Pure Chaos - WEG Part 1

Despite all of the hurricane warnings and drama surrounding the World Equestrian Games, we decided to brave the rain. My parents surprised me with tickets for my birthday, though my mom would be traveling with me. I'm not sure if I ever blogged about it but I went to WEG in 2010 in Kentucky by myself because my friend flaked out after I bought tickets. Long story short I got stranded downtown after midnight half an hour from my hotel, I couldn't flag a taxi down, my cell phone died, and they kicked me out of the bus station which was the only place with a pay phone.

As the title suggests, the best descriptors of WEG 2018 in Tryon, NC was pure chaos. It was incredibly unorganized in some ways and the facility was still obviously half built. But I still had a great time.



We got in on Thursday night around midnight resulting in my first experience with Waffle House. They were the only place open and we were starving, I found it entertaining that they didn't have french fries, just hashbrowns.

Our hotel... was not ideal. We stayed in Spartanburg as they were the only place I could find a hotel for the dates that we were there. I am a really cheap person, hence I picked a really cheap hotel even though my parents were paying. It was too cheap it turns out - there was mold on the walls, the air conditioner had some sort of terrible smell coming from it, the swimming pool was bright green, etc. My mom ended up sleeping in her clothes on the bed and she decided we needed to switch hotels the next day. Oops!

Friday we spent the day finding a new hotel, then touring around and figuring out where things were. There are some great restaurants in Spartanburg - Friday we ate at the Crepe Factory for brunch and Cribb's Kitchen for dinner - both were amazing.



Saturday dawned bright and early and in our excitement to make it to the equestrian center before the crowds we ended up at the spectator parking at 7:30am. The WEG website said that shuttles would begin 2.5 hours before the start of competition for the day, which with an 11am start time for cross country meant that we still had to wait 2 hours. But, that proved not to be true. The shuttles were up and running so we took one from the parking lot to the equestrian center (there was also one taking people to the xc course, but I wanted to look around the equestrian center and maybe do some shopping first).

We got dropped of at the Tryon International Equestrian Center (TIEC) and just sort of followed people in since there were no signs where to go, no one to check tickets or bags. We wandered into the vendor village after 8am (when it was supposed to be open) and it was a ghost town. There were no vendors open and just lots of trucks and golf carts flying every which way through the courtyard. We sat around and waited for the shops to slowly open then decided we should get to the xc course. There were lots of signs and we had read online the day before that shuttles would be taking spectators from the end of vendor village down to the xc course. We followed the signs and reached a volunteer who said that there were no shuttles, we'd have to walk. Come to find out later in the day that they were only doing shuttles from the parking lot to the course. Even though the signs said otherwise. Fail.

Hawley and Jollybo!

It was a long walk downhill and we followed the course backwards. We got to the main area where a lot of the fences were and someone finally looked at our tickets but pretty much if you didn't want to pay you would not have had to. You could have been in the TIEC, shopping, watching the end of the cross country course without repercussions. It was ridiculous and weird. We ended up sitting by the Longines water complex with our cheap Walmart folding chairs we bought the day before - it was perfect. I loved getting to watch the competitors walk the course (it was hilarious how many people walked the course barefoot!). And I got excited when Hawley Bennett-Awad walked by and said hi, commenting on what great seats we had.

It was so much fun watching everyone go in person - interesting to see how tired some horses were half-way through the course, which riders took the option to go around the water, how someone almost whacked their head on the bottom of the bridge they were going under, etc. SO many horses refused the waterfall jump (the "cascades") so it seemed like the smart people were taking the option around it. I was also really impressed with the Japanese team. I just love eventer people - everyone is rooting for all the riders, regardless of country. When someone retired after 2 refusals, everyone cheered for her making a good decision. 
  

Bummed I didn't get to watch combined driving this year!

The weather held out perfectly, only a couple light showers throughout the day. However, after xc was done we headed back to do some shopping only to find all of the vendors were closed for the day at 3pm. That was a huge bummer.

Overall, it was a great day! Cross country was fun to watch, we got to walk around the course and see these amazing horses and riders (while carrying around our $11 wine!) and neat to be right on the front lines.

