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.
Awesome video - you guys look really positive and balanced the whole way around, nice job!! Idk why it is but sometimes I think the xc fences just ride a little better bc they make more sense to the horses, where sj is kinda a little more … persnickety maybe lol
I think they make more sense to me too. Land, gallop, 8 strides out sit, shoulders back, next stride leg on and half-halt, then you have a few strides to assess that half-halt and repeat if necessary. Stadium it just all happens so fast and I struggle to get all those steps done between fences. Forward is less obvious as well since it's not galloping, it is a forward canter.
Glad you ended on a good note!! The purple ribbon is pretty too. In the jumpers, a refusal is also worth the same as a rail (4 faults) but most likely you will also end up with time faults in the process of having to circle and come back to the jump - unless your horse slides into the jump and knocks down a rail with their refusal (in that case the judge will stop the time so the jump can be rebuilt)
Awesome video - you guys look really positive and balanced the whole way around, nice job!! Idk why it is but sometimes I think the xc fences just ride a little better bc they make more sense to the horses, where sj is kinda a little more … persnickety maybe lol
ReplyDeleteUgh whoops forgot to log in before commenting !
DeleteI think they make more sense to me too. Land, gallop, 8 strides out sit, shoulders back, next stride leg on and half-halt, then you have a few strides to assess that half-halt and repeat if necessary. Stadium it just all happens so fast and I struggle to get all those steps done between fences. Forward is less obvious as well since it's not galloping, it is a forward canter.
DeleteGlad you ended on a good note!! The purple ribbon is pretty too. In the jumpers, a refusal is also worth the same as a rail (4 faults) but most likely you will also end up with time faults in the process of having to circle and come back to the jump - unless your horse slides into the jump and knocks down a rail with their refusal (in that case the judge will stop the time so the jump can be rebuilt)
ReplyDeleteHi, yes, that's us, slid into the jump and had it rebuilt. Probably why we didn't get time faults!
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