Longview Horse Trials 2014

What a weekend!! I am going to be all smiles for quite a while!

But let's start at the beginning (or the last blog post). This winter, I made it my main objective to work on dressage. We need more bend. We need to lower his head. We need to make sure he's not too rounded while still being on the bit (quite the challenge for a saddlebred). And we need to generally be more comfortable in the dressage ring.

We worked on bending. We worked on trotting. We worked on turns on the forehand. We worked on keeping the reins short enough. We worked on sitting the canter. We worked on riding 20 meter squares. We worked on transitions (lots and lots of transitions). We worked on changing direction/changing bend. We took 2 lessons with Emily Wagner, a dressage rider from this area who is only 25 (she is absolutely amazing!), who gave us some pointers for maintaining the headset and leg yielding, among other things. We worked on dressage before every jumping lesson we had... Until dressage was running through our veins and became kind of fun!

So we signed up for the Longview Horse Trials here in Kansas City. We were ready. Our dressage had improved immensely and our jumping was also improving (dressage has a funny way of influencing jumping). Anyway, we decided to stick with beginner novice, so that we could have a successful first show of the season and a good confidence boost. The past week has been filled with tack cleaning, trips to the tack shop, & express orders from Dover, as well as more consistent time in the saddle with jumping lessons Sunday and Wednesday and a dressage lesson Thursday.

Coco had Friday off, but I had to go to work for a half day (to pay for my expensive habit). After work, I went to the barn to finish cleaning tack and start packing up the trailer for Saturday. Around 2:30, we left to go to the show grounds to walk our cross country course. I walked the course twice, once with my trainer, Chris, and once by myself. When I was by myself, I used this nifty new app on my phone, CourseWalk, to take pictures of the jumps and use GPS to get a digital map of the course. After we walked the course, we went back to the barn to bathe and braid our horses. Then, I met up with my friends from Columbia who had also come to the show. Abby brought Lena. And Kris, my trainer in Columbia, had brought a bunch of people. They're catching the eventing bug!!! Yay!!! After we ate dinner, they needed to go back to the barns to braid a couple horses, so I went with them. It ended up being a really late night. Abby and I got back to my house around midnight. 6 am would come quick!

Saturday morning, I headed to the barn. We loaded horses and we were off. Lindsey rode first. She and her horse, Mikey, had a beautiful ride! They got a 25.5 dressage score, the lowest of the day. Coco and I warmed up well. He looked happy and relaxed. We went into our test, and it went pretty well. Now that I know more about dressage, it was easier to see where we messed up. We need to work on our geometry, our corners, and maintaining bend. But we actually got a few 8's!!! We ended up with a 34.0, putting us in 5th place in a field of about 12. Cross country was next, but we had a while. I put Coco in the trailer to relax and eat hay and headed out to the cross country course to see some of my friends ride.

When it was time, we saddled up for cross country. Our colors? Straight white. Except that I was wearing a teal/aqua shirt. It looked really sharp! We warmed up well. Coco was very excited and moving great. We only needed to take about 6 warm up jumps before we were ready to go. Coco felt fantastic. The course rode really well. The 2 jumps I was concerned about were the exact 2 jumps he looked at- there was a brand new wood table (Coco hates new wood) and a flower box at the end of the course filled with TONS of bright flowers. He looked at both, but did fine after I put some leg on him. But the time!!!! EVERYONE was doing circles before the last fence. It was really strange. Chris, my trainer, told me that if I needed to do things to slow down, I should do them in the back field, not right before the last fence. Well, I literally trotted jumps 11-13 and still was only at 4:00 when I went over jump 15 (of 16 total). It was either I get time penalties for being under speed fault (4:24) or I circle before the last jump. I literally yelled for Chris not to be mad at me while I did my circle. Whoops! But we went double clear!!! Yay Coco!!! Our clear cross country round put us into 3rd place. After watching our final rider (who had to wait a while to start due to a slight hold up on the course after a rider fell), I went to dinner with the barn family, wrapped my horse in standing wraps, took a shower, and went to bed.

This morning was an earlier morning. The alarm clock went off at 5:30. We loaded the horses and were on the road to the show at 7. The stadium course was full of twists and turns. Lots of roll backs and tight turns. We would have to be on our game and thinking the whole time. My friends Lindsey and Lorna got to ride it first, the ended up 1st and 2nd in their division, respectively. They said that it rode well. Coco warmed up like a dressage horse. Chris said that if he had looked like that on Saturday, we would have gotten an even lower dressage score! He was totally relaxed over his warm up jumps. Apparently, this was boring. We went into the ring and the first thing he saw was the red and white circus tent just outside the ring! He had a total spaz attack! We worked through it and continued on with our course. But Coco had plans to book it around the course so quickly that I didn't even feel like there was time to think. About anything. He was going so fast! I just went with it. He's usually careful. He knows his stride. He's a smart horse. He just needed my help with the directions. We flew through the course, having only slight trouble at the second fence and at the jump that was right in front of the circus tent (nothing a little voice and crop encouragement couldn't handle). We went clear!!! Yay yay yay!!! We finished the event on our dressage score of 34.0! I couldn't have been happier. We ended up in 3rd place!

Here is our list of awards and honors for this weekend:
1) 3rd place in our division (Adult Beginner Novice B)
2) 2nd place Adult Team (with Lorna and Lindsey)
3) 1st place for low point saddlebred (there were 2, yes 2 others!)- we'll be getting our plaque in the mail
4) We qualified for the American Eventing Championships!!!!! You need 2 1st-5th finishes between July 8, 2013 and September 18, 2014, and with our 4th place finish at Catalpa last year, we qualify!!! How cool is that?!?!?!?! Actually, of the 5 people Chris was coaching, 4 of us qualified for AECs at this show!!

We got tons of compliments! Christ was very impressed with me and Coco in our second time showing with her. She was sitting next to another trainer during my stadium round who was complimenting my seat and hands and saying that I rode my horse well despite our obvious difficulties. And the scribe for my dressage round (who is an acquaintance through Pony Club), said that she could see an obvious improvement in my dressage since last fall when she had scribed for us. I was (and still am) all smiles!!!