Of course, everything got cancelled for Sunday because of the rain, but I'll write more on that in my next post!

Will Coleman and Tight Lines

Cross Country and the Ordeal

This post is only a week late, so I'm sort of on top of things, right?

Also, quick unrelated note - this is my last finals week ever!! I can't believe I will be starting 4th year in less than a week. Starting first year, this seemed so far away and I can't believe I made it. 4th year is going to be crazy hard, exhausting, tons of long hours and of course studying for the NAVLE. But I am getting so close to reaching my DVM!

Anyways, we had Memorial Day off of school and PR (another vet student) invited me to go cross country schooling. It was the last weekend for schooling before several shows, so it was crazy busy. We rolled in fairly early at 9am and I'm glad we got up early for it!

Sadly, I have NO pictures, so I apologize for the media-less post.

I was pretty nervous actually to take Jetta. She hasn't been jumped (except for one time over a month ago at <2') in at least a year and a half. We've been to this place a ton so I wasn't worried about the venue part of it. We did a short trail ride around the property and then warmed up in part of the field that had very few jumps in it and everyone else was schooling elsewhere. Jetta was AMPED. A girl I know from when I used to take jumping and eventing lessons was there with a training group and she commented "Jetta looks so fancy!". Not a sentence I would have ever thought to be associated with Jetta lol. Basically we pranced around with very little braking capacity. We did lots of circling like we've been doing for dressage, changing direction often at the trot and that helped. Our canter was another story and I think while it looked controlled, I really didn't have any control for stopping!

We went to a section with some small jumps and warmed up over a couple little logs and a small coop. Jetta didn't blink about either one but she really wanted to gallop after every jump. We went to school the ditch (usually not a problem) and Jetta apparently didn't remember how to step over a ditch. It's the tiniest little thing but she was not having it. Eventually I got off and borrowed a crop and she finally leaped over it. Such a dork.

After that we went over to a field with some bigger stuff. I wasn't really sure about jumping any of the stuff in this field - the blue barn coop and rolltop coop, even though they were BN height looked HUGE to me. Finally I mustered up the courage and trotted up to the coop and Jetta easily jumped it with hardly any effort. I sometimes forget that she can jump! From there we came around again and took it at a canter then cantered up to the blue barn and she didn't even glance at it. I was estatic. The blue barn can sketch out a lot of horses because it has empty space beneath it. I was standing around watching another lady in our group jump the trakehner when a rider from another group brought her balky horse up to the blue barn... and promptly got lawn darted into the ground. I was SO glad I had already jumped it because after seeing her horse pull a dirty stop into the fence, I definitely didn't want to try it!

From there we ended on playing in the water. One thing I love about Jetta is that she has no qualms about water! She might not always want to canter into it, but she will never refuse it. We jumped a large skinny log into the water (I think it was a Novice height fence) and then popped over a stadium fence on the other side. At the very end we cooled off in the water, PR's horse Bailey likes to paw in the water which was cracking us up, splashing water everywhere. Then the other lady's horse started to paw. This whole time Jetta was just standing there looking at the other horses like they were crazy... then she started pawing and all of the horses were going to town in the water. Pretty cute, but I hope she hasn't learned a bad habit now!

Waiting for the tow...

And now the ordeal portion... I got Jetta untacked and loaded in the trailer, started the truck and was driving away... when the truck died. In motion. It refused to restart. I thought maybe it needed a jump, so we did that. No effect. A handful of people looked at it and tweaked a few things. It started and we let it run for a while, but I wasn't wanting to drive it with a horse trailer if it was going to die while driving. Not fun with a horse trailer when you lose power steering and braking... I called a couple friends and finally found one with a truck that was semi-ok to haul a trailer (one friend had been rear-ended recently and truck was in the shop, other had a lifted truck with no drop hitch, other one was currently using their trailer at another location). The truck was slightly disassembled from installing a flat bed, but was road worthy and would haul my trailer ok. It just couldn't hook up the trailer lights for whatever reason. He had been meaning to replace the plug for the trailer, but hadn't gotten to it and we couldn't get all of the trailer lights to work. Eventually he just hotwired the lights. But half of my lights still wouldn't work... only to find out I had 2 bulbs burnt out on the same side. Ugh.

