I was up late Wednesday night packing the trailer and doing last minute laundry (that I never used, btw). Husband did the smart thing and went to bed early. Or was it? He did most of the driving and I got to nap...
All ready to load up!
Something I tried before this trip was giving Penn omeprazole starting Tuesday, and he got it though this past Tuesday (8 days). He was MUCH more mellow about the trailer and actually ate hay while he traveled.
I hung a bucket of water in the trailer for him (half full) with Horse Quenchers in it so he would hopefully drink on the long trip from PA to NC, driven at horse trailer speed (for us that's between 60-65mph because we opted to get actual trailer tires instead of light truck, and they're only rated for 60mph). It didn't work- he didn't drink anything.
Camera Penjamin
We loaded up and drove out around 7:45a Thursday morning. We had an excellent and uneventful travel day- it was cooler, and sunny up until the last 15 min of the drive when we drove through a brief shower.
You can see Senator Bob Martin Eastern Agricultural Center (that's a mouthful huh?) from the highway, and I'm pretty sure it is the only attraction in the area because it's middle-of-nowhere in all directions when you leave the grounds.
Coming up the main drive.
It is positively HUGE. It's set in a circle driveway- the Colosseum, covered arena, two warm up rings, one show ring, 6 mega barns, a meeting center, the RV hookups, and all of the trailer parking fit neatly inside the drive. Just outside the drive were two dressage pads that held two show rings each, plus an extra building that was basically an indoor arena warm up area (for this show) or could be converted to more stabling if needed.
It is also gorgeous. The stalls are pretty and safe. They are not the biggest, but they're good sized. They have rings on the walls to hang things and exterior facing stalls have windows. The buildings are pretty and functional. Some of the bathrooms are air conditioned (I found this out on our last day, boo). The footing is excellent and the maintenance people really took care of the footing all weekend (except for one blip I'll talk about in my next post).
Stabling was an excellent price- Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon was $165 and came with two bags of shavings. Tack stalls were $145 (and no shavings). You had to buy their shavings (pre-order for $8 a bag or at the show for $10), which I was irked about until I figured out I wanted 4 bales of bedding and 4 bales of hay... which would not have fit nicely in my trailer! I bought an extra night (Sunday night) of stabling for $60, but I got stuck paying an extra $60 for my tack stall even though I didn't need it for the extra night. Whatever. The tack stall was absolutely worth it.
I would have had to be more creative in my stacking if I tried to fit 4 bales of bedding in here too.
We arrived around 5:45p and unloaded the trailer and got Penn right into his stall. Husband had done research and found all kinds of maps that showed where our barn was and even figured out approximately where our stalls were!
He parked the trailer, I checked in at the show office, then Penn went for a long hand graze to stretch his legs after the 10 hour drive.
"Mom, this is the biggest place I've ever been!"
Pausing mid-nom to stare.
Overlooking ring 3. (Penn grazing in the background)
We grazed until dark, then brought him back to his stall and fed him dinner. We went to get dinner ourselves, but when we came back to tuck Penn in for the night (refill alfalfa/hay/water, clean stall, wrap legs), he hadn't pooped, drank, or ate much. He was peeing often (very unusual for him), but not always very much. He wasn't settling in at all- he was stall walking.
Cue nervous Jan. I decided to not add him to the night watch list, and if I woke up in the middle of the night that I would just drive over since the hotel was only 8 min away. I had a feeling he was fine and just needed more alone time (nervous people around him certainly don't help), and while he hadn't drank anything all day, he wasn't dehydrated and did get some moisture from the grazing.
Looking in from the outside. He's eating fresh alfalfa.
The last week has been busy, busy, busy. Penn and I are back, not quite the way I wanted to be, but he was so super for Championships. It was a great experience. I absolutely cannot wait to see what the future holds. If he's this good after only a year of showing, he's going to be exceptional with a couple years of experience.
I'm piecing together everything from the show and collecting my media. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you know how things went and you might have seen my Husband's 20 part play-by-play series of the weekend (when in reality there should probably have been 40+ parts!). I'm going to do a post for each day since there's 5 days worth of media.