This weekend was absolutely perfect!!!

Catalpa Corner and beyond!!

It all started in August when we went to the Catalpa Corner event in Iowa. We had been working really hard with Chris and there was a spot available in the trailer she would be riding with to the event. It all worked out perfectly, really. We decided to stick with beginner novice, though, until our dressage and my confidence improves enough to move up to novice.

That Thursday, Chris picked Coco up from the barn and we took him to Liberty, where we met Lorna, Sam, and Joan, the family that would be hauling the horses to Iowa. It was a 5 hour drive to Iowa City, but Coco had good company and so did I. We spent the trip playing Truth or Dare, talking horses, and just generally getting to know each other. We arrived at the show grounds after dark, got the horses settled and headed for the hotel. 

The competition started Friday afternoon for those of us in the starter and BN divisions, just because of the number of riders entered. And they changed the order a bit for this event so everyone could do cross country on Saturday. So the lower divisions did dressage and stadium on Friday with cross country Saturday and the upper divisions did dressage and cross country on Saturday with stadium Sunday. 

My parents came to this event! It was really great to see them. They're from Chicago and I don't get a lot of chances to go visit, so it's nice when we can meet half way. 

Coco warmed up really well for dressage. As soon as we went into the arena, though, his head went to the sky, he was looking at everything, and it wasn't our best dressage test ever. We ended up with a 37.6 with lots of comments about needing more bend and suppleness. Whatever. We had stadium next and I knew we'd rock that. It was a tough course with a lot of turns on slippery grass (oh, I forgot to mention that it was misting at this point). As soon as I could finish a quick tack change, clothing change, and a couple warm up jumps, we went into the ring and Coco was absolutely perfect. Double clear as usual. What a rock star! Before cross country, we were sitting in 8th place. 

Now all we had to do was wait until cross country on Saturday. We walked the course and it all seemed pretty straightforward. There were a couple fences that I would have to make sure I had his attention and kept him going forward, but nothing we couldn't handle. And very pretty. We walked the course several times. My dad even joined for a couple. And then we were ready to go. 

Coco was awesome. He looked at the first fence but as soon as I put leg on and told him that this is fun, he was more than willing. The rest of the course went by in a flash! Coco was absolutely perfect. He hardly looked at anything and I was having so much fun that I didn't want to slow him down. We came across the finish line with .2 time penalties for being 1 second under the speed fault time. Whoops! We were just having too much fun! 

Anyway, we finished in 4th place and I couldn't have been happier. There was a competitors party on Saturday night and it was nice to meet up with some of the other people I know in the eventing world, like my trainer Amanda from Fulton. We also took all the horses for a walk and took some group photos with the other girls I came with. 

Once I started looking around at the show before we left and at pictures when I got home, I realized that Coco looked really skinny compared to the horses he was competing against. Clearly, he had proved that he deserved to be at this level, but he looked nearly emancipated compared to the horses he was around. And you know it's particularly bad when your parents, who know nothing about horses, comment on how skinny your horse is. I guess I hadn't noticed when I was comparing him to the other skinny horses at our barn. I had to do something about it. I felt like a bad pony mommy. 

Chris offered for me to go look at her house to see if I wanted to move Coco to live with her. I went to check it out and totally fell in love. It helped that she's a trainer that I respect and would want to go to shows with, so even if just for convenience, moving to Chris's barn just made sense. Plus, she guaranteed that she'd be able to put weight on Coco before winter. 

Judy, the barn manager, wasn't happy when we left, but I wasn't happy with how my horse was being treated (there was one night when he didn't have any hay in his stall at all). She even tried to say that Coco was skinnier when he moved there than he was when we left (which is absolutely not true, because I have photo evidence on the contrary). My friend Molly moved her horse, Hank, too. 

So the next 3 months were filled with 3 meals a day, dressage shows, cross country schooling weekends, bonfires, pony club events, and making new friends. Coco has officially gained about 100 pounds since moving to Chris's barn. And he's still got about 200 to go. It'll take time, but I couldn't be happier with the direction we're headed. 

Annnnnddd... We're BACK!!!

Watch out, eventing world! We're back!!!

Coco and I have had a lot to deal with these past few months, but it has most definitely made us stronger as a team!

I got a dressage saddle last winter with the hopes of actually using it and progressing in our dressage. We have always had good success with jumping, but the dressage always kills us. This winter, we did a lot of dressage training & jumper turns in the indoor, but Coco also got a decent amount of time off. He's getting older and I don't want to work him too much when we're not getting ready for a show so that he can enjoy being a pony face and we can build our relationship in other ways. Side note: he's gotten so good at bowing & doing tricks for my friends and people who want to visit him!

We went to a couple schooling shows this spring. Our first one was at Heritage Park. It was our first time out this year, and I was determined to try Novice for the first time ever. I knew we were both capable after competing so well in BN the past couple years and I was sure we were ready. Our dressage test went pretty well, until my horse noticed the gigantic train car sitting 100 yards away from the dressage ring with trees scraping across the top just as we were doing our salute... we made quite the scene with a couple mini rears and obvious spooking until I just gave up and hung my head low as we walked out of the ring. We ended up with a dressage score of 45, which made me pretty happy considering it was our first time doing Novice and we had quite the episode at the end. Everything would be ok, though, because stadium and XC are our forte... or so I thought! We ended up knocking a rail in stadium, which was totally unlike us, because we were rushing (surprise, surprise). Then, we had quite a terrible XC round, I think it was partly because we were both exhausted by this point, in addition to the fact that it was our first time doing a whole course of novice jumps (not just playing in a field) and you could say I was a bit nervous... My horse refused (almost) literally every single jump on the course at least once! I felt absolutely pathetic as I listed all of the jumps and the amount of refusals to the friend I had at the start gate who greeted us with "Is everything ok? I was wondering what took you so long!?!" So, we had a bad schooling show. At least we learned a lot (like I need to do a better job of sitting tall and riding to the fences while maintaining more control and that train cars are scary), and there are a lot of things we can do better.