Jetta finally made it home to the barn and I called a tow truck for my truck. I meant to drive it home, but even though it started and drove off fine twice, the third time it wouldn't start. Poor Freddy the Ford. Not sure what's wrong and of course don't have the money to fix it at this time, so it's been sadly sitting in the driveway. So of course here's another plug for the stuff I'm trying to sell... buy my things pretty please! I'll take reasonable offers on things. I have to pay for my NAVLE next week which holy smokes is spendy, so the poor truck is not going to get fixed for quite a while.

Getting dropped off at home :(

It's super hard not having my independence with my horses. I was planning on a trail ride and taking Maisie to the barn to learn to pony last week, so I was pretty bummed at the wrench in those plans. I've been driving my horse places by myself since I was 16 so this is going to be a weird non-mobile time for a while! I'm just super glad I board at a barn that has access to trails so at least I can get my trail riding in still!

Little Jumping Bean

Trask and I went to another derby this past weekend. Spoiler alert... this one didn't go as well as the last one.

I jumped him the day before the show and he was AWESOME. A little bit strong maybe, but he didn't hesitate at any of the jumps. I brought out some new jumps - a little fake liverpool and a panel fence. And he wasn't bothered in the slightest. I bumped the jumps up to the highest we've done thus far and I don't think he even noticed.

Biggest little fence so far!

I ended up hauling in the day of the show since we didn't do our dressage until 11:43am. We got there plenty early so I let Trask graze in the field for a bit since I wanted him to be relaxed and I also didn't want to repeat our trailer tying/halter breaking episode from a while back...

When I finally tacked him up and started warming up in the indoor arena... I knew it was going to go poorly for us. He was SO SPOOKY. About everything. The walls, the mirrors, the windows, the birds, the stall cleaners, etc. It was ridiculous. One thing I loved about this show was how absolutely nice everyone was. It was awesome!

Attempting to eat plastic flowers

Another person warming up noticed our difficulty with the mirrors (aka Trask stopping dead and staring at himself, then trying to run away from his reflection) and she offered to lead us up to the mirror which helped quite a bit, though Trask was still on edge. We did our best with the warm-up but I knew it wasn't going to happen for us.

We got to walk around the outdoor show arena briefly and Trask wasn't scared of anything surprisingly. They had some jumps and barrels stashed along the edge of the arena but he didn't care. Nor did he seem bothered by the large black water tanks or the hose reel outside the railing. We started our test and it wasn't too bad until we did our first circle. All of the sudden we were traveling sideways instead of in a nice circle, towards C. I managed to keep him kind of on track and then we went to canter. He didn't want to. With a very ugly transition, I finally got him into a canter but when we circled the same thing happened and he veered off towards C. We came back down to the trot and then the walk for our free walk across the diagonal and I was confident that this was something he could nail. Nope. He kept popping his head up to look around. We went for our next trot circle and the same thing happened, drifting off towards C. At this point I'd had enough and this was a schooling show anyways so I gave him a big kick with my outside leg, earning us a nice few steps of canter (ugh) and we finished our circle. We got to the corner almost to C and he tried to jump out of the arena. I ended up having to circle him in the corner so we could get our canter transition while he continued to try and jump out of the arena.

At least he looked nice part of the time?

Finally got a very, very ugly canter transition, did our circle, trotted to X and did our (very crooked) salute. And walked out of the arena very disappointed.

I'm not quite sure what happened but it was definitely a big baby moment. That test was so incredibly ugly, I was so embarrassed. We went back to the indoor and schooled our canter transitions for a while, during which we had a discussion about spooking at things unnecessarily. Ended on a better note, but I was still pretty frustrated.

We had a bit to rest before jumping and I didn't even attempt to pick up my test. While walking to the jump field I had my bf grab it and then realized I didn't have my number since I had left it on my dressage bridle. The person manning the table quickly offered to make me a new one so I wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the trailer. Like I said, so nice!

I got on Trask up at the warm-up area for jumping. Of course as soon as I got on my eventing vest's zipper split which was fantastic. I tried to fix it while the bf held Trask but I couldn't get it. A very nice bystander came up and offered to help, so she ended up holding Trask while I held the edges of the vest together and my bf tried to get the zipper down. With all that teamwork we finally got it back to normal.

