Media Monday

Finally bought a couple pictures from our recognized dressage show! I was so excited for these pictures, but I really didn't like a lot of them surprisingly. The photographer is very talented and I always love her pictures, but I was leaning forward and Jetta wasn't moving as nicely as I know she can so that combined just made the pictures pretty meh. I do really like the two that I bought and in a way it's for the best that there weren't more pictures that I liked because they're quite expensive and I can never afford more than two. Two of my favorite pictures of Misty are by the same photographer.

Maybe someday I'll sit like a dressage rider and look where I'm going

While I will always try to support show photographers, it's hard to spend over $100 just for two pictures. Especially when you don't get the complete file. I paid $25 for her to take pictures of me at the show on one day, then I paid $45 for each of the pictures to get an 8x10" print and a tiny digital file that is only good for social media sites. Then I had to pay almost $10 for shipping the two prints. I tried making one of them my computer background and it was terribly pixelated, so that was a bummer.

I was a show photographer for several years so I understand how hard it would be to make a living from that. It takes me forever and ever to edit photos so you have to put a lot of time into these things and photography equipment is not cheap!

Regardless, I love these two pictures. I was so proud of Jetta at the show and I'm happy to finally have some really lovely show pictures of the two of us!


And I'm curious - what do you typically pay in your area for show photos?

Twin Rivers Classic - Day 2

Sunday dawned wayyyy too early for me. We had our ride at 7:30am so I had to be up at 4:30am to throw Jetta in the trailer and be on our way by 5am. Ugh. I am so not a morning person.

After I'd already been awake for far too long

I was super tired so Jetta got a minimal warm-up since she felt pretty much perfect. We went in and put in one of the best tests we've done recently! I was so, so happy with her effort and more than ok to end the show on that note. Previously I was bummed to not have 2 classes on each day, but I really couldn't afford it and it turns out that it worked out just fine! We ended up with a 67.8% which I was ecstatic about - last time this judge gave us a 64.8%. We got lots of 6.5's and 7's with several 8's - one for each halt, one for our free walk, and one for our canter-trot transition (AMAZING). We got a 5.5 on our right half circle because we didn't show any bend, and a 6 for our stretchy trot. We got all 6.5's on our collective marks with the comments "A bit stiff legged this morning, needs more suppleness and to bend right, obedient, just needs balance to relax muscles, rider needs shoulders more back and seat bones more forward to help balance." One of these days I'll get my equitation together.

And look up

Take aways from the show:

• I still need to work on my position, but I'm happy with the improvement from the previous show
• The stretchy trot it a huge weakness of ours, so we need to either fix it or hurry up and move to second level where we don't have to do it anymore! (jk... kind of)
• The verbindend bit was a success - I felt like she was definitley not as over her back into contact as she could have been because of the bit, but I will take that over having my arms ripped out of the sockets
• We need to figure out where our right bend went still
• I'm thinking it might be time to do some flexions and see if it's time to think about joint injections or at least some Legend or Adequan. She doesn't look stiff to me in the video at all, but I'd like just to get an idea of if she's needing more joint management or not as she's never had the best hocks
• We need to stop doing First 1 because no one else ever shows it, so it's cool to get first place ribbons and all, but it'd be nice to see how we stack up against other riders, so we need to work on our canter loop in order to show First 3!

Can't wait to see the proofs for the pro pictures, so I will post those when/if I decide to buy any!

We were the only one in 2 of our classes so we got cool stuff!

Twin Rivers Classic - Day 1

Surprise! I went to a show. And not just any dressage show, but a recognized show. You might remember our lackluster last show and how I was really bummed and thinking that a recognized show was just not going to be worth it for us. I really didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a recognized show only to not get any scores towards our bronze medal.

But then, our rides at home were really good. And I remembered the "magic bit" (Neue Schule verbindend snaffle). And I thought about how we've been at first level forever and I have never done a recognized show on Jetta and I just keep pushing that goal further and further back... So I signed up.

I immediately had buyer's remorse. What if I just wasted all that money? I'm perfectly happy doing league shows forever pretty much. And of course my rotation this month took me 2 hours from home so I was only riding Saturdays and Sundays (maybe with the occasional Friday). Would we be ready?