First we're going to start with the lesson recap that I didn't get to do before we left:
Lesson 9/13:
Trainer went over my last couple tests (papers and videos) while I warmed up, then we went outside to go over the walk and trot work (no walls to lean on).
Generate more trot by timing leg bumps with his hind legs, then give opposite finger wiggles to help steady him (yea, I was NOT coordinated to do this successfully- but I still got some semblance of what she wanted). She recommended rein aids for this winter- Penn holds steady in the bridle, but every few steps just braces and makes a slight rooting action (not actually rooting), and it eats up any elasticity in the reins. She thinks the elastic rein aids will help him stop that behavior.
Don't shut him down in 10m trot circles. Keep bumping him forward. Also, don't flatten the circle on centerline- I tend to get halfway through, take a straight step, then keep going. Don't do that.
We worked on the halts again. I apparently did my job the previous week because she didn't have much bad to say about them. She had me ride them in all kinds of patterns besides the test pattern.
Don't be afraid of the leg yields. Push them forward and over. Trust Penn in them. Get a whooshy feeling going, like an ice skater. Send him forward down the first leg yield zig zag, then guide him into the second one without shutting anything down. This paired perfectly with the tactic I figured out a few weeks ago- leg yield to X, then change the direction by "leading" him in the new direction with the outside rein, he takes a first step the new way, then change the bend. It made for very fluid, whooshy changes.
Since the outdoor was hard as a rock, we went to the indoor to do our canter work.
Canter lengthenings are really coming along: I finally figured out how to follow Penn's head and neck with my hands, which meant I didn't lock my elbows and shut it down. Doh.
Shallow loops were good.
We worked on the simple change a bit. Trainer didn't like the number of steps I was taking because they often got shuffly and sometimes inverted. The simple change from left to right was better, but that's not the one we do in the test. She had me work the right to left. She thought I was getting a bit floaty in my left hand trying to encourage the new direction and new lead, so she had me think about gluing my left elbow to my side and becoming very very straight on that side throughout the entire diagonal. Holy poop, that made a huge difference! Penn no longer fell into trot part of the time, and he was balanced enough that I could pop him back into canter after 2-4 trot steps, with zero question about if I was going to get the new lead. I had to relearn how to center that over X though since the change happened so much faster.
She finished with, "There's nothing else I can do for you. You're ready. Don't screw up!"
No problem Boss. *cue nervous laughter*
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Penn went for a trail ride Wednesday, then I packed all afternoon. Packing was too easy, I didn't have enough stuff. I thought I probably forgot something (I did- I forgot his shampoo and had to buy more at the show!)
Strap all that good stuff in!
I got creative to get things to dry, then filled my backseat.
___________
Side note, I can't wait to use that elbow straightness thing in the flying changes. I always try to lead the horse in the new direction and I'm afraid to get the horse truly straight... even though that is what the horse needs to be in order to get proper flying changes.
I started having some anxiety yesterday after I posted, so on the bus ride home from work I tried to visualize 1-3 in my head and ride every step (planning for the win right?). I sometimes visualize, but I usually do it when I'm trying to fall asleep at night because my brain is still on overdrive. I don't usually get past the first couple movements in the test before I'm out like a light.
I would have been better off visualizing this pic.
Well I started panicking because the bus doesn't move like Penn (thank goodness on both sides of that), so as I'm running through adjustments and cues through my head, Visualized Penn isn't behaving properly. I couldn't get him down centerline.
So I'm sitting on the hard plastic seats, and I can't sit square because of the person next to me, so I have too much left seatbone... so as I try to ask for right lead canter and maintain right bend for my courtesy lap (I'm trying something new where I canter around the outside- I used to do that with Mikey), I'm getting frustrated because it's just not working. Then I ask for trot and we land in a heap just in time to go down centerline. Then he won't stay on centerline because TOO MUCH LEFT SEATBONE!
Left seatbone is needed here. Not on centerline.
Then I fell asleep... and almost fell out of my seat.
I'd say I'm not allowed to visualize on the bus anymore.
We're getting down to the wire- we leave for Championships on Thursday.