Trask warmed up well. They had a pretty large log for warm-up and while he initially refused it, after a good sniff he hopped right over. I felt good about our warm-up but I knew the course would be a struggle for us.

And it was a struggle right off the bat. The first fence, a stadium fence, was right next to fence 8 which was a small log next to the water. Since this was Intro level, the water was optional so you could go over the small log instead. Even though we had been trotting and cantering through the water a mere couple weeks ago, he thought the whole area - water, log and first fence was HORRIFYING. It took me forever and a half to get him to walk through the start flags. Again, pretty embarrassing. Finally walked him through the start flags, marched him up to the first jump so he could sniff it and then we came back around and trotted it. It was so nice that people clapped for us every time he jumped something that he initially refused. It made me feel a lot better that it seemed that people knew he was a baby and we were really struggling, so that was nice.

He's so cute though!

He popped over and we headed to the second fence, a large mossy log. He stopped at it, sniffed it, then popped over. We cantered up to the third fence, a moderate sized log. He seemed game so I let him keep his canter and he popped over it without hesitation. We crossed the bridge and cantered up the hill to fence four, another log. He jumped this one without hesitation too. We approached the fifth fence, a stadium fence but he would not pay attention and was spooking at the fences in the tree line so he almost missed the stadium fence but I made him do an awkward walk/trot hop over it, resulting in a pulled rail but no refusal. We trotted down the hill to a small coop, which he refused. At this point my legs were absolutely dead and I could barely even give him a squeeze so I just clucked at him and hoped he'd go over it. He did and we cantered to the next coop, this one he hesitated at but didn't refuse and hopped over.

Generously clearing the tiny coop - I chopped my face off cause I looked ridiculous

Then we got to the dreaded fence 8. I knew I wasn't going to try and get him in the water, I just wanted to hop the tiny log then go to fence 9 (a stadium fence) and be done and go home. He refused the log so I thanked the timers and left.

I was pretty bummed since I knew before the show we'd likely get DQ'd for refusals, but my goal was 1) stay in the dressage arena (barely achieved), 2) no rearing (mostly achieved, there were a couple tiny rear's that my bf called "expressive turns"), 3) jump all the jumps even if we had a lot of refusals (fail) and 4) no falling off (yay I really did achieve this one!!)

Babies are so good at humbling you. I really thought we were ready for this show since he was schooling so well at home and we had schooled at this facility recently. Oh well. Packing up to go, the super nice lady parked next to me (her daughter had the CUTEST pony) complimented me on my patience on the jump course and wished me well in vet school (she noticed the sticker on my truck).

I love how nice everyone was at this event! It made it so much better even with a disappointing outcome.

Takeaways for me were - work more with the dressage whip so I can carry and use it at a show without him getting offended. Continue our work on canter transitions and getting him to pay attention to my outside leg. Work on getting him to jump unfamiliar jumps the first time without having to sniff them (thus earning us a refusal). Get him in more water!

Babies are Dramatic and Yellow Jackets Suck

Trask got to go real cross country schooling for the first time about a week ago. It was interesting of course. We went with KP and her horse Rogue, who is Trask's half brother. They definitely remembered eachother on the trailer ride over and since Trask is already pre-disposed to being herd bound, he was attached at the hip.

It is very interesting the differences between the two horses. They look pretty similar to each other, though Trask has a bit more bone, different hind end conformation, and completely different personalities. They are both very sweet on the ground, but Rogue is a little lazy under saddle, while I've never been able to say that about Trask. Rogue is definitely much more brave too, he ended up having to lead us through all the scary places and while KP hasn't ever jumped him undersaddle, he jumped everything first because Trask refused to do it by himself.

At least we're having really great dressage rides!

It was a good outing, though I was frustrated. Especially after how much he loved jumping the logs at the derby we did, I thought he'd do well schooling. But sometimes his baby brain just short circuits and I think having his brother there was just too exciting for him to handle. Eventually I got off and lunged him over a little jump and he came back to his senses a bit and we were able to jump a few things. He definitely can do banks easily! That's the one thing he didn't hesitate on was the little BN bank, he did it by himself, both up and down!