Long story short, it worked out well for us!
(warning: the BF attempted to take pictures. Key word attempted, but I appreciate his effort!)

Beginning of our stretchy trot

Luckily my rides on Saturday were in the afternoon, the first one being at 2:30pm. I had packed for the most part the previous weekend and cleaned all my tack on Friday, so I was able to leisurely pack the rest of the trailer, lunge and bathe Jetta, then drive to the show.

Of course, when lunging Jetta, she was being an absolute psycho and galloping around the arena with her tail in the air and snorting, resulting in the most epic wipe-out I've seen her do. She got up and trotted off like it was no big deal, but I was really worried that after standing on a trailer for an hour and a half, she'd realize that she really did hurt herself and be lame.

Anyways, when I first got on her in the warm-up arena she definitely felt stiff. Not quite lame per se and I didn't really know anyone around the arena at the time to ask and see what they thought. She ended up working out of it, so I'm not sure if her leg that she landed on when she fell was sore or if she was just stiff in general and the warm-up arena footing is a little bit hard or if she was a little bit footsore, etc. Overall, she felt normal after we had warmed up.

My goals for this show were to get 60's. Pretty low standards for me lol. But I also wanted to get no comments about me leaning forward or having flat hands, like last time. I was really disappointed in myself for those comments!

Our first test at First 1 was ok. I did ride in the verbindend to see how it went and I had a lot more control, especially in the canter. She still braced in one of the lengthened trots, which is weird because she only does it when we're going one direction, but not the other (doesn't matter if it's towards or away from the door, just when we go left to right across the diagonal). Overall, I felt pretty good about it. We ended up with a 62.2% with mostly 6.5's and a couple 5.5's - one for our stretchy trot, one for a lengthened trot, and one for a lengthened canter, and a few 7.5's for both halts and the medium walk. Our collective marks were all 6's with one 6.5 for rider's position and her remarks were "Capable team, work to improve her steady stretch to contact and develop more swing over her back. Have fun!"

The next test I decided to be a little bit more bold in our lengthenings since I felt like she wasn't bracing as much and we had worked at home to reduce the rushing a little bit (judges still say that it's rushed or running, but it feels oodles better than it was). I liked this test a lot in how it went - still a few bobbles, but definitely improved. We scored a 64.7% which I was happy with, mostly 6.5's with a 7.5 for our first halt and free walk, a 7 for both half circles, medium walk, and one of our canter circles. Again, a 5.5 on our stretchy trot, so we definitely need to work on that. Collective marks were all 6.5's with the comments "Fun team with bright future. Work to improve stretch over topline to contact in all work".

I definitely didn't regret signing up for this show, it was super fun and laid back, and Jetta was on her best behavior!

Stay tuned for day 2...

Midsummer Night's Dream

I'm back with a show update! I have a few weeks off of clinics this summer, so I decided I might as well squeeze some showing in and this is usually one of my favorite shows to go to all year.

It was quite the ordeal getting things figured out for this show - my truck is still broken and I thought it would be fixed by now, I was going to borrow my dad's truck but then he accidentally took the keys with him when he drove over the mountains for the weekend, so I had to find a truck the day before the show. My 3 local options were all out - one friend had her truck currently in Canada for an externship, another was half disassembled because they're putting a flat bed on it, and the other didn't respond to my text because they're in one of the most insane rotations at school. Luckily the BF's parents have multiple trucks and said I could borrow one, not ideal since it was an hour and a half drive to get the truck (one way), but it was worth it!

The morning started off fairly excitingly when I went to load Jetta in the trailer, only to open the door and find a HUGE wasp nest in the trailer. I ran back inside and luckily another lady was at the barn and had it covered. I call her the "barn mom" for a reason. She grabbed some wasp spray and a broom and went out and sprayed it all down, killed all the bees and swept all of the nests out for me! It was awesome - I'm not allergic to bees but I am a chicken about them and I will run away from them, most likely screaming.

Partially destroyed but it was HUGE!

We did First-1 and First-2 at this show. I decided to suck it up and do both First level tests since I really feel like we have Training level down and we need to get it together to do First level. Typically I try to keep my expectations low for a show because I'm super competitive and I don't want to get bummed out if I don't do well. My usual goals are - don't fall off and stay inside the dressage ring! But for this show, my goals were to remember my tests (last show I had a reader for first level) and I really, really wanted a 65% on at least one test.