I was pretty discouraged... let's just say, Coco had the entire week after that show off.

The next weekend, Longview was having a XC schooling weekend. I almost didn't want to go because my horse and I had had such a terrible showing the weekend before, but I figured it would be fun and a way to work out the kinks. Plus, Longview was having their official horse trials soon and I wanted to figure out what division to sign up for (because if Novice was going to be too tough, I'd rather drop back down to BN). It was quite the dilemma trying to get someone to haul there for us, but we ended up figuring it out. My friend Molly and her quarter horse Hank and Pancho and his mare "Big Mama" joined us. We got on and warmed up and sure enough, the first jump I pointed Coco at was an easy BN log, which he refused. I had brought a crop for this occasion, had finally had enough and calmly but sincerely told him that this was unacceptable. He didn't refuse another easy jump the rest of the day! He wasn't the biggest fan of the skunk out of the water or the brand new, shiny jumps that hadn't been dirtied yet, but he was taking trakaeners and other training fences like a boss! I think we even got a few prelim obstacles in there! It was a total blast!!! I was sure we'd be able to have a good test at the Novice level when Longview had their Horse Trials and I entered the Novice division as soon as I got home! So excited!!!

This is the first year I was able to go to Kentucky for the Rolex 3-Day Competition! It was incredible to see international riders and people who were just starting out at this level competing all weekend. We did the course walk to see all the jumps (WHICH ARE GIGANTIC!) and even met a few of the riders (Alexandra Knowles, William Foxx-Pitt, and Mary King to name a few). It was quite the experience. I would recommend it to any eventer, aspiring or established. The weekend gave me a renewed sense of belonging and enthusiasm for the eventing world.

We got back from a week away at Rolex and I was so excited to start riding Coco again and get ready for our competition at Longview! I got him saddled and walked him down to the arena for warm up. As soon as he started trotting, he was 3 legged lame. He never complains of pain (he had an abscess for a week before I knew about it because he just sucked it up because he likes working so much), and this was BAD!!! I started to break out. We had 2 weeks until Longview. I immediately called the farrier (who happens to live on property, which is phenomenal), who came to check him out. It turns out that he had really bad thrush. The whole week we had been in Kentucky, my horse had been turned out on wet dry lots and I hadn't even considered to ask someone to regularly pick his feet out for me. The thrush had gotten so bad that it had made him lame and all I could do about it was keep him in a dry stall, pick out his feet regularly, and put ThrushBuster on it. I felt so helpless. I wished I could do something more to make my pony feel better. I lunged him to get his energy out (he's a terrible stalled horse) and hopped on him bareback to check his soundness every couple days. It didn't seem like he was getting any better :( The Wednesday before Longview, I saddled him with the intention to do little (2 foot maximum) jumps, because he had been coming up sound since Monday. As soon as we started trotting again, though, he told me that he wasn't ready. I called the show secretary and informed her of my decision to withdraw from the competition. I didn't think it was fair to risk my horse's safety & happiness to put him in a competition for my sake. I spent the weekend at the show, in a continuous state of depression because my horse couldn't be there, but I was able to watch more of the competition and socialize a lot more with friends and acquaintances than I would have if my horse had been there. Although, I'm sure we would have had a good showing if his feetsies had been feeling better.

Sure enough, the Monday after the horse trials, Coco was consistently coming up sound. We have been working a lot on our dressage since then and throwing in a lot of low jumping to work on striding between fences, leads before & after fences, rushing, and just generally listening to each other during courses. Last weekend, we cranked up the jumps for the first time in a while (3 foot to 3'6" or so, nothing too crazy) and he did fantastic! I think all the ground work and low jumps have made us better at communicating between the fences and really built our confidence!

On Wednesday, I had a trainer (Chris) out, and Molly and I took a dressage lesson with her! It went really well! Both of our horses did fantastic and were really listening to us, and we all learned a lot! Chris said that both of our horses have very good gaits and that she is excited that Molly and I are such good riders. She is excited for us to do some schooling shows this summer and make a renewed debut at the Heritage Park Horse Trials in the fall! She was awesome about saying that she would be willing to help us haul to shows and XC schoolings and other events, too, because we are so close to her barn. We have a jumping lesson with her on Monday!

I'm so excited about this summer and the fall to see where the wind takes us. This lesson and all the stuff we have had to go through this spring has definitely made Coco and me stronger as a pair and more excited about working together to move up the ranks in the eventing world!

Still Depressed...

Yep, that's right. Still depressed.

Long story short... I finished my fieldwork in Chicago, got to hang out with my horse in Columbia, MO for about 3 weeks (and believe me, I was out there almost every day), and then moved to Kansas City, MO because my lease in Columbia was up and I no longer had a place to live. I cannot afford to move Coco until I am making money at my new job (which starts August 13th), so the time I got to spend with him was like a dirty tease. Now I have to wait about a month until I can have him here with me.

Part of me thinks the wait is good, because it forces me to study for my board exams (which are August 27th- SCARY!) and get acclaimated to a new city before I have my horse here distracting me. But there's another part of me that is in a constant state of depression not having my pony face best friend and the ability to retreat to the barn whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed by studying or bored or anything else.

Anyways, there's even more. I'm depressed to have to leave the Columbia Equestrian Center. Even thinking about it makes me teary. It's amazing how a good barn can change the person a girl becomes (it happened in high school and it happened again in college for me). I have really established a family with that barn. After 5 years, I would say that I met some of my closest friends there, and that makes it really hard to leave. I really hope that these friendships remain steady despite the added distance between us. I plan on visiting Columbia as much as I can and for as many reasons as I can think up, but it still won't be the same. Walking into the barn and instantly feeling like I belong there and like any other care in the world is irrelevant. Seeing a plethora of faces that know me and love me and share my passion for horses is incredible. I'm sure I'll eventually have the same feelings for Hackberry (that's the fabulous new barn we'll be at in Kansas City), but it won't be the same for a while. So far everyone has been insanely nice and the owner is extraordinary, but it takes a while to establish that sense of belonging (Granted, everyone I have met so far has been doing a great job of making me feel accepted and welcome, so hopefully it won't take TOO long, but still). Also, they don't have a lesson program (which definitely has its pros and cons), so there won't be any little kids annoyingly dragging kittens around or helping me think of ridiculous things to jump or asking to ride my pony or looking up to me as a role model for riding and for life.