I was really excited that we got him in the water at least. He absolutely refused last time I tried, even following a horse in. Both KP and I both had to get our feet wet, but Rogue eventually went in and then with a loooooot of persuasion, Trask finally got his feet wet and figured out it wasn't such a big deal. By the end we were trotting and cantering through the water like he'd always been doing it... you'd never know that we spent almost an hour trying to get him in in the first place.

KP said she was really pleased with him, though she missed his two big spooks where I almost came off. I was less pleased, but it wasn't that bad of an experience. He just needs lots more exposure!

I feel this. A lot.

Then the other day I decided to get a tarp out and see how he reacted to walking over it. I figured it would be a big deal so it'd be good for us to work through it. I carried it out to the pasture in a ball and put it on the ground... Trask instantly sniffed it, grabbed it in his mouth, and shook it. I've had many horses do that and they usually freak out once the tarp rustles. Nope, he didn't care. He dropped it and started pawing at it. I stretched it out and put some poles on it to hold it in place and he didn't even hesitate to walk and trot over it. Of course, while I was lunging him over it I got stung by a yellow jacket. Those things hurt!! I've never gotten stung by one before and holy smokes. I'm terrified of bees to begin with so that didn't help. We high-tailed it out of the pasture, making it probably the shortest training session Trask has ever had, but I was not about to get stung or have Trask stung either!

And more baby dramatics... Maisie is learning to lead a bit. I still have a butt rope and chest rope but she steers kind of and we can do circles in the paddock. She lifts and lets you hold all four of her hooves. She gets her first hoof trim soon! That'll be very interesting... I have forewarned my farrier, but hopefully things go smoothly!

I went for a fun ride though when my bf, who was taking pictures, decided to make a funny noise to get Maisie's ears up and she DID NOT LIKE. She took off with me holding on, thinking I could get her stopped. Nope, she kept on trucking and I fell to my knees and she dragged me about 15 feet. Babies are strong! I didn't want her to learn she could run away from me, but dang. My left calf swelled to almost twice it's size and I have a lovely bruise developing. We ended up making friends with my bf and the scary noise by the end with lots of scritches, but geez.

One day she'll grow into this saddle pad!

6 weeks difference! She's growing so fast

(Kinda) Wordless Wednesday

So I ordered some pictures! I couldn't not at least look at what photos the photographer got, even if I had to pay to get them. I emailed him and found that the $20 posting fee went towards the cost of the photos instead of adding on top of them, so I figured why not!

He only posted 9 photos of me - 2 were dressage and just not even close to what I wanted: a salute picture and an extremely awkward canter photo. Then there was 3 photos in sequence of the bank, and then the other 4 were stadium jumps which were either just a half second too late or too early. This is mostly what I expected though I have to admit I was extremely disappointed there wasn't a photo of that massive trakehner that Jetta jumped, or at least a coop!

But she looked too cute jumping off the bank to not get and I kinda liked one of the stadium pictures. Just don't look at me. I make weird faces. Look at my cute horse instead!

I'm really glad that he got these cute pictures, even if I do look like a dork. I think he did a good job with these. I've got a pretty adorable pony!

Confidence... And Lack Thereof

I have way, way too many things to post about, I'm quite behind! But we'll just have to go in chronological order.

Which brings us to cross country schooling!

Gorgeous mare

Before I left on my trip to Nicaragua, I signed us up for a derby... at Novice. Not to mention that we had only jumped once in the past year or two, and that we hadn't jumped cross country in several years. Let's just do Novice since we haven't even jumped xc that big! (where's that sarcasm font when you need it)

The night before we went cross country schooling, I schooled Jetta a couple times over a jump in our own arena, just to make sure she could still jump. She did really great and I kept jacking the jump up until it was roughly 3' and she was foot perfect, minus being a bit zoomy about it.

The next day we hauled to Inavale and schooled everything I could get the courage to do. It all looked HUGE. I don't know what it is, but a 3' stadium jump looks like no big deal, but a 2'11" xc jump looks massive and impossible to clear.