Jetta has been SO good all week. All of a sudden her canter has turned around and started feeling good instead of the weird funk we were in. She started being steady in the contact, listening to half-halts, and for the most part was carrying herself nicely. I was really looking forward to the show!

She warmed up pretty hot and wanting to either run or fall on her forehand. I got on pretty early to school her and thought we worked through things fairly well. She decided she no longer wanted to bend right, which I have no idea where that came from, and couldn't get her to change her mind about only bending left. We got in the arena and immediately the bell was rang for us to start, so I was bummed that Jetta didn't get to look around (she's never been to this barn) because the arena has 6 big openings around the sides so it's pretty weird for horses who aren't used to it to see people's heads strolling by or horses and cars all around.

Our test was tense, Jetta wanted to run through my aids, and half halts were forgotten. It was not helped by the fact that some sort of party was happening at the entrance of the arena where there is a sitting area for spectators - everyone was cheering, excitedly and loudly talking, wine bottles were popped, and paper bags were being rustled. Not the ideal environment for a hot spooky horse in a dressage test.

I was pretty bummed with how the test went. Unfortunately we didn't have time after to school more because I had to go right back in after one rider went. I had a couple minutes to memorize the next test, and then we were on.

This time I immediately trotted and did several trot-halt-trot transitions before the bell rang to try to get Jetta thinking and not pulling. I definitely think it helped a bit. For First-2 I didn't let Jetta get as forward in our lengthening trot and canters because she was pulling too much on me in the first test, so I tried to keep her soft but at least show a little bit of difference. I came out of the test feeling much better about that ride than the other one.

It's funny how every time I think a test went awful and the other one was better, the judge thinks the opposite.

We scored a 64.8% on the First-1 test. An improvement from our last show, both in score (we got a 64.2%) and how it felt to ride. We got a 7 for both halts, a 7.5 for one of the 10-meter half circles, a 7 on our trot-walk transition, an 8 on our free walk, and crazily enough, a 7.5 on our last canter-trot transition. Our comments were mostly how Jetta's gaits were "choppy" and that I needed to sit up (Jetta was yanking me out of the tack the majority of the ride - I'm disappointed in myself for not just giving her a big half-halt and sitting up).

Hanging out after our tests

First-2, also disappointing, got a 61.56%. I really thought this one would have scored better, but oh well. I was extremely bummed out about this test because this is a judge that consistently gives ridiculously high scores... I can't imagine how low it wouldv'e been with a judge that scored more normally. I thought our leg yields were attentive and accurate but she didn't like them - one of them was "crooked" and the other "leads with haunch all of the way". I wish we had a mirror at our barn because they really did feel straight to me! We did get a 7.7 for our walk, and an 8.0 for our free walk again. One of the lengthened canters, one 15 meter canter circle, and our final halt all got a 7. Jetta was not interested at all in doing a stretchy trot circle so we got dinged on that too. Final remarks were: "Capable pair! A bit too much in jumper position, with dressage position, she will be more supple, cadenced, and have more suspension". I wish!

Overall, this show made me unsure about my plan to do a recognized show. If we can't even get mid-60's at a league show (with a really lenient judge), I really think it would be a waste of money to do a recognized show when I'm trying to get scores for my bronze medal. I was pretty bummed with this show, we still have a ton of work to do at home obviously and so far the work we are putting in just hasn't shown yet.

The good stuff - I'm happy that I was able to memorize both tests! For some reason, maybe just being out of practice, it's been hard for me to memorize the First level tests. Jetta didn't canter in any of our trot lengthenings, or trot in our free walk. While she was spooky about the cars, and horses walking past the arena windows, and the noisy people, she didn't leap out of the arena or bolt. I was happy(ish) with our second test's geometry and all but one of the downward transitions. We still have a long way to go, but at least the work at home is getting better!

Congrats if you made it this far and sorry for the mostly picture-less post! I didn't know anyone well enough to pester them into taking pictures and there were no photographers at this show. Hopefully next time!