At least I haven't starting freaking out yet. I might have obsessed over the ride times and figuring out how many are in all my tests (Friday: 1-2 has 17 horses, 1-3 has 16. Saturday: 1-3 has 17 horses. Sunday: Championship 1-3 has 29). But I've actually been really good about not freaking out, all things considered (just wait and talk to me on Wednesday or Thursday).
USDF sent out Preliminary Year End Standings two weeks ago. I checked out where Penn and I were when they sent it out, we were a lackluster 119th place or something in the First Level AA with a median of 63.603. I was like, "Wow, I guess we aren't doing so well this year." I checked out the listing after this last horse show... Penn and I made a huge leap up the ranks, to 31st out of 198 horses! You have to have 8 scores with a median of over 60% to make the list, and we had 8 before the last show. It seems you get drop sub-60 scores once you have more than 8 scores, because our median jumped to 67.941% (I dropped a 58 and gained a 67 and 69!). I'm so super pleased to be so far up the ranking. I do not expect to move up any more- in fact I expect we'll move back down some as riders go to their championships and earn more high scores. But it helped soothe my nerves a bit since we got to drop our worst score, which was actually our first recognized score, so yes, we've improved a ton this summer and I can hopefully expect to keep scoring 67-69% this weekend. Just a cool bit of information.
So what has Penn been up to in this last week for prep?
Being stinking cute, that's what!
Almost nothing. I'm actually starting to check out a little. I always feel a bit drained after a horse show, but the desire to go to the barn isn't there. Not good.
He had Tuesday off after his long adventurous weekend. He earned it!
I rode him Wednesday and Thursday in the small court we have in the outdoor and worked on walk-halt-walk, trot-halt-trot, canter-walk-canter. I checked on our shallow loops too since he did a couple flying changes in the last week. Everything worked well. I drilled the halts though- he's been resting a hind way too much in them. After two days of working, he doesn't rest a hind too often and I've learned a bit more about how to ask him to halt properly (it's such a skill). He may not be perfectly square every time, but he at least has even weight on each foot. Otherwise, he felt nice and sharp and I didn't feel the need to school anything else. I can only mentally exhaust him and break his training at this point. I am going to add halts to the end of our warm up plan. He doesn't start off well in them, but gets sharper with practice.
He was off Friday and Saturday because he saw the chiropractor Friday afternoon.
Sunday I loaded him up and took him to Trainer's barn for a trail ride with our old trail riding buddy. We briefly visited Mikey's grave, I teared up severely as I said hi to him, then we kept going.
Penn is off today because it'll be his last day off until next Monday (I didn't feel right riding him 8 days in a row), and I really need time at home to clean the house and do laundry before we leave on Thursday. I want all the show and horse laundry done so I can pack it all in the trailer on Wednesday and then do last minute laundry Wednesday afternoon/evening.
We have our last lesson tomorrow evening. I want to go over our last few tests and touch on making the lengthen trot better on the straight line, work the halts again, and smooth the leg yields. I don't think there's anything else to do, just smooth things over.
I'll probably write up a lesson review in the truck on Thursday while we're driving, but then I probably won't write again until after Championships (or maybe I'll do cell phone updates, I donno, I haven't decided). But just in case, I'll see you all on the other side.
The recognized show over Labor Day weekend was a Sat/Sun show, but I opted to do Sunday only. Since Monday was a holiday, and I was driving by myself, I ask Austen about staying over an additional day and going for a trail ride or something Monday before I went home. She thought it sounded fun, so that's what we did!
First, Austen's barn is soooooo fancy. New and visiting horses stay in quarantine stabling.
The nicest quarantine stabling I've ever seen!
I figured I'd have to clean Penn's stall and bring hay, water buckets etc since I was a visitor. Nope. They gave him hay, filled his buckets, gave him his breakfast (as long as I left out a baggie of grain), and cleaned his stall a bunch of times. A++ for service!
Penn loved the window, just like home!
Austen and I wanted to do a horse swap before our trail ride, so I got tacked up and headed to the indoor ring... it was so pretty outside, but umm, that indoor. Drool. I just wanted to ride in it even though they have a pretty outdoor too!