Another reason to be nervous: I don't know if I'm ready to train Coco on my own without help. I know he's no green horse and knows a thing or two, but every time I ride him, I worry that I'm ruining him or teaching him bad habits. It was nice having Kris around to ask if I should change something or what I was doing wrong or what I could continue to do to make him better. And it helped that she knows saddlebreds and knows both me and my horse inside and out, which made her advice consistently helpful, whether we were working on jumping, dressage, or just having fun.

So as of now, the big move is scheduled for September 1. My friend Kerri and her daughter Kennedy and mom Terri will be bringing Coco from Columbia to Kansas City some time that weekend (unless something changes, in which case a friend, Cassie, from Hackberry has so graciously volunteered to go get him). Until then, I have to resort to texting my friends from CEC about Coco's happenings (as much as I joke that he texts me, it's at times like these when I really wish he could... I'd be talking to him all day long). I have asked Abby (a great friend and an amazing rider) to oversee his care and be in charge of who rides him. The family that leased him (is awesome) and two older girls, Hannah and Grace, have been given permission to work with him, too, so hopefully he doesn't get too out of shape. It'll be interesting when I get him to Kansas City and we can try to work up to the Heritage Park horse trials on October 26-28th... Hopefully we'll be able to do Novice this year! :D

This is probably my last time jumping Coco at CEC :'(

Depression Sets In

WILLIAM WOODS WINTER FUN SHOW:
Awesome! Coco and I showed in jumpers on Friday night. We were fairly late getting to the show groungs, but Coco needed a bath. Kris had told me that if I got there early enough, I should have plenty of time to bathe him and wait for him to dry while everything got started. Let's just say, by the time we started showing, my horse looked like he had Cushings! I was seriously debating starting a fund for my jumping saddlebred with cushings.

Anyways, we were doing Novice Jumper Rider and Novice Jumper Horse, as well as the Jumping Pairs Relay with Jackie. Our first class, we had a weird turn to one jump and I sat too early, causing us to knock a rail- from that point forward, we went balls to the wall and just had fun. We won our next three classes, getting 39 seconds in our first power and speed round and 38 seconds in the second, beating our nearest competition by at least 4 seconds! In the Jumping Pairs Relay, Jackie and Yankee and Coco and I were going crazy! We were doing really well and then I was getting to a jump too quickly, and had to circle before I could take it so that I wouldn't mess up the order of jumps. We called everything out and went really fast, but ended up with a 2nd- I'm wondering if they penalized us for my circle... :/ Either way, we did fabulously on Friday night and Coco was VERY proud of himself, as he should be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdExjZ3Bhdc

On Saturday, we showed in the low hunter division. We used the Pelham bit and Coco was like a completely different horse. He was actually a hunter! It was really odd for me. We didn't place very well. We got a 6th in one of the over fences classes and 4th in an equitation on the flat class. I'm going to go ahead and blame saddlebred discrimination! :p

On Sunday, Coco's kid rode him. Mackena is the girl who will be leasing him while I'm in Chicago. He was a fireball... even with the Pelham. I think he would have been fine with me riding him, but Mackena is 60 lbs of child and he knows he can get away with more when she's riding him. He was a total nutcase, actually doing decent on his transitions and standing in lineup, but he will still acting kind of crazy. They didn't end up placing in anything they did that day. Coco was such a butt for the hunter hack class. Coco would not stop circling because he didn't want to leave his buddies in the lineup while he did the line of jumps... it broke my heart when I was standing next to the arena and Mackena looked at me with tears in her eyes because of how stupid Coco was acting. I told her to beat him up and that made her get tough and get him over the fences. They probably could have done really well in that class, too. Oh, well, I guess it was a good learning experience for her about how horses can be immensely different in the show ring as compared to the familiarity of home.

DEPRESSION
I am going to Chicago for 3 months and cannot take my horse with me. Board in Chicago is wicked expensive and Coco is already established at CEC and likes his home and buddies so I would feel terrible pulling him away from that for such a relatively short period of time. Mackena and Kyra, two girls from the barn and their parents, have decided to lease Coco for April-June. They have been really gracious in their willingness to help me with my bills- they are paying for all of Coco's board and all of his farrier appointments. I couldn't be happier with my choice to allow them to lease him. They are incredible. I'm just sad about the whole situation. It's so hard to leave my horse for such a long time- he's my best friend, and has been since I got him in 2009. I've never been away from him for longer than a week. It'll certainly be interesting to see how I handle all of this... I will attempt to keep everyone updated.

Haunted Hunter Pace

This weekend was the Haunted Hunter Pace at Fox Run here in Columbia. Jackie and I were partners. She was riding Fassa and I was on Coco. Getting ready for the pace, we were thinking that it would be really fun to dress up and had costumes planned and everything. Coco was going to be a giraffe, Fassa was going to be a lion, and Jackie and I were going to be Bindy the Jungle Girl and Steve Irwin. Then, we realized that there was a lot of Halloween happenings on Saturday night and that it would be difficult to get to bed before say... 3am, and we decided that we would just ride and have fun and forget the costumes.