Dressage Debut

We had our first dressage show in a long, long time since baby made her appearance!

And it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be!

Luckily, the show organizers were very flexible and we were able to drop down from First level test 2 and do Training test 3 instead due to Jetta's terrible behavior these previous couple weeks. This was SO helpful in terms of having a positive show experience.

Jetta was very hyper the morning of the show. I turned her loose in the arena before we loaded up and she galloped around like a psycho for at least 10 minutes before she regained some semblance of a brain. We picked up a friend on the way to the show and he was quite amped up, whinnying and pacing the entire time once we made it to the show. Luckily, Jetta seemed to remember that she's supposed to be a seasoned veteran show horse and behaved like it, settling down to snack on her hay without a peep.

I helped my friend most of the afternoon since this was her first dressage show ever (she does hunters/eq) and called tests for her. She did great for her first time not having any idea what she was doing! It was super fun to have a group of friends at the show since I'm so used to going solo. Jetta warmed up ok. The show seemed to remind her that she can actually be a real horse, but she was quite heavy on the forehand and especially stiff going to the left, not wanting to move her barrel off my leg. We had a bit of a half halt and she was only sometimes running through my aids.



We did Training 3 first and it seemed fairly lackluster to me. Jetta was mostly obedient, listened to my half halts, transitions were acceptable, she bent when I asked her, etc. The worst parts were a couple steps of trot in our free walk (seriously horse? this is always our best movement!), our canter-trot transition at X that she completely ignored and we got late, and a stretchy trot that didn't show a whole lot of stretch.

Otherwise, it wasn't a bad reintroduction to showing for us. I didn't think it was great, but I definitely couldn't be upset about it.

I was pretty shocked to see we got a 72.5% to earn us second place. The judge was VERY generous (not a problem to me!) but I was surprised to see that it looked that good when it felt just meh. But I will take it! We got an 8 on one canter circle (very surprising!) and an 8 on our impulsion. Mostly 7.5's and 7's on everything else!

Our ponies are in love - and just too cute!

Shiny!

Our second class was First 1 and unfortunately we got a little too carried away taking pictures in front of the blossoming trees, so we didn't have any time to warm up for this class. Oops. Jetta was not very good for this class. She was WAY too excited about the lengthenings - she basically took off at a gallop for the second canter lengthening, then got sassy when I circled and asked her to come back down to a reasonable speed (judge's comment was "disobedient" = accurate). Her trot lengthenings were ok, but mostly just quick and on the forehand. We need to do a ton of work to be ready to put in an acceptable first level test.

The judge was, again, very generous and gave us a 64.25% which was much more than we deserved, but we placed out of the ribbons which was accurate.

Overall, not a bad way to kick of the show year!

Her favorite move - free walk

Trying to do a stretchy trot

Wheeeee!

I think our takeaways for the weekend were the same things we've been working on - get her off her forehand, get manageable lengthenings that are not just going faster, improve our stretchy trot and my equitation is awful and I really need to work on it!

Welp, Nevermind

Welllll... we didn't make it into the show yesterday. Apparently they had a TON of entries for the show, so I didn't make the cut. I was extremely bummed since I was getting really excited for it, but I think it's for the better. I get to save my money and wait for a league show so I get points. And I got to focus on finals instead of stressing about the show too and everything I needed to do to get ready (clean tack, organize trailer, bathe Jetta, etc.)

Our last two rides were WONDERFUL and then we had two awful ones. After two relaxed rides with lots of stretchy trots, I wanted to work on lateral work again. Jetta warmed up really nicely, then went downhill once we started the lateral work. She just gets more and more amped and then I get a shorter rein and she gets more and more "up"and it snowballs.

When we went to canter she launched into it with barely a cue, she was being super sensitive to my aids, so I tried to school it a little bit and she just got more anxious. We ended up dropping back to the trot and doing lots of figure 8's and serpentines, trying to get her listening, not heavy, not overreacting to my leg, etc.

It ended up being a pretty long ride and while I think we did accomplish things, it was frustrating. So probably another reason that it's good we didn't make it into the show.