He's all ready to scare the resident dressage queens!
Ermygawd, can we talk about how GORGEOUS this indoor is?
Plus fluffy footing that I'm pretty sure Penn loved.
Plus retractable windows really let the indoor cool down... no sun and a breeze.
I beat Austen to the ring, so I hopped on Penn and rode him around, trying to gauge how he'd react to a third day of work (since he'll be seeing that at champs). He was a bit distracted and a little tense, but settled into work much better than he did for our second test the day before. We did very basic work, just a run through of things he knows and he eventually relaxed. His happy place is definitely in canter now, he relaxed right into it. So much so that I got thinking about the jump he had in his canter on Saturday when we were schooling... hmm... so I decided to go for it and see what happened. I brought him across the diagonal, right to left, checked my seat and leg, and sat up like in my last lesson... straightened a little and just asked for the new left lead... and bam, he hopped right over! Late behind, but he did it!
2.3 seconds after doing his very first flying change!
OMG I was so excited! It was no big deal and Penn just hopped over. The late behind already has me nervous, but he gave me such an excellent and quiet first attempt that I'm happy! It's just hard not to play with it before championships... with my luck, he'll go, "Oh you want changes now? OK!!!!!!" and he'll flip flop in our shallow loops, and goodbye 8's that are double coefficients. He's already inclined to because that's where he first offered the jump for the change. I don't think I've messed it up though, he's very responsive to leg and seat and I don't think he'll plow through to change as long as I make it very very clear what I want. But we're definitely working on those this winter!
Pic stolen from Austen
Austen arrived and we did a horse swap. OMG I love Guinness. I wish I had access to him for a week or more so I could keep playing with all the buttons and work on myself as I got used to him. Austen has done such a good job with him, and he has a level of suppleness that Mikey never had. I first had to work on straightness and not pulling his nose around to the inside. He was happy to go wherever I put him, as long as I gave him time to limber up. He immediately talked me into shortening my legs and curling my body- he takes more leg than Penn. I'm sure he looked much better than I did! He's also a half passing machine. My first instinct is to shove the haunches (wrong) so when I'd ask for it, he'd happily lead with the haunches, just like I asked. I'd ask for for the shoulders to move over and lead in more of a shoulder-in feel and he was like, "Sure thing!" The ability to move his shoulders around, within the half pass, was AWESOME. We did one canter half pass (it didn't have much over or bend cause I'm bad at them, no fault on Pig!), and I could feel him saying at the end, "Would you like a flying change?" I opted for no, since I know he can be expressive and I don't want to mess them up! He is so polite, I loved riding him!
I can't say I saw much of Austen riding Penn, cause I was like, "OMG GUINNESS LOOK WHAT I CAN MAKE YOU DO!!!" but Austen tried a change and he gave her one too!
Me trying to get Guinness to bend his head around so I can get a pic of his face.
He just says "Whhhhyyyyyy"
Two other girls showed up at the indoor for our trail ride, so we swapped back and off we went! Austen's huskies are awesome trail dogs. They make me wish I had a dog to take trail riding. I would probably go a lot more often.
This is a really really really pretty place!
Penn learned about creek crossings on this ride... we did 6 of them? I donno, but he wasn't about to get his feet wet, lol. He stopped and really looked at the first one. I gave him his head and kept pushing forward and I grabbed the grab strap on the front of my saddle. First time I've used it to help me stay on! He jumped the creek since it wasn't wide, and I praised him for going anyway. The next crossing was wider, and he jumped the whole thing again... but it had a nice beach in on the other side so I made him walk in. He then proceeded to lower his shoulders and play with the water with his face, so I kicked him up again and was like, "No rolling!!!" There was one wide crossing where he couldn't jump across (he tried), and was very surprised when he landed in the water so he tried to run out... I'm that horrible horse and rider on the trail that has no steering or brakes or anything near water. I laughed though, he made a big splash jumping in like that.
Following Guinness a bit too close.
I think I need to get him an every day bonnet that is not bright orange.
