On May 4th we made it to the LAPS Benefit show at Linden Hall School. We ended up taking eight horses with a total of 13 riders. There were numerous division Champions won (I think 4 in all)and ribbons to be had by everyone! All of the horses and ponies were well behaved and we couldn't have asked for a better time...just some better weather! It sprinkled some rain on us a few times and was somewhat chilly for a lot of the day. It ended up being a very long day for Christina and I (as well as a few of the girls who stuck it out with us for the entire day) We left the farm at 7:30AM and did not return until close to 8PM. Luckily Karolyn was able to take 4 of the horses home mid day so that all of them did not have to wait around with us! To me, all of the time spent was well worth it to see everyone having a good time, learning a lot and for a little icing on the cake..doing extremely well!
Last Saturday we held a 4H show at Knights Landing which many of the girls participated in. There was a mix of more serious classes paired with some more fun timed events. Again we had a good day and the rain held off until the show was completely over, YAY!
On Sunday, I competed at the Plantation Field Horse Trials (the unrecognized show day for our first event of the season) with Mikey at Training Level. For an explanation on the difference between the levels of eventing check out this link :) http://discovereventing.com/?q=node/77
Saturday night before the event, it rained all night. I was a bit worried about the footing as it can become quite muddy when many horses ride over the same paths in both the Dressage ring and out on the cross country course.
For Dressage, we scored a 41 which is not great, but not totally horrible. The mud had me riding quite reserved/a bit tense, for fear we might slip. We didn't get much of a canter lengthening at all due to my fear of us slipping in the mud, our stretchy trot was basically non-existent and the free walk was just not really there for us in that test. We have been scoring quite well on our free walk! And then dumby me halted a little bit late at the end of the test. So we definitely still have things to iron out, again its more so me that has things to iron out! I just need to ride my horse better! Here is the video (this is USEA Training Level Dressage Test A) http://youtu.be/VlXGZIC9bAU
Stadium went really well-- we had 2 rails that were my fault. I tend to revert back to my old Hunter ways and ride in to tricky fences much too slowly! Mikey was jumping really, really well. He was very adjustable and jumping like the height was easy for him. Before our next event I will be working on a more forward/uphill canter stride to our fences! Luckily we have the Dom Schramm clinic coming up! I am hoping to gain a lot of new insights and ideas from him :)
For Cross Country, I was very honestly freaking out! I walked the course the night before by myself and it had me very worried. I know in my heart of hearts that we have the ability and the right tools to event at this level (and probably a level above this), otherwise I wouldn't have signed us up for it! We were well prepared coming in to this event but I still felt very uneasy! I had a couple of specific fences that I was worried about for a variety
of different reasons and Ill add some photos in with explanations :)
All in all we made it around clean with no refusals, and I didn't fall
off.. so it was a successful day after all! We ended up placing 4th out of 9! I was so proud of Mikey, I got very teared up at the end of our XC run. Here is our XC video! http://youtu.be/B-XRMSKOOlE
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| The tree in front made this tricky. |
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| This was a combination..made difficult because of jumping the first fence then going a few strides and dropping off of a bank over some water. (notice the B flag for the second element) |
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| better side view of this fence |
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| and this was the front side of the drop at "B" |
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| Fence 9.. dropping in to the water (this is the front side of it..) We jumped off the hillside in to the water. Mikey hates the water jumps! |
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| blue/yellow ramp to the corner jump at 14.. Another combination of fences that had me worried! |
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| A "corner jump" is basically a big triangle, its narrow and you are supposed to jump the narrow side. |