Then I rode on Sunday and they were scraping the driveway, trying to get rid of some of the potholes and while Jetta doesn't actually care, when we got into the arena and couldn't see the tractor she was VERY CONCERNED and there was much prancing and general obnoxiousness so I got off and lunged her and she ran until she decided she was done and then we had a lovely but short ride.

Now it looks like our first show will either be mid-April with an indoor eventing show (just jumping, no dressage) or a dressage league show at the end of April. We will see! I'd like to know my exam schedule before signing up, but I also don't want to miss out again by entering at the last minute. So we'll see.

Here's our updated list of things we need to work on:

Training Level
Canter - reasonable speed, not on forehand, on the bit
           Better, but we need to work on not launching into the canter
Canter-trot transition
           Better, but still needs improvement
Stretchy trot circle
           Much better!

First Level
Fine-tune our leg yield
         It's going really well!
Lengthened trot and canter
         We've been working a little on the lengthened trot, but haven't touched the canter yet

Second Level
Travers - working on this, it's still ugly but has its good moments
Canter-walk transition - HA. hahahaha
Canter loop/counter canter - started our canter loops and they are not as bad as I was expecting
Sitting trot - sometimes we can do this other times we are too discombobulated

To apologize for the lack of photos, I'll be posting a baby update soon! I promise that one will have photos :)

The Plan

Of course, I feel like whenever you post Plans (yes, with a capital P) into the blog-o-sphere, something will magically come up that makes your plans moot.

But I'm gonna do it anyways, my Plans are currently very nebulous and up in the air at this point due to vet school, especially with the onset of 4th year clinics, but we're going to try anyways!

I already decided we're not going to make it to any shows in February, so we're looking at March for our first show. Of course, before then we need to figure out our downward transitions because at this point in time, they don't exist. Why would we ever need to come back down from a canter? Jetta things that there are no reasons for that nonsense.

March 2nd is an eventing derby show I was thinking of attending. However, we are over half way through the month at this point and we haven't jumped at all... plus no brakes... I don't think this one is going to happen. Plus it is pretty spendy for what it actually offers, so I think we might save our money and stay home from this one. 

It's been so long since we've done this!

There is a schooling show March 18th not too far away so that is the first on our list. It would be a nice, laid-back reintroduction to showing for Jetta and allow us to stretch our legs and see how it goes. I typically dislike schooling shows (I want awards!) except for baby horses, but it's been a really long time since I've showed Jetta so it would be worth it. The only problem is that it's the weekend before finals so that is very irresponsible of me... but I'm doing extremely well in all my classes this term (so far) and we have a pretty laid back finals week. So... maybe we'll try it. After all, what better study break is there?!

April 13th is another derby, so we might aim to be jumping by this point. Again with the cost, so we'll see what happens with this one. 

The first league show that I am most definitely planning on going to is April 29th. This is one of my favorite shows - laid back and at a familiar and close venue.

May 6th is a H/J show that I think we might try to make. 

June 2-3rd is the two one-day HT that I love attending every year. They are really well run, very affordable, laid back, and a lot of fun! We'll see if I can attend at least one day, since I have clinics during this time, but I am not on call.

June 10th is a dressage schooling show. I'm not sure I want to spend the money on another schooling show, I'd prefer a league show, but if we're bored or want to attempt Second Level, maybe we'll try it.

Another league show (finally) is July 7th. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this one due to clinics, but I really want to!

I mentioned in our yearly goals, that I really, really want to get our First Level scores for our Bronze medal. I think it's totally doable, it's just the cost of showing that is the issue. But, I still want to aim for it. There are a few options for this show. I can only attend one. August 3rd-5th is one at a facility that we've been to before, but it's a fair drive. It seems to be pretty laid back, though I've never attended this one. August 18th-19th is a new recognized show at the facility that hosts a lot of other league and schooling shows. It would be fun to attend, but I'm not sure on how the dates coordinate with my clinic schedule. October 6th-7th is a fun one that I have friends who always attend, so it might be a nice support system to go together. I also don't have clinics at this time.

October 21st is another League Show. I'm not a huge fan of this venue (it's got awful footing) but if I need to fit another league show in to get my little award plate, and maybe at this point we'd be ready to try Second Level.

Sometime in the fall there is usually another of the two one-day HT so I'd like to attend that if possible. 