He almost dumped me on the very last one- the creek kind of split and it was two narrow strips of water with a tiny strip of ground in between (I imagine it isn't there if the water is up at all). I thought he would try to jump the whole thing, or jump and run... Nope, he jumped and bounced it. Oops, I wasn't expecting that so the second leap caught me off guard. He stayed straight though and I held on to mane until he stopped.
The trails were so beautiful and so well maintained!
The trails are maintained by EPIC, and they're Equine Only trails- no ATVs, motorcycles, bikes, walkers, etc. They are spectacular and I wish we had them at home! I absolutely need to come back and visit again.
We had some cheese and crackers and bubbly after the horses were put away while we watched people ride in the indoor (Penn probably needed a rest anyway after our long trail ride, he was dragging by the end!).
Had to bring our baby self to the very fancy wash stall.
Sadly the weekend had to come to an end and Penn and I had to go home :-( I had an awesome time meeting Emma, visiting Austen, and spending the weekend!
This past weekend, I packed up Penn and took him to a show all by myself (just the packing up/driving out and driving home/unpacking bits, the rest of the time I was hanging out with Austen!). It's the first time I've taken a horse so far by myself- I did the drive to the show in about 4.5 hours and then drive home from Austen's barn in a little less than 5 hours. Audible was my best friend on those drives! I've found my driving companion (when Husband can't go with me). It was really nice to make the drives by myself and stop only when I wanted (not that Husband makes a ton of stops), and then was able to completely unpack and clean the trailer without worrying about the needs of another person (aka Husband who usually needs to get home ASAP to go to bed so he can get up normal time for work the next day).
Saturday:
Anyway, we had a gorgeous weekend despite the tropical storm that threatened the show area. I left a little later than I wanted to Saturday morning, but it was all good. Penn loaded right up and off we went! I got him all unpacked at the show just in time for Austen to come back from her second ride, and to meet Emma, who is super cool!
I hopped on Penn for a quick school since the Saturday show had ended. I got to use the actual arena (yay for two separate shows in one weekend!), and he was really super. Some lookyness, but he generally got down to business. My last ride before leaving for the show was Thursday, and he was a spooky, looky bastard that kept jumping out of his skin and shooting sideways at normal barn activity: sweeping with a broom, crossties clanking, someone grooming their horse, someone riding their horse outside (we were in because the outdoor was very hard and I didn't want to abuse him right before the weekend). He got on task quickly, so I was happy. Nothing ground breaking, just ran through the things I work on in warm up, did the 1-3 10m trot circle work several times, a couple 1-3 zig zags, and then ran through all the canter work in 1-3. He had some interesting moments in the canter one loops- he'd come across X in the counter canter and would give me a couple strides with extra jump, like he was saying, "Did you want something else here? Or should I stay the same?" Just put a pin in that thought process Penn. We'll come back to it. ;-)
I showed him rings 2 and 3, thinking those were the rings we would be in the next day... oops, it was 1 and 3. Oh well. We be-bopped down at the arena with Austen and Emma, then went on a diversion to a small water complex on the XC course that was just a hair out of the way back to stabling. Penn had a good hard look, stepped in some mud, and thought that was close enough! That's not the time to press his water issue, so he got a pat for sniffing the edge and got to walk away. We put ponies away for the night and went off to dinner!
Sunday:
Penn started off the day well when he showed very little interest in his grain. Ugh. He does this sometimes, and I don't like it. He's been better lately, but it's disheartening to see him go off his grain again. It took him ALL DAY to eat it.
Two very good boys!
Austen and I visited the show photographer and the office, then went back up to take care of ponies. Guinness went for a walk, Penn got braided and then went for a short walk and graze before I had to get ready for my first test. I didn't plan well enough, I got on 15 min before my test and got down to the ring with 1.5 rides to go before I was up. Penn was still feeling good, so I ran him through our show warm up without too many hitches. He did decide that leg yields were for fools though- those were absolutely weak all around, all day long.
It's a long nice walk to the show ring from stabling. We did trot some of it!