Acting like she doesn't care

But we seriously had the best cross country experience to date and I think it was one of my absolute favorite rides on Jetta. I have been thinking for a long time that maybe Jetta doesn't want to event. She doesn't particularly seem to enjoy cross country and we pretty much only have one completion at an event ever... She loves stadium and tolerates dressage so maybe those are things that we should stick with. But after our ride that day, I really think it's just confidence building and more experience that we need to be successful. We seriously did a couple Training level jumps and I didn't die!

We jumped that log into the water!

Other side of the log

We had lots of refusals, but not one of those was a dirty stop and I felt them coming all a mile away. She just needed to look at the fence and then she'd jump it. The only real issue we had was with the big bank jump down after coming out of the water, but after practicing on the little bank a couple times it was no big deal. We did a really fun bending line from a blue barn coop to an up bank, to a bigger blue barn coop. We even did this Training level hanging log jump into the water. I was blown away that Jetta would do it for me! Jetta was a little bit of a snow plow after the jumps and she did try to get away from me twice, but I never felt like I was super out of control, just that I needed to remember to sit up and half halt after the jump.

Bank we finally conquered

I was feeling a lot better after cross country schooling and looking forward to the show. Since I don't have any media from the show really, I'll just do a giant post about it too!

Can't believe we jumped this

Dressage went fairly well first thing in the morning. Jetta was a bit amped up because we tried warming up in the indoor arena while they were cleaning stall and all the four wheelers and loud noises was making her spooky so I gave up. I was expecting her to be a lot hotter during our test so I rode too conservatively. I knew we'd get comments about getting Jetta more forward from behind and over her back, but I was just happy that I didn't have a tense little fireball on my hands like our last dressage show!

I was pretty happy with our score. We got a 30.9 placing us in second place. Comments were as expected, mostly 7's with an 8 for our free walk (Jetta's favorite). Mostly about getting more bend, steadier connection and a freer back.

Our course

Cross country I was so incredibly nervous for. I walked the course and we had mostly schooled everything on there, with a couple exceptions. The down bank was the very large one which we had only schooled the small and medium ones. The trakehner was the medium sized one and we had only ever schooled the small one (also, I find them terrifying in all sizes), and the 10AB combination was a downhill combo with the first fence being a stadium fence and the second was a ditch we'd never schooled.

Trakehner of death

Overall though, it seemed pretty doable. I was nervous for the trakehner so I mentally allowed myself one refusal for it.

The first 9 fences went BEAUTIFULLY. She did refuse the trakehner, but she jumped it on the second try, so I was really happy. I thought "It's all downhill from here, the rest are easy!" Fail.

We tackled this big down bank easily!

Apparently ditches are really terrifying things and are not to be trusted. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but that ditch was a horse eating monster and we had two refusals and were eliminated. I think it was a combo of being a new jump, being the second element of a combo, and being a downhill jump that all just threw a wrench in things. I was really bummed. They let us continue so I went around the ditch to one of the big blue houses that we've jumped before... and refusal. She jumped it the second time though, so we continued to a big roll top that we had jumped before... and refusal. After we cleared it the second time I just said we were done and left. I think that was what I was most disappointed about. After our amazing confidence building schooling round, we just completely lost all confidence over that ditch. That really bummed me out.

But in the grand scheme of things, Jetta still tried really hard. She was super good about not snow plowing and didn't try to get away from me, she came back perfectly every time I asked her to, which was a huge win. I watched the three riders before me - 2 got eliminated for refusals and one was a rider pull because her horse managed to get his shoe halfway off in the middle of the course. So at least we weren't alone! It was just a bummer because I really wanted that little ribbon! There's always next time of course.

I'm hoping to get some professional pictures, but we'll see. I feel terrible saying this, but I really don't like the photographer that's there. Plus this year he's charging $20 just to look at the proofs. Which, if it was someone I liked and I had complete confidence that they'd have some awesome pictures of us I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I'm not usually impressed with his pictures, so we'll see. I'm always grateful to have a photographer at an event and I know it takes a ton of work to take and edit and post those pictures, so I'm happy to pay for them... if they're actually good pictures. Fingers crossed!