I'm really hoping at least to make it to a couple league shows and the one-day horse trials. But otherwise, not a ton of pressure to do all the shows. I'd also like to fit some clinics in, but we'll see how that pans out. I don't think we're at a point yet where we can participate in a clinic and get anything new out of it (we're really just doing basics right now to get Jetta fit and back to where we were before baby) but I'd really like to do at least one clinic with JW who comes down fairly often and I've heard great things about her!

Fingers crossed I get a little bit of showing in this year!

Spooktacular

We actually had a not-so-bad show this last weekend! We even managed to canter in a test! I don't know what I was thinking because these past two weeks have been the worst weeks of vet school thus far but what better way to end an absolutely awful week of no sleep than with a horse show??

We signed up for a dressage suitability class, Intro B and Intro C. I briefly toyed with entering Training 1 since the flow of the test is better, especially in terms of canter. Having less than a whole 20-meter circle to pick up the canter and get back down to the trot makes it pretty tight. But, overall I feel like it was better to enter Intro because a horse that can't canter very well at Intro is kinda cute and baby-ish, but if they can't canter well at Training then you probably need to go back to Intro. That was my thinking anyways.

He warmed up beautifully - if only he could be that way in the show ring, he'd be so nice!

I was glad we entered the dressage suitability since it gave him an opportunity to get used to the arena (again, he's been here several times but they had all sorts of Halloween decorations out) and get him used to the judges booth with it's scary flashing lights and canopy. He was really good in there though we couldn't canter past the judges booth on the right lead, but the judge liked him so he got a blue ribbon! Probably the only blue I'm ever going to get on him, and it was just because he's cute lol.

He's pretty adorable

 

Intro B did not go quite as well. We went immediately from Dressage Suitability to our test, so we stayed in the arena while his new "friends" left which made him very unhappy. Our test started out well, but we went to do our first circle at B and he went sideways and there was some rearing involved. I got him back on track and the rest of the test went well.

I was surprised to find we got a 66%! Even with rearing! I swear if this horse ever figures his stuff out, he's going to be amazing.

Intro C went much better. He was not as good in the warm-up arena and kept screaming back and forth with his buddies from the barn which was obnoxious. Luckily when we went back in the arena, we had a moment to school our circle in the middle of the arena and after a few antics he figured out that it was much easier to just do his circle.

This test went better than the last one, though there was still tension and he could not manage to pick up the right lead. Usually he's very good about getting it the second time after I bring him back down from his unsuccessful first try, but he just couldn't figure it out. Kind of a bummer that there are two marks for the canter, so that was a bummer, but he still pulled off a 62.5%

I was pretty happy with him! It was definitely an improvement over the last show, so I'll take it!

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!

Young Grasshopper

Trask and I completed our first eventing derby-style show! He is officially a little grasshopper now.

A facility that I used to ride at a lot growing up has now started to offer eventing derbies. I think they had one or two before this show, but it's a hard thing to find in our area and sounded low key so I thought I'd enter Trask. We haven't done a whole lot of jumping so I entered him in the teeny-tiniest division, Grasshopper.

We had two really great rides before the show. I've been trying to ride him outside more because he's perfect in the arena, but can get a little fresh and switch his listening off a bit when we're outside. The first few times I ever rode him outside I was pretty sure we had no brakes to speak of... But he's getting much better!

I think a big helper was getting better control of his shoulders. When he has his little baby meltdowns, he just runs his outside shoulder right through my aids, which is very bad if you are, for instance, on a trail ride along the edge of a cliff... Anyways, he's doing much better now that we have been warming up on a "square" where I ask him to bring his shoulders around 90 degrees in the corners. I have much better control over his shoulders now and he's not blowing through my leg as much.

We jumped our first little course right before the show. Mostly we've just been jumping one or two jumps at a time, but we strung together a tiny course of five fences. He was awesome! He sometimes rushes towards the barn, but when we were jumping he loped along without rushing, he did come in a little crooked at times, but never tried to run out and jumped very willingly. I was super happy with him!

