Pre-jumper rounds on Sunday, most tired, soon to be most toasty pat of Butter after just two rounds
Toasty because in spite of shedding out really nicely and being a very sleek pony for a few weeks, he grew... extra... in April... is this a Welsh thing? We're not on the foggy, chilly moors, my dear. This pile was less than half of a clipped pony.
But at least there were beautiful dapples waiting under the extra fur
In warm up we had a conversation about personal responsibility again. I bucked up and didn't ride him like a delicate flower (half-halt meant half-halt, go meant GO) and he stepped up to the plate. He was a little squirrely to one, but from there on out didn't look back and absolutely ate up the course, at training level speed no less, oops!
Because this was a horse trial and FEI event with almost alllllll the levels, there were jumps EVERYWHERE on XC which could have made it a lot to sight see.
1- come out and GET GOING
2- nice and straight forward
3- was just to the left of a few UL fences
Long gallop to the back field to fence 4
Then a left hand turn back to the main field to 5
Relatively long gallop to 6
AHEM- this is the BN 7. I walked the course Saturday and DEFINITELY walked the BN 7 and completely ignored the N 7 just to the left of this. Either I looked more carefully or they swapped out the faded yellow flag on Sunday, and I noticed on my Sunday morning walk that I was planning on getting myself eliminated by skipping MY 7.
Novice 7 on the left, BN on the right
Water crossing was 8, few strides out of the water to this brushy roll for 9
Log for 10
Left hand turn into the tree line for 11AB - ditch, 5 strides to corner
He absolutely ate up the distance between the ditch and corner and we did it in 4. When I share the ditch pictures, you'll see why it counted for more than the normal half stride LOL
Very long gallop over to 12
I COMPLETELY botched this and pushed him a bit flat past his distance, but he had FORWARD well established, so he confidently popped up and over it and then very honestly went down the bank
Rode this with wide hands and long reins since I had slipped him the reins down the bank after screwing up 13
16AB- log stack to flagged water crossing
17- out of the water, few strides, pop over this cabin thing
18-brushy roll
19- the other one I completely botched the distance to and buried him at, I think we were both a bit tired at that point
It was such a fun cross country run that I'm going to savor it and space out the pro pics (again from Xpress Foto!) into a separate post.... but here's the video teaser that Lija took. She got an amazing amount of the course and still met us at the finish line!
Because eventing scoring is weird, our stop in stadium cost us the same as a rail (4 points) and dropped us to 7th. We then went too fast (457 mpm average to be exact) and got 10 seconds of speeding penalties for XC. But we stayed in 7th still with those 4 time faults.
We'll keep chipping (hahaha.... hopefully not) away at the work we have to do in stadium, but the weekend had great bookends around a work in progress middle. We're headed back to FHP on Sunday to have AT do a jumper round right before I do one.
Through the generosity of a coworker, Butterball and I got to go to Ocala International Festival of Eventing this weekend to run novice again after our not so smooth go at Rocking Horse. Unfortunately this is not the "YAY we fixed alll the things and it was just wonderful" post that I was hoping to write. But there were many good parts of the show, and we ended on a good note.
Beginning at the beginning, I braided Butterball for the first time. He was quite a good, cooperative egg. It also only took about 20 minutes. My phone was in the truck and then we had quite a few visitors at the show, so I never did snap a picture of just him in his braided adorableness. But there are videos and photos of him in motion that will have to do.
I was a bit worried about dressage because I gave him Thursday off because work sucked and then Friday when I rode him, he felt worried. We'd done three training rides over the past week, and I think his sensitive pony self had taken the messages that he must respond to the leg and half-halts and turned it into "OH NO THE WORLD MAY END IF I FEEL LEG AND DON'T DO SOMETHING IMMEDIATELY AHHHHH!" (Which wasn't the message from the training rides, I promise) So we did a lot of our old soft trot-walk-trot transitions and by the end he felt more settled and confident. But Saturday at the show he felt completely relaxed and fine. Perhaps even a tiny bit dead to my leg, which meant we did transitions to wake him up because I had opted not to wear spurs, given how he felt Friday.
The dressage test was pretty lovely, but there are still so many areas to improve on, it's exciting to think about. Our canter scores have continued improving, but the judge still pinpointed that as our weakness.
This was good enough for a 30.6 and second place out of twenty-two! He then got to take a nap on the trailer while I took my first look at cross country, which looked fun and very doable. This horse trial is the culmination of the winter season in Florida so often has courses that are challenging for the level. Although as I searched through the omnibus post-event, it states "All courses are designed for horses competing at the level"
Our stadium warm up was a bit meh. I kept losing power coming through the right hand turn to my warm up jump and kept burying him at it. When he did take the slightly gappy spot, I got solidly left behind. If I wanted a tricky warm up, this was it, but we got it right eventually and then quit on that.
It looked like a fun course overall. It had been a 3AB for training, but it looked like they were leaving B in for us. It walked as a long five strides from 3 to 4, so JT said make a decision and ride it. Every person I watched did it in six, so I made that decision. We went in and got going as instructed. I got a bit deep to 1 so kicked him forward. Two rode fine, but we got deep to three. Instead of sitting up and supporting for a quiet 7 strides, I flailed and drove him flat to the oxer at 4 where he said "no thank you, that was a poor choice mom." We regrouped and came back to it and it rode fine as did the left hand turn and then 5. I didn't get him back on his hocks (AGAIN) to 6 so we chipped it, but did a bit better to 7 and 8. It was a bit deep to 9, but that time I sat up and rode what had walked in six strides as a fine seven strides to 10AB.
Overall I was quite annoyed with myself for continuing to make THE SAME FREAKING MISTAKE of kicking him flat. He tries so hard to be a careful jumper. To oxers in particular, he feels like he cannot lift up from that long/flat stride, and after his hind feet hurt, he now knows there is the option of saying "no thank you". I came out feeling like I COULD NOT see a distance, which isn't actually the problem. When his canter isn't good, I cannot see a distance. An inability to see any distance is the result, not the problem. When his canter is good, we can be a bit deep or a bit long and be fine. If I miss but he is back on his hocks, he can pat the ground and then lift off athletically from the base if need be. I'm not sharing the video because you can basically sub in our stadium at Rocking Horse.
We have a plan and I'm sure we'll get there. Part of the frustration is that February/March when we were doing this it was because he didn't feel good. Now he's feeling good, but my brain keeps rolling this into FOUR months of doing the same crummy crud instead of just ONE.
Pro Pics from Xpress Foto
The best jump on course
His braids are making weird shadows, but they were all rolled up still, honest
While Butterball and I haven't gone anywhere fun, we've been having some pretty lovely walks from our home barn. He's also been getting SO BRAVE about cows. And I think kinda likes them now.
These ladies live down the road from us (and occasionally in the woods directly adjacent to us)
The kids have had a bounce house, we've been getting closer and closer using our click and treat method. But now we've gotten to the point where he's ready to tromp all over it, so we stopped.
Newly arrived barrels were suspicious because they were newly arrived
This herd now lives directly next to us. I was DELIGHTED by Butterball meeting his matching cow
Everyone is interested
LITTLE MOOS!
They were being adorable and were really interested, but so was Butterball. When he'd turn towards them to try to say hi they'd run away a bit though. He's the friendliest pony and really, really wanted to touch them. He would've touched noses with one of the cows through the fence, but it is barbed wire and I didn't want him to catch himself on the barbs.