XC Blast

First cross country school of the year is in the books! We had a blast. The weather was rainy when I headed over and I was worried that it was going to be a miserable ride. Luckily though, I pulled up to the barn and it had stopped raining. We rode around the property and the sun even came out.

Misty refusing to pose and be cute

"No more photos plz"

Misty was SO good. I was worried she wouldn't be very good after over 6 months of no jumping, not to mention 8 months since we went cross country. But she was on her best behavior. I put a running martingale on her just in case because of her bad habits she learned from her lessor though I was slightly nervous it'd backfire. It was actually pretty good idea though because Misty was in attack mode. She'd lock onto the  jumps and it was a really great feeling since usually she has to be pushed over the jumps and I wasn't sure how it was going to work out since I didn't have a crop or spurs. But she was in the cross country mode!



She will lock on to stadium jumps but she's never done that with a cross country jump. She was game for everything I pointed her at, though for the most part we kept to to small stuff. She only spooked at one natural log on the ground that for some reason was scary, but eventually she got over it.

It was such a good ride, I had a lot of fun! We went with a friend from school and her horse was super excited to be on cross country too. It was really great to find a new horse friend, not to mention one that does eventing (although she's wayyy better at it than I am) so I probably talked her ear off the entire time I was so excited.

Telling Misty to watch and learn from PR's awesome pony

Afterwards we let the ponies graze and had some ciders. It was a perfect way to spend a great day.

Mare Crush Monday

Mare Crush Monday is something I've seen horse people do on instagram to make the #mcm (or Man Crush Monday) into an equestrian hashtag so I thought why not do it on the blog! Lol.

But I finally bought a photo from the little one day HT last fall. I decided on this one despite my awful position because Misty is jumping in the most adorable way possible. I can't wait to go xc schooling soon!

over jump much?

30 Day Challenge - Your Most Exciting/Intense Moment at a Show

Hmm, I'm not really sure I have a concrete "most exciting/intense moment". There are so many to choose from. The first time I won a belt buckle at a timed trail obstacle race? The first time I competed Jetta at 3'? My first recognized horse trial on Jazz? When I won not one, but two dressage classes at Tux's first show, a horse that I'd trained from the beginning?

I guess the most recent one that I would choose would be completing Jetta's first recognized horse trial. I was so nervous because we'd done two combined tests previously and had been eliminated at both of them for refusals on cross country.

When we actually came off xc with only one refusal, I was so incredibly elated and just pumped that we had completed. Now stadium was a whole 'nother disaster, but in that moment I couldn't have been more excited.

Such a great feeling

Inavale One-Day Horse Trial

I had SO MUCH FUN today. I'm still so in love with this horse and I really wish I didn't have to sell her :/

In true worst-prepared-horse-show-person ever I didn't get to ride or bathe or load or clean any of my tack the day before the show. I had the best intentions, but ended up in urgent care to get an inhaler to deal with my asthma that has returned after almost 10 years of being gone... Needing to breathe is definitely high on my list of priorities though.

Got to the barn at 9am and quickly hooked up the trailer, lunged Misty and gave her a quick bath. Shoved everything I needed in the trailer and loaded up. Got to the show at 10:20 and my ride was at 11:10. I was completely calm and collected while checking in until a friend commented "You sure are calm for having only 30 minutes to tack up and warm up. You're not even dressed!" Thank you for that, cue panic attack. Misty got braided, tacked and I got dressed and memorized my test in time for a 15 minute warm up. Not ideal, but we could work with it. Only to find that they were running 20 minutes behind. Perfect! We really needed that extra warm up time. Misty was great in dealing with the craziness, but she was really not wanting to bend right or take consistent contact.

The test went ok, not great. I don't think Misty was too sure about the grass footing and it was rather uneven so we didn't maintain that great of a tempo and she was really behind my leg the whole time. I felt the judging was accurate but wish the judge gave a little more comments, though I can't blame them for not because that takes too much time when you're running behind! Mostly 7's, a few 8's and 6's. Comments mostly consisted of "inconsistent tempo" or "inconsistent contact". It landed us a fairly respectable 31.5 and 4th place.

