9.09.2016

MACTA Schooling Show

This weekend I took Coco and Dieter to Heritage Park in Olathe, KS for schooling a the one day horse trial. Coco just went on Sunday for the horse trial. We know he's capable of jumping all the BN XC jumps his heart desires... why push it? See Dieter's blog for full details about Saturday.

I took both horses on Sunday. Dieter just did the BN combined test and Coco did the full horse trial. Dieter's dressage was first and then I had to do a quick tack change to get Coco ready. Warm up went fairly well. He got a really, really long walk (old man deserves it), and rode like his usual self. Our dressage test went ok. He acted like he hasn't been there probably 10 times and seen the orange boxcar in the corner of the dressage ring probably 10 or more times and acted like everything was totally new. But overall he was pretty containable and I'm pretty sure he knows that test by heart by now, seeing as we've ridden it so many times. His left lead was pretty questionable, but we know that he needs his hocks done and we're just waiting until closer to the Texas recognized show in November. I wasn't going to push it, so I got mostly off his back and let him go forward so it wouldn't look too lateral. We pulled off a 34.5 going into stadium and cross country. I have no idea what place we were in after dressage... I was too busy riding 2 horses. :P

They give us a time frame for stadium and cross country. For example, beginner novice was from 1:15-2:15. I rode Dieter right at 1:15 and then had to do another quick tack change before Coco's stadium round. As soon as he was tacked up and I was on him, he acted more like a 5 year old who had never been to a horse show than his 20 year old with lots of show miles self. He was prancing. He wouldn't walk. He was neighing to Dieter the whole time. He wouldn't stop moving. Once we started jumping and cantering, he was better. Once it was time to do our stadium course, he remembered his job and was fine. He jumped the stadium course like it was his job (because it is). We went double clear, in true Coco fashion. Check it out here. Then we went out on cross country and when he was away from the other horses and we were by ourselves, he was absolutely perfect. He jumped every jump he was supposed to jump. I swear he knows that course (we have ridden it 4 times by now), because he was locking onto the next jump as we were landing jumps. He was absolutely perfect in every way. We came in pretty close to speed fault time (whoops). I was so happy with him. I jumped off and gave him a long walk around the jumping warm up area so he could cool down a bit before we went back to the trailer. He got a quick hose down and was good to jump in the trailer to go home. After his lineament bath at home, he was happy to chug some water and head to the pasture to play. We ended up in 3rd place in a competitive class. I was extremely happy with my old man!





8.24.2016

It's Been Forever!

I know. I know. It's been forever since I've blogged. I have officially decided to make this blog about Coco and Coco alone, and I will be creating another blog for my adventures with Dieter. It's only fair that they each have their own blog. I mean, they each have his own saddle(s), bridle(s), and everything else, so why not their own blogs??

Anyways, Coco has had a lot of the year off. We have done several schooling horse trials at Heritage Park in Olathe, KS, and Longview Horse Park in KC, MO. We've mostly taken the year off from recognized horse trials, though, so that Dieter could get his foot in the door. I've been mostly riding Coco 3x/week to keep up his fitness and make him happy. However, when we went to enter for Catalpa Corners, there was no starter division (and D and I weren't quite ready for BN), so instead of totally not going to one of my favorite events of the year, I decided to enter Coco. Plus, we needed to at least try for the hat trick (we'd won that event the past 2 years in a row).


We left on Thursday to go to Lorna's house in North KC where the horses (Coco and Duncan) stayed overnight so we could get an early start on Friday morning. We got to Iowa City around noon on Friday after an interesting ride with me, Chris, Samantha, and Taylor, as well as Sophie and Roger (the dogs) all piled into the truck. we set up stalls, walked the cross country courses, and rode the ponies. Coco warmed up really well.


First hiccup of the weekend: I forgot my show coat. Stupid me keeps it in the front closet at my house. Lorna suggested we check out JC Penny and just buy a men's suit coat. After we rode the horses, Chris and I hit up JC Penny where we had to take selfies with crazy colored suit coats (bright red and purple) before we bought a replacement. Then we met everyone else at HuHot for delicious Mongolian food and headed back to the show grounds where Chris and I were shacking up in our tack stall with the pups.


I didn't ride dressage until 11:30am on Saturday, so I had plenty of time in the morning to bathe, braide, and memorize my dressage test. I got on around 10:30 so I could give him a long warm up. The test was ok, but we've been having trouble with the left lead canter lately (most likely because he didn't get his hocks injected this year because we were planning on showing at local shows only). It was pretty sticky, but the judge seemed more upset that his mouth was open at certain points in our test. We ended up with a 38.0. I felt like it was fair given our moments of tenseness and the lateral nature of the left lead canter. We were sitting in 9th place out of 11 starters in my division.


