log and box

14- Chase aka brushy roll

15- Ditch, set in the shade

16- Rail

17- Bench

18- Table, aka triple X table

19AB- ramp to corner, our first and only combo on course

19B- this walked as a gently curving 9 strides 

20- Yellow hut, that I couldn't be bothered to walk closer to 

*photos courtesy of Xpress foto and their lovely all inclusive package :) 

JT and I discussed in warm up that he needed to leave the ground convincingly. And that if he wasn't and was squeezing in little chip strides, I needed to fix it. Because every time he squeezes in a little chip stride to a super awkward jump, it knocks his confidence. Then we started our warm up. And for him, he felt a little hyped. He's a lovely horse in that he isn't a kick ride, but it takes a lot for him to feel excited. But he felt a little bit that way. We did some forward and back and then looped over the warm up jumps. Each one came up perfectly out of stride, so I didn't have to practice fixing anything. They called us, so with one leaving the box and one in front of us, we headed over. 

He came out of the box feeling sticky and spooky. I felt it the whole way to one. And didn't do much about it. Like yes, I sat up and kept my leg on, but I did not tap him with the crop. So while he didn't ooze over it the way he did four in stadium, it wasn't pretty. I tapped him on landing, and two rode a bit better. Three I missed to so it was a chip distance or leaving from east jesus, so we chipped. Four he felt the exact same way he did to one, and I rode it the same. Except this time he was feeling less generous since I had just missed to three, so he ducked out the right shoulder. We circled around, dodged the hanging oak branch, and popped over it on the second try. 

And there goes my release out the window because *stress*

Five and six rode similarly sticky, with six being another almost run out. That one rode spooky for the whole novice group, so I'm not too fussed about his response, but I am mad at myself for not fixing things sooner. I learned back at Naked Horse that if he is balanced and up on his hocks he is WAY less likely to feel spooky and suck back. But if he does, the proper response goes leg, spur, tap. Not continual pleading with some combo of leg and spur. 

Seven, eight, and nine each rode a bit better than the one before, with him feeling more and more honest. 

I loooooove these gorgeous golden pony galloping pics

He slowed to a trot through the water, another thing we need to work on. In deep footing, he is pretty convinced he CANNOT go more forward. Which meant we almost trotted eleven, but he was trustworthy to it. 

The next several rode pretty nicely out of stride. We had gotten ourselves together a bit and it felt more like I could point him at the jump and let him take care of his job instead of having to micromanage every moment of the last eight strides. 

#13

Brushing the brush and look at me equitating since the ride coming in had gotten easier

Ermagerd, SO CUTE 

#16- Grew a few potted plants since my course walk 

He did 19AB very honestly, but was genuinely a bit surprised by the corner being a corner again. Then we loped over 20 easily. 

We finished with our 20 from fence four and 11.2 time faults - they had done something weird when setting optimum time because very few people made time across all three novice divisions. I had in my head going in to Sunday that if we jumped clear and didn't have any time we would get a second score towards our USEA medal. But thinking like that always seems to end with disappointment LOL. The cross country courses were eating people up across all the divisions. We started Sunday in 7th out of 18 and finished in 10th even with our 20 and lots of time. 

JT and I unpacked afterwards. I asked her if I had created this problem where my previously trustworthy pony now had moments that felt a lot like riding Ben on his worst days - sticky and questioning every stride towards the fence. She diplomatically responded yes, but that we knew what had gone wrong and would fix it. The first issue was pulling the hind shoes and then ending up with sore hind feet and hocks. That led to pain leaving the ground and a subsequent loss of confidence. Then I didn't have the precise timing to correct him in the moment, so the couple of fences we'd crawled over had been another knock to his confidence. She didn't think anything was irreversibly broken. She said based on watching the beginning and end of course, we had done a good job getting ourselves together to finish more confidently than we started. She also said he was still green, this wasn't Ben where he should've known the job after several years of popping around novice; this is all still a relatively new game to him. She felt like a few training rides would likely get us back on the sunny track we'd been on back in November, December, and January. So that's the plan this month - more intensive training rides and lessons till we're both feeling good about confidently leaving the ground every time.