Of course, it wouldn't be a horse show without something unexpected. The seam in my breeches, right at the crotch, split open just before I went in to ride my test. Lovely. I would love to share my brightly colored underwear with the world. Luckily there were lots of pony club moms around so I asked one if she had a needle and thread. She did! PM (who also took all the amazing photos of us) stitched it right up for me, since of course I did not have a spare pair of breeches to wear.

Additionally, I was "that person" again. Misty decided to untie herself and go for a little stroll when I went up to see the cross country course. Sigh. I really need to hurry up and buy a single cross tie so that I can snap her in and she can't untie herself. 

Stadium was what I was most worried about since we've never jumped these bright decorative jumps. Make that, "we've only ever jumped a grand total of 6 times before this show". I needn't have worried though. It wasn't pretty (my stadium round at a horse trial never is... I can do a respectable and well put together hunter or jumper round, but for some reason the stadium round at a horse trial just gets me all frazzled) but Misty didn't refuse anything or pull any rails. She definitely sucked back and asked a few times, "Are you absolutely sure we need to jump this?" But she was great and I couldn't have been happier. Need to work on straightness for sure (well, plus I need to actually ride well), but all she really needs is just some more miles over fences!

After stadium I was super excited for cross country. We'd jumped everything that was on the course before and it was a nice, easy-to-remember course, nothing too scary. The only jump I was nervous for was the very last blue barn. Anyways, she was fantastic and I was smiling the whole time. She never even tried to refuse anything and the only issue we had was sucking back at the combination and the baby trakehner (they added some brush underneath it so that was "new") and the blue barn was a little scary, but you can see that in the pictures.


It was great, there was a single turkey on course just before we left the box. It popped out of the trees as we went along the back fence and Misty stared intensely at it when it ran right in front of us then flew away. She was a rock star though! I know Jetta probably would have done a spook/blot/spin at that moment, but Misty just kept trucking on to jump the roll top!

Trolls live under this jump!

Oww. Poor pony

The blue barn jump... My fault on that one. I was nervous about it so of course I didn't ride it very well. A) I stared at it. Always helpful when convincing your horse that trolls do not in fact live beneath it. B) I crunched up instead of sitting up tall. Also not helpful. C) Kind of combined with B, but she was just too strung out, I was just intent on setting a nice forward pace to the jump, but I should have sat up and collected her a tad and got her more uphill and bouncy. She got way too close to the jump and didn't have enough room to bring her back feet up over the jump so she just kind of dragged them over. Poor pony. She had three little shallow scrapes along her hind legs and I'm sure she's going to be sore. She trotted sound, but she's going to get at least a couple days off.

The result? Second place out of 12! How fantastic is that? I am so proud of my little roany paint pony :)

"Look What I Can Do!"

I took Misty xc schooling again today and while she was still good, it was definitely a different experience from last time. Last time Misty was like, "Look what I can do, I can jump all the jumps!" and this time it was more like, "Look what I can do, I can jump from an almost standstill!"

I decided to not wear spurs this time around since she was so reactive to them last time, but I also forgot my crop this time too. I could have used at least one of them this time around!

I was a little more ambitious this time and I wanted to jump the things that I didn't last time and do it without first approaching them to sniff. We had more refusals this time around, mostly because I asked her for some bigger fences and also the whole no impulsion thing definitely didn't help.

We did get over the A-frame coop that was the Novice version of the one we jumped last time. Stuck with the small barn still, jumped the blue house/barn thing (which was really scary to Misty!), jumped the actual Novice trakehner, not just the baby log/ditch version, lots of logs and this big brush fence. It looked huge to me, but I'm sure it was still just the Beginner Novice fence we jumped at the recognized HT last year.

"Are pictures really necessary?"

Misty decided to taste test the brush. Obviously it does not taste good lol

It looks ginormous compared to little Misty. We jumped it!

Where'd the Misty go?

Also, she cantered through the water immediately with no prompting, so that was good. The one-day trial this Sunday is going to be... interesting. The stadium jumps are going  to be super bright and fun looking so they might be a tad scary considering we've jumped only a handful of times ever. Plus cross country will also be interesting because a) she's not quite in cross country shape, b) everything looks ginormous to me, c) she's done cross country twice. So yeah. It's going to be FUN!!

Love this sport