Championships Day 2, 9/16: First Steps in the Ring

We left off with a nervous Jan tucking Penn in for the night. I shouldn't have worried much, when we arrived the following morning he was very chill. He had laid down in the night, ate half of his hay, all of his alfalfa, had drank a bucket of water, and pooped and peed plenty. He was back to peeing normally. I was so excited that he seemed just fine that my husband was like, you're being extra horsey-weird. Strange things make horse people happy, you know?

View from the chairs in the tack stall.

Ridiculous cuteness. He looks like a pony.
I went over to his stall to give him a bath and braid him... and then found something else to do because he was so cute!

After he got up and got his bath. It was actually a little cool Friday morning, so I covered him up with my BOT mesh sheet to take him outside to dry. He loved that bottle- he'd drop it and pick it up again.

The morning was uneventful. I signed up for pictures, Penn got a bath, graze time, then braided. The photographer had an excellent deal going on- a link to download all of your pictures for $100. That's one of the better deals I've found. He was quick in getting the links emailed to us as well, and he uses SmugMug to do prints (my husband used them as well). His people took a number of excellent pictures- I may see about having Smug Mug do proper prints for a couple of them.

First 2:

I got on about 20min before my first ride at 1:57 pm, which wasn't quite enough time. Penn was VERY dull feeling. Not lazy per se, but tired and wanted to lay in my hand again. I needed a little more time to get him jazzed up.

Warming up.

Link to YouTube

Everything was a bit of a struggle to get done in this test. My head wasn't in the game for it because I haven't been preparing First 2 all that much. I use the leg yields to warm up and that's about it. I had a huge brain fart during it and mostly just went through the motions, accuracy be damned (like the final canter/trot transition- I forgot it was at M, not C). I wasn't planning on riding this test at this show, however I needed to ride two First Level tests on Friday (in addition to 1-3 on Saturday) to be eligible for the dressage division championships.

65.469% - 5th out of 10

All the comments were right on, more power needed. Yupp. But you can tell the quality of horses and riders who were showing this weekend- a 65.4% only put us halfway in the pack.

And here's an obscene number of pictures. The photographer managed to grab every good moment! The pictures are courtesy of High Time Photography. They came to me with watermarks, but unedited, so when I cropped them, I sometimes cropped out the watermark... I guess I should have put the watermark back on... but I'm telling you all where the pics came from instead!

First 3:

My second test was at 3:20pm, so an awkward amount of time later, I tacked up and went back over to the non-championship rings to warm up.

Warm up area for my second test.

I wasn't all that happy to warm up in an indoor/covered arena then go outside to show. That doesn't work well at home, why would it ever work well at a show? Penn is usually gawky in the indoor, then tense in the outdoor. To make matters worse, my ring was running behind so they decided to catch up during the water/drag break... they sprayed water into the ring instead of driving over it and evenly watering, then they opted not to drag afterwards... which left puddles in the places where 4 hours worth of test riding created ruts and tracks. They told me they were going to do that when I checked in, and I was like "No problem!" I used to event, the footing isn't perfect. Well Penn does not share my mindset. He likes perfect footing. Coming out of the indoor to show outside, where you can see/hear the highway traffic, and have puddles in the ring? Way too much atmosphere to put together a solid test.

Link to YouTube

Really not trying to make excuses here but there was extra water on centerline (so wiggly centerline), then there was a puddle at H... which basically messed up each movement near H. Also, I guess I botched the correction for when he lead flopped on me? I know I got lost in it, I went to go to walk and canter from walk like I do at home, but then I changed my mind since that's not part of this test... oh well, a 3 on that loop. Oops. Another interesting thing, the ring next to me was using a squeaky toy as their bell.

62.941% - 7th out of 10

This test was just a bit of a mess, sooooo I guess I earned that 62%!

More pictures, courtesy of High Time Photography.

__________________

After we put Penn away, Husband and I went to the Colosseum to watch the more advanced tests. I think there were musical freestyles going on, but I don't remember what level. The Friday night Sale Exhibition was after and that was kind of fun too since there was a pair of cremello Morgans featured.

Pretty mares! They got a 75% on their Pas De Deux

Penn went for a graze near Saturday's show ring before Husband and I went to dinner.

While we were out on our Friday Evening Graze, Husband realized Dressage is kind of scientific: We have Silicon, Mercury, Carbon, and Magnesium, right there on the letters!

I may have sat in the judges booth and let Penn graze right up next to it, haha.

Husband and I had excellent steak dinners from the place across the street from the show grounds. We went to Tractor Supply before dinner and got a bag of bedding for the trailer (and had to sneak it into the show grounds under the cover of darkness because foreign bedding is forbidden), a bag of alfalfa cubes, another bucket, and a bucket strap. I'd been putting the alfalfa on the floor of the stall where it would get wasted, and he often would have some left when I put it in his feed bucket, so I got him a designated alfalfa bucket.

Tucking him in for the night was uneventful. He was much more settled when we left Friday night than he was Thursday night.

Next up, Day 3: Round two in the ring!

Championships Day 1, 9/15: The Drive to NC

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.

Next up, Day 2, the first rides!

Lesson 9/13 Recap

Whew.

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*

___________

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.

___________

Next up, the drive to NC!

Crunch Time: An Amusing Anecdote

First off, thanks everyone for the well wishes!

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.

Crunch Time

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.

Labor Day Fun, Part 2: Horse Swap and Trail Riding

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!

All tired coming home.