Sunday morning, we woke up at 6:45, left Jackie's around 7am, and made a quick stop a MickeyD's (where we spent $5 on hash browns alone) before we got to the barn, barely beating the trailer. We loaded our tack and horses and were on our way. We got to Fox Run at about 8am, took a few minutes to change and get ready and sit around recuperating before we started to get the horses ready. We were supposed to start at 9:10, but Jackie wanted to be on by 8:30 to warm Fassa up. We started tacking around 8:30 and were on our horses by about 8:45. Both of the horses were fantastic in the warm up ring, jumping everything like superstars! What good ponies!!! :D

We ended up going out on the course at 9:12, which was weird because Brittany and Melissa were supposed to be right before us but we hadn't even seen them on their horses yet. Fassa and Coco were very good!!! The trails were filled with spooky decorations, and if one of the horses was scared about it, the other one stepped up and passed it without a problem. When we got out to the field with the jumps, Coco just about went crazy! He remembers all the fun we had in this field last year and was totally pumped to go again! He took everything like a champ! No refusals. The only thing that was close was a white oxer that was downhill... He was cantering very nicely to it, then proceeded to stop and put his head down like he was going to smell it, so I dropped my reins to let him have his head to look at it. The next thing I knew, I was flying through the air!! My horse had taken the jump from a complete standstill and it had caught me so off guard that I didn't even know what to do! :p This is why I love him!!!! He consistently got weird distances to the tire jump that was under the trees, but I was very happy with him, because he was being a total rockstar about everything!!!

Back into the woods and we trotted as much as we good, galloping anywhere we thought it was safe to do so, and our horses were absolutely loving it!!! It was actually harder to hold them back than it was to get them going. They were having a total ball. Then we got to the big field where you're supposed to make 2 laps before the finish line. We galloped the first half of the first lap. Then Coco started to slow, so I thought it would be good to let him walk a little bit. However, he had other plans... he started slow gaiting and jigging until I would let him gallop again... so much for a flat walk!!! So we took off again. On our last lap, as we were riding next to the road, there was a trailer coming down the road and both of our horses saw that as a challenge, trying to beat the trailer to the end of the road and the entrance to Fox Run!!! They were FLYING!!! We got to the road and it was so hard to stop them that we had to hope that the trailer had seen us and would slow for us. Finished. And our horses couldn't be more proud of themselves. They needed about 45 minutes of walking to cool their jets.

We got a ride back to CEC. The ponies got immediately turned out. And we went home to nap. Overall, it was a very successful day!

The End is Near!!!

The end of show season is definitely upon us, and it makes me and Coco very sad. :(

Sorry I haven't updated in a while! Life has been crazy busy! So, I'll just give the reader's digest version of our 3 most recent shows: Dunnabeck Horse Trials in Carbondale, Illinois, the William Woods Jumper Derby, and the Fun Show at Sunny Oaks.

DUNNABECK:
Dunnabeck was an incredible horse show! We both had a great time! Dressage went fine, although the fact that the ring was lined with huge horse-eating letters made it difficult to stay on the rail and pay attention to the test. It wasn't our best dressage score ever, but not our worst, either- 45.7. The cross country course was FUN!!! Very inviting, but some challenging hills and interesting-looking jumps. Lots of weird turns to get from one thing to the next, so I kind of felt like I had to be extremely sure that I knew the course, but it ended up riding pretty well. We ended up going double clear in cross country, and at the end, Amanda said that Coco was telling her that he wants to do Novice next year! The stadium course was tricky, lots of weird shadows and intersting jumps for the ponies to look at. It was one of those courses that you walk and it seems straightforward and then it's more challenging than you expected to ride. By the time we got to stadium, Mr. Coco was markedly tired. We ended up pulling 2 rails, just because he was looking at the jumps and decided to jump them sideways. A final score of 53.7 put us in 7th place! :) Not too shabby!!! It was awesome to show with Amity Farms again for this event. Everyone there is so helpful and nice! I really think that Amity is the eventing version of CEC, so I feel right at home when I'm with them.

WWU JUMPING DERBY:
Best birthday present a girl could ask for!!! We showed in the low hunters (2'6") and my horse was actually acting like he knew what he was doing in the hunter ring. It was incredible, he had a nice stride, didn't look at any of the jumps, and was actually controllable for once in a long time! He looked great in the undersaddle class too. Hunters frustrates me SOOO much, though, because despite the fact that my horse was awesome, we still got shafted, getting 4th and 5th in the 2 over fences classes and 6th on the flat, probably because he's a saddlebred. Whatever. We still had jumpers to prove ourselves. We entered in the low jumper training speed class and the low jumper derby. Coco was a rock star, having a total blast during the speed class. We had a little trouble with the roll back to the combination, but he pulled through and I just let him do his thing. We took the fast route to the bank and he was perfect! We ended up 2nd in the class of 20 horse/rider combinations. No judges to say that we aren't cut out for jumping in that class! Then we went in the derby, which used every jump available. Coco knocked a rail, of a jump that was in the same place as the jump we knocked a rail on last year, so we didn't make it into the jump-off, but he had a blast!!! I was very, very happy with him. I think this show was great to show the people of Mid-MO that my saddlebred is a phenomenal jumper! Some people were upset by our finish in the speed class, but there's no way to despute that, it's all time. That's why we love jumpers!

ROSY SHOW:
The show started at 9:30am, and our barn alone had 10 people showing in the crossrails and 18" class, so the day went by extremely slowly! We were entered in the 2'6", 2'9", and 3' jumpers. Coco spent the day napping next to Storm, another horse we had tied to the trailer with him. We finally started riding at about 4pm. The first jumping class went well! Coco refused a plank jump that had polka dots on it, but got over it and left every other jump up. Everyone in the class had 4 penalties, though, so we were able to do the jump-off. We would have been first if we hadn't let Grace do the whole thing from the beginning, so we ended up 2nd. We were 5th in the one flat class we did- more proof of the saddlebred curse, because he looked awesome! We're really starting to get the whole dressage/framing up thing down! The 2'9" class was fine. We knocked a rail, but ended up 2nd still. Going into the 3rd class, which was supposed to be 3' jumpers, one of the girls suggested that we make it higher than that, so they did- I was nervous! The course was basically all roll backs, and the only show where we've done higher than 3' was William Woods last weekend. Plus, Coco was increasingly anticipating the turns, because he's too darn smart for his own good. Going into the line, he dropped his shoulder in an attempt to prepare for the upcoming turn, and in attempting to hold him up with my right leg, I lost my left stirrup. I almost regained my balance between the line, then saw the second jump and knew this could only end badly. He took the second jump and immediately dropped his shoulder to the right to make the really sharp roll back to the next jump and I just slid off his left shoulder because I couldn't go with him. He stepped on my right forearm, but no damage other than that. I got back on and we did the line, making him go STRAIGHT after, and then we were done. I think that's the first time I've fallen off Coco in competition...? Almost 2 years without a competition fall... I'll take it! :)

PLAN:
We don't really have any shows in the near future, so the plan is to give Coco some time off from training. We're going to get back to the basics: riding bareback in the pasture, lunging with side reins, and working on my position. He doesn't need to work hard. He's had a great show season and I couldn't be happier with him. I don't know what I've done to deserve such an incredible horse, but I love him to death and I think we both just need to stop worrying about winning and start loving each other again.