Friday I hauled him down for the show. The one thing I didn't quite like about this show was that it was twice the cost of the usual eventing derbies we enter (one division + an overnight stall). I might not attend in the future because of this factor but we'll see. I got him a stall because they charged a haul-in fee and the stall was only $10 more than the haul-in fee. Plus, I figured it would be good for him to be ridden around the grounds beforehand since he can be a little nervous in new environments.

He was super good and we rode in both the dressage arena and outside around the course, we were allowed to jump the warm-up jumps and I got to see how the course was layed out. The course is just a stadium course of 10 jumps, then 8 cross country jumps laid out in a circle. So nothing too exciting or challenging. He absolutely loved jumping the tiny logs they had for the grasshopper division and I even jumped him over the inviting BN log they had out. We spent a majority of the time desensitizing him to the large canopy and strands of plastic flags. It was really breezy so everything was flapping in a terrifying, horse-eating way. Eventually he got used to it and I was very happy when I put him away for the night.

All the horse eating things

Of course once I looked over the course map I worried a bunch all night. The last jump of the stadium was marked as the hay bales... he's never jumped hay bales and they're pretty big for a grasshopper division!

The next day he warmed up pretty tense and worried for dressage. Of course there was a giant tractor moving the manure pile and he could see it from the warm-up arena. It was LOUD and he was distracted by it. But once he relaxed I was really happy with how he felt. My mom and bf came to watch which was fun.

We entered the arena for Intro test B.  We trotted and trotted and trotted around the outside of the dressage ring for what felt like forever. We sniffed the judge's table. And finally we just walked and walked for a while until the judge FINALLY rang the bell. We did our first halt and saluted the judge. And then stood there... and stood there.... and she never nodded back so I just went on, hoping I hadn't missed something. They had given us enough time outside the ring that he was fine with the judges booth and there was no spooking like our first show. He did his first circle, then came walking around the corner facing the stands, where my mother, in her neon orange shirt, was standing at the rail trying to video our round, and halted dead, staring at her. He started backing up and she realized what was happening and sat down. As soon as she did, we were able to continue on, I was cracking up. He is such dumb-dumb sometimes!

Overall, the test was really good. Our free walk was fantastic, he was relaxed and attentive. He wasn't 100% soft and steady in the bridle the whole time, but I was very happy with the test and it was a huge improvement over our first show.

Guess what we scored?? A whopping 80% for a second place. I couldn't help but laugh at how extraordinarily off the judging was. We got mostly 8's and a few 9's. I have no idea who was judging, but she definitely was not a dressage judge. It just made me giggle... especially the walk movement where he halted and backed up, we scored a 7 with the comment "silly horse!" I know it's a schooling show and they want to make it a good experience for the green horses, but it just made me laugh.

We had a whole three and a half hours until jumping so I put Trask away and napped in the truck. I walked the course briefly and saw with relief that the hay bale jump that I was so worried about had been parted so all we had to do was go between the bales. That made me feel a lot better. All the stadium jumps were just poles on the ground with flower boxes. I wasn't worried about the flowers because all the jumps that we've been practicing with at home have flowers and he's never cared about them.

Warming up was very hectic and Trask was pretty worried and kind of freaking out a little. "We're in a field! With other horses! OMG the other horses are cantering! In a field! OMG that horse is cantering by itself all the way over there, what's wrong?!?!?!" <- pretty much his internal monologue the entire time. He absolutely could not handle the warm up stadium jumps and I kept losing his shoulder to the left and he'd refuse the jump, then get extremely upset when I tapped his shoulder with my crop. Finally I ditched my crop as it was just making the problem worse and once we finally got a nice straight jump we just went for a walk. I tried to stand and watch the riders go before us, but he started trying to rear (sigh...) so we just walked.

Once we started the course though, the fun really began. He immediately refused the first fence... twice. Luckily the time didn't start until we did the first jump, so the refusals didn't count. We finally made it over the first jump, but then refused the second jump. When he finally jumped it, he leaped so big I hit the brim of my helmet on his neck. It was wonderful. The third jump was much the same but finally by the fourth jump he was in the groove of things and we were able to just trot around the course. Finally we got through the hay bales and picked up a canter for the cross country part. He was absolutely perfect for this part. I think he really enjoyed himself! Internal monologue was more like "This is awesome! I'm such a champion, look at me go! I'm jumping things! Whoooo!"