But off we went for 1-2:
On my courtesy lap, Penn had a look at the stuff behind the judge's stand, so I did some walk leg yields across the short side to get him focusing up there. He responded, and all was well! I did a couple in trot down the long side for a touch of focus in the trot. I started the test off with an oops and realized much too late to fix it- I rode the first diagonal MXK instead of M-V. I didn't know how that would get scored, but I ended up with an error on that movement. The leg yields were weak. I was really happy with the canter lengthenings and transitions back to working canter- lesson stuck with us and he had much more power in them and was smoother coming back. Overall, I was really happy with the test, and I was pleased with myself for riding a much more accurate test (error aside) than I have in the past. I've been studying my geometry, and now that Penn carries himself more, I can really use my corners and plan the geometry.
69.063% - first out of six
So this test had a bit of drama to the scoring- I'm glad I went down immediately after putting Penn away. They had the scores up, and I had a 65.313% for second place, and I was a little disappointed because the test felt really good and very on par with the previous weekend. I went and got the paper and glanced down the typed list of scores first (they type the scores into a computer which prints out a paper with the final percent)... and thank goodness because I noticed that for movement 17 (lengthen stride in canter) I got a 0.5. I was like, WTF? Nothing I did was anywhere near that bad, so I immediately flipped to that movement on the test paper, where it was marked a 6.5. I flew back to scoring (not that I went far!), and was like, "I found an error!" They immediately stopped handing out tests and recalculated. Not only was I missing 6 points in the typo, the movement was a double coefficient so I was actually missing 12 points. After fixing the error, I was in first place with a 69.063% . They had to call back the person who collected the first place ribbon because my new score beat theirs, which sucked for them!
We had a couple hours between tests, then I saddled back up for 1-3. Penn didn't really want to play dressage pony again. He did a lot more chomping on the bit in warm up, and was over-reactive to my leg. I had to scrap the walking bits of my warm up and shift right into canter because that got Penn moving and working with me. I went back to trot where he tried to blow through me when I'd ask for leg yields. He was also notably lookier than he was that morning. They were dismantling one of the show rings (while tests were running in the other two!) and everyone in general was packing up. Maybe that was the cause of his distraction, but we did not have the smooth test I wanted. He never really unlocked his back, so I was a bit tense, so I couldn't follow his trot properly. I knew it as soon as I started trotting him- we were in salvage mode.
Huge shout out to Lauren and Austen for the videos, btw! It's always nice to have them! Second shout out to Austen who figured out how to take pics on my phone while the phone was videoing (did not know it could do that).
Penn started off his courtesy lap in a tense trot, so I walked. The trot was not helping his cause at this point, and if he was going to be looky, the canter wouldn't either. Well he stopped and gawked at the people, concession stand... and then the judge and photographer once he got walking again. I did a ton of back and forth leg yielding in walk to attempt to focus him... It kind of helped, but the judge took forever to write her comments down and Penn needed to get moving again.
He gawked from X to the diagonal, which didn't set the diagonal off to a good start. Leg yields continued being shitty, stretch trot was hurried since he wasn't relaxing, and the trot circles and halt suffered. Basically all the trot work suffered. The walk was a bit redeeming, the canter right brought in the points (yay for one loops being his strong suit and balancing point and double coefficients), and the canter left brought in a few less points than the right. Still happy with those canter lengthenings and transitions- they could have been better, but they were better than they were before! The final trot was a struggle and I lost his haunches in the turn up centerline again. I was proud that I managed to keep the geometry fairly good though!
67.941% - second out of four
Can I just say, what a snarky bitchy comment she wrote in the collectives? Can she not see how gawky and looky he was in the trot? Of course I'm not letting that trot out to free fall and spiral out of control. And yes, it sucks to sit it because Penn isn't giving me much to sit. But if I was sucking at sitting the trot, more than half of the riders at this show had no business sitting either! Those weren't the only snarky comments that got handed out this weekend though... Her comments still irritate me since she gave me good scores, then ripped me a new one for the sitting trot. Maybe I should be pushing him up and forward even when he's looky, geometry be damned. But I feel like a show is not the place to do it... I do that at home and half the time he counterbends and inverts and throws his shoulders around. Would she rather see that? No. I also think she was totally off base with the free walk. She said "rider restricting stretch" and I don't see it. Maybe I'm blind, but what I see is a horse not stretching and not meeting the bridle... and you don't get free walk by throwing the reins away. Maybe towards the end he stretched and I restricted, but majority of it I was struggling for stretch. I probably should have posted my lengthening trots and I usually do, except we practiced sitting them this week and I get a more uphill and less runny, if conservative, lengthen. I do understand the judge is only looking at a snapshot in time, but still, I don't think her comments at the end are appropriate.