Time to run cross country! Coco got several hours off to relax and let his mane un-crimp before we got ready to head to warm up. This would be my first cross country course using my inflatable vest; it made everything feel so bulky yet so safe all at the same time! I was honestly a bit worried about cross country, because it had been several months since Coco and I had even been to a cross country schooling. I feel like I can jump this horse with my eyes closed, but cross country requires a bit more finesse. Coco warmed up pretty well, though. He started out jumping a bit hesitantly (let's be honest, though, it was probably my nerves), but we got into a rhythm and started doing better. The course was awesome. It was the same as last year, so it should have been pretty straightforward, but as we ascended the hill to the water, I got over Coco's shoulder and continued at the canter instead of slowing to a trot and sitting back. Coco saw the water and said, "Is this sanitary?" as he did a 180. Thank god for that inflatable vest, because as I was hanging over his shoulder, all I could think was "don't let the vest inflate!" and I worked like H-E-double hockey sticks to stay on that stupid horse. I spun him around and we trotted right through the water like it was nothing and continued on. I wasn't sure how much time we'd lost, so I may or may not have allowed him to go a bit faster than necessary and taken some shortcuts on the rest of the course. We had no other problems. Coco attacked the jumps and we came in right above speed fault time. Other people must have had some trouble on cross country, because even with a refusal on cross country, we moved up to 8th place.



Steak dinners for all! We all earned it. Especially Samantha who spent the entire day running around taking pictures for people. What a champ!



Jumping day is the best! We have time to actually watch the higher level riders. Chris and I set up camp next to the show jumping ring and just watched. There were a lot of problems on the show jumping course. Lots of rails being dropped, refusals, and slipping and sliding. When the time came, I headed back to the barns to start getting ready. For once in my life, I wouldn't be the last rider in our group (Taylor rode after me in her BN division). I got Coco ready and kept him in a halter so we could watch some of the competition and didn't have to get on until we were completely ready. He got a good warm up and we did out usual show jumps. The warm up ring was particularly hectic, but we got through it, even after a rider fell off and her trainer wouldn't stop laughing as her horse trampled bystanders in his rush back to the barn. Coco's love of show jumping really sparkled and we went double clear (like the champ he is) over the challenging course. We moved up to 7th place. Yay, purple! If we hadn't had our trouble on cross country, we would have been third.




Overall, though, it was a good weekend. It made me happy that Coco is still happy to event, but it made me wonder, when is enough enough? At what point do I need to think more of his well-being and safety instead of what I want him to do? How will he tell me when he's finished? I don't think a 20 year old saddlebred needs to keep running cross country. I'm not opposed to continuing in dressage or jumping schooling shows, but I'm not sure it's in Coco's best interests to continue with strenuous USEA shows. Our group talked about going to Texas Rose Horse Park for their November Horse Trials. I would really like to finish an event at Texas Rose Horse Park on Coco. I feel like I owe him that after 2 rider falls at the last 2 AECs. I let him down and we both deserve to finish that course. Maybe without the stress of AECs, we'll be able to do better. That will likely be Coco's last USEA recognized horse trial and we'll opt for schooling shows over the winter and in the future. Coco has had a good life, he's happy, and I would hate for something to happen to him to cut his future short because I was selfish and wanted to compete for too long. He's an amazing horse, and I would rather keep him around as long as possible, safe and sound, than selfishly compete him until I break him. I love my Coco Bean.

2.24.2016

2016 Goals

I've always been in the camp that it's best to publish yearly goals and make them known so that the people around me can help me stay accountable. So here they are...

1. Keep Coco's fitness up with 3 rides per week.
2. Learn all Parelli games with Coco.
3. Top 3 BN at MACTA shows with Coco.
4. Show Dieter BN at a recognized event.
5. Under 30 dressage score on Dieter (walk/trot/canter test).
6. Personal weight loss goal (I have a number I'm reaching for, but I don't feel comfortable publishing that here).
7. Non-riding working out 3 times per week.
8. Finish a sprint (short) triathlon with Chris (trainer) in September.
9. Hike with Sophie off-leash with good heel/recall.
10. Read 6 horse-related books in 2016.

So there it is. Coco's vacation officially ended last week and he's been great so far. He's doing well on both leads, not really showing any discomfort, and he's definitely feeling fiesty with all the weather changes. And I've started riding Dieter at home in the field, which has been interesting but fun. He's mostly well-behaved.

Here's to an amazing 2016, both in the equestrian world and the real world!