I was very happy with him the entire time we were cantering over the logs. He never rushed (there were some scary bolting horses out there) and he never hesitated over the jumps. Even when we got to the very last one... it was decorated with flowers. I was like great, he's gonna refuse the very last fence. He just pricked his ears up and wiggled a little bit but didn't hesitate and popped over it. I was so proud! He easily came back down to a walk too. Good baby!

I had to leave before the final placing was done, but I was pretty sure we were out of the ribbons because none of the other horses had refusals.

I ended up getting second out of six horses! I have no idea how. The scoring makes zero sense to me, but I love ribbons so I'll take it. I picked up my ribbon the next day but I was kinda bummed since they also had separate ribbons for a TB/half TB (Trask is half TB) high point in each division, that we actually won first place in our division for the weekend. But she never gave me that ribbon, nor did we get our prize to go with the ribbon we did get (both first and second place were supposed to get prizes in addition to the ribbons). When I'm paying that much for a schooling show I want all the ribbons/prizes I can get! So I was bummed about that.

For a one-person run show, it did go fairly well. I absolutely know how hard it is to run a show from experience so she gets all my kudos for doing such a good job by herself, but hopefully she can get a few things smoothed out before I come back, namely an actual dressage judge, someone to run the office while she does the timing for jumping, appropriate ribbons, better scoring for the jumping phase, etc. But I had a really fun time and it was really good for Trask!

Lucky He's Cute

I ended up taking Trask to our first show together yesterday! It was... interesting to say the least.

I was pretty sure that it was going to be an interesting show with my lack of preparation. I've had Trask for a month and had maybe 10-12 rides on him with school and being gone so I was kind of on the edge about whether or not it was a good idea to go to the show or not.

Pre-show lunge

We just did Intro A and B since our canter is still pretty iffy. My one goal was to stay on!

Of course the best show prep is to not ride for two days beforehand, right? I gave Trask a bath on Saturday night and loaded up the trailer, but didn't have time to clean any tack or anything. Sunday morning dawned wayyy too early, though it helped that I didn't really sleep the whole night before. Horse shows on 4 hours of sleep are super fun!

I braided Trask as soon as I got to the barn - at least we were going to look good even if we did awfully!

I was pretty happy with my 10 minute rubber band braids

Once we got to the show I tied Trask to the trailer with his hay bag and then went into the tack room to start getting my tack. A piece of paper blew out of the tack room and spooked him, he set back and broke both his halter AND his lead rope before going for a nice jaunt around the property. That was such a fun way to start a show - 20 minutes of chasing a horse around the giant field and getting myself a very large blister in the process. I was not pleased.

We had nearly no warm-up after I caught Trask. Luckily I had an extra halter and a lunge line in the trailer to replace all our broken tack... We had 15 minutes to tack up, get on, and memorize our test. We had a quick walk-trot in the warm-up arena (after convincing Trask that the large blue flappy-tarp building was not going to eat him).

Our test went about in the same vein... the judges booth was absolutely terrifying (after all, they have all those horse eating papers in front of them!) and I didn't have enough time to convince him otherwise. Our test was tense and while mostly obedient (save the judges both), we were not accurate in the least.

We had just a couple minutes before our next ride so I quickly memorized the next test and again only had a couple minutes to trot around warm-up and convince Trask that some sort of softness would be nice. Our next test was much nicer. Still tense, with some nice giraffe moments of looking through the arena windows and whinnying at the other horses, but overall much better and there was only one little spook at the judges booth in one direction.

After our test we had a nice real ride in the outdoor, complete with cantering. It was nice to get Trask around other horses since we tend to only ride alone. Plus he came to terms with the scary blue tarp building so it wasn't all bad.

Overall, it was an interesting show. Not great, but it could have been worse. We got some nice comments from the judge, even managing to get a 63% in our second class which is respectable. Now we have more stuff to work on (can you say desensitizing to paper?!) and someone is now the proud new owner of a rope halter for practicing standing tied.

Hopefully we'll get a chance to redeem ourselves next month, schooling dressage shows are few and far between right now, but we are going to find some sort of show to make it to again!

Only "real" photo of us we had since I failed to sign up for pictures. He's so lucky he's cute!!