First Forays

While Goggles has technically been to two "shows", one was a very casual jumper show and the other was an equally casual HJ show. Which meant that his Wednesday trip to the Majestic Oaks Schooling Show felt like his first real show as an eventer in spite of the fact that we entered a combined test, not the full three phase. 

With Ben as his emotional support animal, Goggles relaxed on the way there and ate hay. He chilled on the trailer while I checked in and then was relaxed while I was tacking him up. 

Dressage was objectively not good, but subjectively I was thrilled. We warmed up focusing pretty exclusively on tempo. I generally tried to keep him bent the proper direction, but that was about it. He squealed a few times, his trademark "I'm being wild!!" move and hopped around a bit a couple of times in the canter, but otherwise was relatively chill. There are two areas to warm up at Majestic: to the left and right of the in gate to all 4 dressage arenas. Most people form a crowd to the left, so even with Ben who handles traffic pretty well, I usually go to the right. Goggles and I had that space almost all to ourselves with just one other horse doing a few circles. I gave us about 30 minutes to warm up, but realized about 20 minutes in that it was about 10 minutes too long. He'd hit a plateau in improving in relaxation and more work was just going to make him tired. Fortunately they were running early, so we headed in. He gave the barrel at A that marked the ring number a wide berth, but wasn't spooked by the judges car or the woods behind the judge which was great.

I really like the entry test and much prefer it to the days of riding intro C for starter. We had a few moments of relaxation on our left trot circle. The left lead canter was a canter, so that was a win. The free walk had good over track the whole time, but pretty limited stretch, given how many things he wanted to look at. The right trot circle was again okay with a few nice steps. The right lead canter quickly devolved into bucking for about a quarter circle, but he did come back to the trot reasonably. Our final halt was a bit rough and crooked, but again, it happened. He walked a quarter way out of the ring on a loose rein getting lots of praise before he picked his head up and squealed and I had to pick up contact again. I expected around a 45 and we ended with a 41 with our only 4 being the bucking right lead canter. 

The judge was so positive and constructive, I love her comments. I also would hate to think how it would've gone if I wasn't ALREADY thinking so much about tempo hahaha. 

After dressage I wandered over to stadium and looked at the course. The map still had an option for 7, which at least for the N and BN was a liver pool. While I definitely was not planning on choosing the liver pool, I was even a little concerned he might spook badly enough at it that he'd have a run out at the regular 7. I planned to trot his right side near it before starting and then ride positively and confidently AT MY JUMP and tell him to DO HIS JOB. My slight mental anguish turned out to be unneeded because they removed the whole thing for entry. 

By the time I went to tack up for stadium, Goggles had decided Ben was his BFF. Ben did not help the matter by screaming for Goggles from the trailer, so warm up was a bit spicy. JT's assistant trainer arrived and I said "We'll see how this goes". She helped us through a super productive warm up in which Goggles proved he is in fact trained. While pushing the already kinda bouncy horse further forward was the last thing I wanted to do, we did it. Then we jumped and he was shockingly civilized. AT (Assistant trainer) told us "He has to do two things in the ring - jump all the jumps and come back to you after". And wouldn't ya know, he did those two things! Without even a second thought about the standards or things around the arena. GOOD BOY!! 

Overall a very successful first outing as an eventer. There are CERTAINLY a million things to work on, but when are there not, y'know? He tried soooo hard for me though and proved that he is in fact a little trained. He did not launch and buck after a single fence! I was very proud of how his brain managed to function even when he was internally (and sometimes externally) screaming for Ben. He also got some good eventer show mileage in by learning how to chill in the trailer. 

I'm tentatively planning on the POP schooling show in May for our first 3 phase. They do XC schooling the day before, so it would be great to let him see all the XC jumps (and function out in public) before doing them. 

Out of three, but a FOD for our first eventing outing is pretty great. Please excuse the reuse of this picture, it's just so dang cute I had to. 

WW: Majestic Oaks - photos + video

 

Photo from Lisa Madren Photography

Screen grab from the video because I love his canter and focus here! 

And a few dressage video screen grabs 

Majestic Oaks - Novice CT

Ben gave me a bit of a scare Saturday morning. He'd had a tiny cut on the inside of his right hind on Friday. In true horse fashion the lower half of his hind leg was hot and swollen Saturday morning. I cold hosed it during his pre-show bath and then gave him a gram of bute and wrapped it up for the trailer ride. One year ago, I scratched Yoshi out of this show because of cellulitis, I'm beginning to think it is cursed. But as one friend pointed out, this is also horses in Florida in August. Another, who has had a couple frustrating shows and plans that weren't, suggested that if no one ever planned things with horses they'd stay sound forever. Quite possibly! 

In any event, Ben felt sound when I got on, so we headed over to warm up. 

When I arrived there was only one person in front of me in spite of there being 20 minutes until my time. JT had offered to come warm us up, but my dressage was well before her other students were going so I told her we could probably figure it out. This let her stay at the farm and get a few more things done before heading over. I did struggle for a minute because I haven't used the reins I put on that bridle before, so I wasn't sure which notch to hold. I felt it out though and we had a decent warm up. I focused on trying to ask for bend through his body and neck and trying not to pull on my inside rein.

One of JT's students was dressage ring steward and came and recorded us! 

It was a solid test and the judge agreed for a 25.6. I LOLed at the short change of diagonal (HBF) where a box is drawn around B. I definitely changed on the long diagonal. But also did that in April when we rode this same test and didn't get called out on it then. Reading for detail is not my strong suit 😂

After we left the ring I felt something flapping on my left boot and realized I had ridden the whole time with the boot only zipped up to mid-calf. Oops. I changed and put my boots on in the backseat of the truck and meant to finish up zipping it once I got out. At least this was just a schooling show? 

Ben kept it together to the edge of the warm up arena and then started calling for Ms. GY's horse that we had come with. He is who he is, but he's also a professional when it counts!

Buddies hanging out and eating hay

I hosed him off and tucked him back on the trailer with his friend and then walked the stadium course and watched a few rounds. It was a nicely forward riding course. When I tacked back up and headed to warm up it looked really crowded and there were 9 people ahead of me so we took a walk around for a bit. Then JT coached us over a few jumps. He felt great, really moving up to the right spot with no sticky chips. I could see the spot 4 strides out and ride confidently forward to it. We only did about 4 warm up jumps because he was going so well. 

That feeling did fall apart a bit in the ring though. One through three were pretty great. The forward six strides from one to two rode really well. Three and four were okay, but five was a two stride combination. I mean, we did it, and the jumps stayed up, but it wasn't particularly pretty. Six contained the Majestic Oaks box filler that spooks a decent number of horses. He spooked at it, but still went, so I can't complain too much. The rest of it was a bit of a blur. I decided I should probably start riding again around seven, and he trusted that and took the bigger spot to eight where I promptly got left behind. Nine he chipped again. Still a work in progress though.

 

Ms. GY did her round and then we loaded up and were home by 3:30. Ben and I ended up first in our class of four! 

Pictures are dumb, let me eat grass

Thank you, this is much better 

We also rescued this LARGE lady/fellow from the road on the way home... 

He refused to be hustled out of the road... guess that's the way life works when you're a giant rattlesnake