Abscess!!!!!

The farrier came to the barn last week after Heritage and did Coco's feet. Almost immediately, Coco was lame on his front end- the feet with shoes.

In the beginning, he worked out of it- probably because he's the type of horse that gets excited and ignores the pain. Men....

Anyways, he kept getting worse over the course of the week. I was supposed to have a dressage lesson Tuesday. We brought him into the arena and I rode for approximately 5 minutes before we decided that he was too off in the front to continue. So I had to ride Fassa- YUCK!!! :( Kris and Amanda both agreed that we should call the farrier and have him look at Coco.

He had Wednesday off, because I thought that might help.

Farrier came out Thursday morning. Coming out of the stall, Coco looked like he was walking on three legs. TOTALLY CRIPPLED!!!! My heart sunk. Jason, our farrier, watched him trot and immediately admitted that it might be his fault- a hot nail maybe? Turns out that it is an abscess on his front left foot that was painful for him when the inside was clamped. Poor pony!

So currently, my horse is on stall rest with 2x daily 20 minute epsom salt soakings with sugar and iodine hoof packings between. And it doesn't help that he's starting to get grumpy about having to be taken care of and having to stay in a stall- all things he hates. Men...

I'm starting to get really nervous about Dunnabeck, which is the show we're planning on going to next weekend. If this abscess doesn't come out soon, I don't know what I'm going to do. I really don't want to lose all that money on entries. Plus, I really wanted to go. And I really wanted to go with Coco, not some other horse that I don't know as well.

I guess there's still time, I'm just starting to freak out. :(

Heritage Park Horse Trials

My first show without Kris, my trainer! I had never been to a horse show before I got to college and started riding with her. She has been at every show I have ever attended, so this was going to be weird for me to be there without her.  

I went with Amity Farms and their trainer Amanda.

The weekend started out on late note. We left the barn about an hour and a half later than expected. I also felt bad because they ended up having to back a 6 horse trailer all the way down CEC’s driveway. We made it work, though.

Then, to top it all off, the trailer got a flat tire right after we get into Kansas. Luckily, it was one of the wheels that had one right next to it, so it was easy to change. We were back on the road after only 9 minutes to change the flat and fixing minor damage to the trailer itself.

We got to the show grounds and immediately started doing cross country course walks. Amanda and Rachel went first to walk the Novice course. Then it was my turn.

It was so cool!! We used a meter wheel to figure out where every increment of 350 meters was and made note of that on the course map so I would know when I should hit the minute marks. I have never done that before and was amazed that people get that detailed. Usually when we do course walks with Kris, we look at the jumps and say, “Hey! We should jump that!” :p

Then we rode. We had an incredible dressage warm up. We actually looked like we knew what we were doing! However, we could only do it on progressively smaller circles. At one point, I asked how to steer while keeping Coco in the nice dressage frame with bend, and Amanda said “it’ll come with time.” I was alright with that, until I started thinking about how I was going to actually do my dressage test the next day. I guess we would figure that out when we got there.

Walked the course one more time before I was totally exhausted and then we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was extremely crowded, even at 9pm. I called Terry, a friend I was supposed to be staying with, as soon as we were finished, but he was having trouble with his boyfriend and I didn’t want to be an imposition. My mom was also just getting to Olathe, so I called her to see where she was. I met her at her hotel, we went to iHop (because she hadn’t eaten yet), and then went to bed. I was absolutely exhausted!


Got to the show grounds around 8am the next morning and pretty immediately went to the dressage ring to watch Amanda and her horse Parker ride their Training dressage test. Waited around for a while for Rachel, another rider with Amity, to ride her Novice dressage test. Walked my cross country course one more time. Then we started to get ready for our dressage test. We had another really good warm up, though again on a small circle.

The test went pretty well. The first half (the trotting and circles part), went pretty well. Then we walked and lost it right after we did our free walk right, before we cantered. The canter the first direction was fine, but after I used counter bend (out of habit) to get the canter lead, I couldn’t get him back onto an inside bend and from that point forward, he was either on the bit and in the middle of the arena or on the correct track with his head in the air.

I walked out of the ring feeling defeated. I knew we hadn’t done well, but at least he didn’t kick out at the canter transitions like he had been and we had good bend for some of the trots. We definitely didn’t do as well as our best test ever or as bad as our worst test ever, so I guess that’s ok. Sure enough, we had a 42.9. It was ok, though, cross country and stadium are our strong events!

We had a few hours to wait until we would run cross country. Coco got a flake of hay, some electrolytes, and lots of water to keep him company while I went to watch Rachel (I had missed Amanda because she did cross country 10 minutes after my dressage test). Rachel did great! Jonah looked at the water, but was great about everything else that I was able to see. She went clear!

Our turn to run cross country. We had some practice jumps. Amanda was great about teaching me to get off Coco’s back while he’s galloping and sit right before the fences. She also mentioned that if I keep my hands high before the fences, Coco can’t look at what’s in front of them, like scary red flowers or weird designs on the jumps. Coco was totally ready. Excited but not crazy.