I was still pretty happy that a test with that many flub moments got a 67.941%. And how rocking are his one loops??? We'll work on things, and it will get better.
It was a good test!
Austen and I took our good old time getting out of the show grounds (come on, there was fake apple juice to drink and photos to buy, which I'll have in about 2 weeks), and the show office eventually called us and was like, "we can't leave til you do." Oops. Well we only had to go over to Austen's barn 20 minutes away (no worries, a safe amount of time had passed after the consumption of apple juice), cause Penn and I were spending one more night away from home!
Umm, this apple juice is not safe for kids!
And of course I still needed to take some pictures of the barns!
XC table lounging, cause that's how Austen rolls!
No stabling is complete without huskies!
Guinness started walking Austen and Penn home.
"Mom is over there!"
I eventually remembered to get a pic of the ribbons... but not of them on the horse!
I'll let Austen tell her own story, but horse showing with her is THE BEST!
This is a bit late since it was a week ago, but I just didn't have time to get it posted. At this point, it's more about recording it for future reference than editing properly, sorry!
Look, it's a theory picture.
I have to say, I found lesson this week a little discouraging. It wasn't bad by any means. We chatted about weak spots from the show and went to work on canter and trot lengthenings and the transitions between them. It's just we picked apart so many things and good isn't good enough, and I struggled because I'm so crooked to the left. Trainer assured me it's picking at the difference between good great/excellent, but I can't help but feel discouraged because I felt like I struggled SO BADLY. And it's because I'm crooked.
We did our walk zig zags and hopped into the canter right. I did a couple one loops, and Trainer got after me for being too heavy in my left rein. She had me put him on a circle, collect the canter on a spiral in, then punch it out to a lengthened/medium canter on a big circle. Then when I asked him to collect the canter, it had to be NOW and I had to spiral in.
To the right wasn't bad, my crookedness helps me this way, which is probably why Penn is stronger to the right.
To the left. OMG the struggle is so real.
This is not a struggle. This is adorable and cuddly and wonderful.
I kept losing the right hind. I kept being crooked and throwing myself off one side of my horse. My left leg contracted. We did halt, rein back, walk forward a little, halt, rein back, walk forward a little, repeat, canter. Do not throw my shoulders forward into the canter, do not lose the right hind, stretch my inside leg down. Even more collected. Don't lose the rhythm of the canter and don't lose the motion of the canter with my left hand. Too much left hand. Too much blocking with the left hand. MORE FORWARD into the lengthening. MORE COLLECTED RIGHT NOW into the collected work. LEFT LEG DOWN. Cry. Repeat.
We took a break after some progress since Penn and I were both turning to jelly.
Off to the trot. We did the left first because it's tough and we didn't have much steam left in us. Same exercise, just in trot.
This is where we really attached my position. Trainer had me stretch my left leg down, pull my elbows down into my sides, stretch my neck up. I felt so crooked, and Penn felt so crooked, but apparently we were actually straight. Ugh. But, I can absolutely tell a difference in his gaits when he's actually straight. It's worth the effort to fix (doh).
The right was better- I got several great lengthening/almost medium trots on the circle. I was still feeling bummed, but Trainer assured me this is something I can easily work on in the next few weeks and it'll be a ton better by championships.
She also told me to set up a chute using poles to work on squaring up the halts at X between the two 10m trot circles in 1-3. I worked on that on my own Thursday in what was a horrible horrible ride.
Great feelings coming in to the show this weekend! I swear, this lesson was actually helpful, no matter how discouraged I seem to feel. Next few posts, the AWESOME weekend we had!