We walked calmly out of the start box, starting our gallop a few feet after, which was good for him. Took the first fence, no problem. He wasn’t sure about the second jump, because it was in a weird shaded area and around a turn, so it kind of snuck up on him, but he took it just fine. Then we got to 4, an easy ramp on a slight uphill after a slight downhill. There was no way Coco was even going to look at this jump. Too bad horses always make us into liars! Sure enough, he refused it- OUR FIRST XC REFUSAL EVER!!!! He took it just fine the second time, when I was more stern with him to remind him that I was in charge here, not him. Five was fine. The combination at 6 could have been scary, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. Seven, the step up, was easier than I had expected it to be. Eight was also better than expected because I was able to get a better approach to it than I thought from the course walks. Nine and 10 were easy. Then we got to the water. The water was basically a puddle. It looked like they had set up a nice area for a water complex and then just forgot to start filling it until it was too late. So there was an outer ring of normal looking gravel, then a ring of bright white gravel before the water actually started. Coco acted like Tantor from Tarzan with the water, and we sidestepped around the edge until we ran into a bush and were forced to get into it. The rest of the course rode awesome and we ended up 2 seconds below optimum time. That watch was soooooo cool!!!!

After lots of hose downs and walking, I got to practice my hand at poultice before Coco got to be free from me for the night. We went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday. My mom didn’t want to come- she doesn’t like eating out and was extremely tired, so I took her back to the hotel first. Then after dinner, Amanda offered to feed Coco so I could go to hang out with my mom. We went to Target to get water and Gatorade. Then Terry wanted me to come hang out with him at the salon where he works. I showered and got ready then headed over there.

It was awesome to see Terry. I felt terrible that I was so exhausted and didn’t really feel like doing anything. After the salon, he and his friends were talking about going out, so we went back to his house so he could get ready. I definitely fell asleep while he was getting ready. I felt terrible, but I ended up driving him back to his car and then going back to the hotel with my mom.

Another early day on Sunday. We got to the show grounds around 8am. Watched some people in the upper levels do the stadium course before we started to get ready. It was frustrating because they didn’t have the course up for the different levels, just one course posted and they took some of the jumps out for the different levels.

During our warm up, Coco was acting like he was asleep. Amanda said that I would have to make sure that I keep leg on him between the jumps to keep him moving forward. As we went into the ring, he woke up. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop him. The course rode fabulously, until the turn from 9 to 10, the last jump. Coco (and I both, probably) dropped his shoulder to the right like crazy after the jump. I tried to straighten him out before we made the turn, but we had already made the majority of the turn and he didn’t realize that the next jump was so close. He wanted to take the long distance to 10, but I made him take the shorter one and we dropped a rail. We ended the weekend in 14^th place (out of 17 who finished) and a score of 66.9.

Loading the horses was easy and the ride home was quiet, except for our stop at Burger King when Pricilla was forcing us all to yell colors every time she burped… Long story. They were able to drive the trailer down the hill this time and back up in the trailer spaces and unloading Coco was easy. He was definitely ready to be home.

Overall, it was a great learning experience weekend, we didn’t get eliminated, and we survived our first horse show without Kris!! YAY!!!

Next, we get to try our luck at Dunnabeck in Carbondale, IL September 17-18. The only way we can go is up!!! :D

Greg Best Clinic

I have never done a clinic before. I have been riding for 8 years and have never been in a clinic. Lame...

Anyway, we went to a clinic with Greg Best at Fox Run. I rode on Friday and today, Sunday.

On Friday, we rode with a girl who was riding a stallion and another girl riding a mare. I'm not going to lie, I was extremely intimidated. Not only did these girls act and look like they had been riding forever, but they both knew each other and were on very conversational terms with the clinician, as they had both ridden with him in years past. Plus, Coco and I come from a relatively ghetto barn and I didn't have my trainer with me, which stressed me out even more. My friend Jackie was there, though, and she was great moral support! :)

Greg immediately was all over me for my lower leg being too far forward. He demonstrated how difficult it is to get out of the saddle with my leg too far forward and said that I should never ask him if my leg is far enough back, because it never will be. It will always feel like I'm overexaggerating how far back it is, but it will only look barely far enough back to anyone else. Good to know. He also mentioned that I have a terrible problem with riding with my upper body twisted to the right, always looking to the inside, no matter the direction. Also interesting. He said that I should try to focus on keeping my eye to the outside and my shoulders to the inside. He was also quick to realize that tracking left is both mine and Coco's bad direction. My upper body looks OK tracking right, but as soon as we turn to the left, it looks silly, because my body is still facing the right and Coco is flexed to the right. At this point, I felt like a bit of a failure, as he definitely said more about my position than anyone elses. :( He was brutally honest, but that was ok. I hadn't come to the clinic to be told how awesome I am as a rider, but to learn about what I could fix.

Then we started to jump. I tried to focus on keeping Coco consistent to the jumps and following him with my body. We had a few good jumps and a few not so good jumps. Greg Best asked if Coco was a machine, and I responded that he pretty much was, very rarely refusing jumps and generally liking his job. Greg went on to say that he may be a machine, but he's a "crooked machine." We jumped a few courses, nothing too huge or exciting. I really had to focus on keeping my shoulders controlled, especially to the left. I have a tendency to drop to the inside after jumps, which allows my horse to drop to the inside, which is not good for either of us. Then, Coco had to go and make a liar out of me. Coming to a jump across the diagonal, Coco just wasn't into it and ended up refusing for no good reason. I got after him a little bit with my spurs, he kicked out, and we circled and took the jump just fine. Later, Greg was telling a story about how he got kicked at a clinic once, and I felt terrible. Not only was he all over me for my position, but now, I almost killed him. Now I get why he doesn't like me! As the lesson was ending, Greg said that he was actually very impressed with how I jumped Coco. He said that he was initially worried how we would do over jumps because of my obvious flaws on the flat, but he thought I stayed with him over the jumps very well. He then suggested that I use Saturday to lunge Coco in side reins with the inside side rein one hole shorter than the outside, to encourage inside bend, joking that after that, all our problems would be solved and we'd be ready to go on Sunday.

Saturday Kris and I lunged Coco in side reins. He was very good to the right, but to the left, he had constant right bend, despite the left side rein being shorter than the right. I didn't know that was possible! He was very good with the position of his head, though, and giving to the bit. He walked into the bridle despite it encouraging him to put his head down and use his hind end more. I was actually very impressed with him. I don't often lunge him, and especially not in side reins, and he was really well behaved. A lunge whip would have been helpful to keep him out on the circle, but he wasn't pushy about coming inside or anything. I guess we'll have to practice using side reins more! :)

So today, the oragnizer of the clinic called and said that I wouldn't be able to ride until noon (I was supposed to ride at 9:30am), because the classes had to be switched around a little bit. I was fine with it. That meant I got to watch more of the people in the morning ride. He did this one exercise that I thought was very interesting. He would take both of the stirrups and leathers off the saddle, attach the leathers to themselves, and then put the whole contraption on top of the saddle, so that the stirrups are only connected to one another. This exercise encourages balance in the lower body, and we was using it for one rider to help with not changing the weight distribution in the saddle during flying lead changes.

I had 2 people riding with me. One had been in both of the previous groups and was on her third horse for the day, a thoroughbred with a tiny head. The other one had approached me earlier to ask if there were three people in our group, as she was hoping there would be more down time for her than on Saturday, when she had only 2 in her group. They were both very nice!

Greg first had us do a posting trot and mentioned that it would be helpful for all of us to practice the positng trot without stirrups to encourage the use of the correct muscle groups and solidify the position of the lower leg. He said that it doesn't matter how long we post the trot without stirrups but that we should be able to do it well. I thought he was asking us to actually do this exercise, so I dropped my stirrups. Greg immediately said "pretty good" and asked me to pick up my stirrups, which I did while continuing to post. He was very impressed that my leg didn't move while I was picking up the stirrups or after I had picked them up. He asked me to do this exercise several more times and said that I was able to keep my leg in postion better than anyone he had seen in a while. I was soooooo excited!!! Finally!!! Something he thought I did well!!!

Then we started jumping. I don't know what clicked in Coco's head today, but he was a jumping fool. He was taking the jumps like they were nothing, getting good distances to pretty much everything. I just kept thinking about trying to keep his strides consistent by counting 1,2,1,2... in my head and it worked pretty well. Greg got mad at me during the warm up for looking for the lead after the jump and had me calling out whether the lead was correct or not without looking. It was really good practice. Something Kris has me do at home, but not nearly enough.

So then we started to do courses, courses with left turns... well, they had right turns, too, but the left turns were the only ones that were hard. Coco would come off jumps to the left on his right lead and swap the front end only when I would ask for the lead change, which is just awkward. Greg asked what percentage of the time my horse lands from a jump and can be trusted to switch to the correct lead if he is incorrect. The answer was 0%. My horse will never switch to the correct lead after a jump. He is perfectly content to continue on the incorrect lead or have the front end correct and the hind end incorrect. Annoying!!! So Greg posed a challenge. I would get a point for every simple change I did correcting Coco to go from the incorrect lead to the correct lead. I would get no points for landing on the correct lead and keeping the canter to the next fence. And I would get negative one point for swapping the front end and not the hind end or for coming off a jump on the correct lead and bringing him down to the trot. Sounds simple enough, right? NO!!! It was VERY VERY VERY VERY hard!!! My horse anticipates everything. It also doesn't help that I tend to lean to the inside after the jumps and send mixed signals with my body by keeping my inside leg on him and my hips to the right of the saddle, but bringing my upper body to the left. Coco doesn't know if he should follow my hips and leg and stay right or follow my shoulders and go left. At first, he was hard to control enough to bring down to the trot. Then, when I was able to get him to trot, he would anticipate that I wanted him to pick up the opposite lead. Towards the end, he would kind wait for me to ask for the lead, but not really. What we were working on is control. Making Coco wait for me to tell him what to do. Me being the boss and Coco waiting for me. According to Greg Best, there is not such thing as give and take with horses, it should always be "the rider takes, and the horse gives." Coco should wait for me to tell him what to do instead of wanting to be in control. However, I also have to make sure I am asking him in a way that's consistent and correct. Towards the end, we were doing courses with a majority of left turns and starting to get some transitions with Coco waiting for me to tell him how long to trot before picking up a canter again, but it never did go particularly well. This is definitely something we need to work on. It was also nice to hear Greg remark that he was impressed with how I was handling myself. I was clearly frustrated with myself and my inability to control my body in a way that sends the correct signals to my horse, but at no point did I attempt to take my frustrations out on him. He said that this is a quality that speaks well of my personality.

In the end, Greg said that I have a lot of great qualities as a rider, like my ability to feel what I have underneath me and my patience, but he also remarked that I have a lot of things to work on, including my control of my body (he suggested yoga or ballet). He also said that Coco is a "cool horse," which made me very happy. It was definitely a great experience and I would be happy to do another clinic with Greg Best.

The weekend had gone so well! Something was bound to go wrong. Oh, and believe me, it did. Coco was totally terrible to load onto the trailer home. It was so bad that I was tempted to make him walk the 3.5 miles back to our barn. It was a straight load trailer, which may have been part of the problem, and he was by himself, which probably didn't help. We made three attempts to load where he got his front legs in, but then backed up before he would put his back legs on. Then, he started rearing. I attempted to get after him, but apparently mom isn't as effective as she should be and he ended up rearing and running away from me. Luckily, we were in a pasture, so there wasn't really anywhere for him to go. Some girls came over and helped us. They had a chain we used. Coco got into the trailer but then broke his halter trying to run out of it again. We got a spare halter and used the chain and he was almost in the trailer. I went to him him gently with the lead rope to encourage him to get on the trailer and he did a quick kick-out, hitting my left index finger. What a jerk. So then we got a lunge whip out and gently tapped him on the butt to encourage him to move forward and we finally got him onto the trailer. 30 minutes later. I felt so bad for the people helping me, but I really appreciated it! I definitely couldn't have done it without them!

We got home and Coco got a linament rub down and was turned out. I think he missed turnout, because he immediately went running away. I actually unloaded my car and put everything into my locker, something I rarely do when we get back to the barn after shows. Usually horse show stuff sits in my car for weeks before I do anything with it. I was proud of myself! :)

Overall, it was a good weekend! I think it was worth the money and I am definitely looking forward to going to the clinic again next year to show Greg Best all the progress Coco and I have made!