Sorry it has been a while. A lot has happened but I find myself without a lot of energy left for blogging.
We ended up going to Midsouth last weekend after all because there is not going to be a traditional funeral for Jay's Dad. Instead we will be having a memorial service in July. The weekend was already planned and we decided it would be better to be doing something rather than sitting at home with nothing to do.
But let me first say Thank you for all the condolences. Your kind words were much appreciated.
So on to how the weekend went. I'm going to be as brief as possible so let's just say things didn't go so great for us.
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No dressage pictures because Jay's camera battery died. |
Dressage This was by far our worst dressage score we've received, I think ever. But I don't feel too horribly about it because there were a lot of mitigating circumstances. First of all my trainer brought Loki up on Thursday but I couldn't get there until Friday night so he was stuck in a stall for 24 hours. I rode him for about an hour Friday night and he was very high energy. Then he was in his stall again all night and still had tons of energy the next morning. In hindsight I wish I had gone ahead and found a place to lunge him before we rode. I think it would have helped.
The other factors that worked against us was warm-up. Dressage warm-up was just crazy and we got nearly run into about twice with one horse cantering past us so closely that I could have reached out and touched her with my foot still in the stirrup. Loki pretty much lost it at that point and I just never quite got him back.
Also, my trainer had her cross country round at the exact same time as my dressage so I had no help in warming-up. It is probably good practice for me but I think had she been there I would have been able to work through Loki's tension much better instead of just reacting with my own tension.
I still can't complain too much because despite being very tense Loki was still very obedient and we rode every movement even if it wasn't very pretty. We had one slight bobble where Loki broke out of our second canter early but that was mainly from me just not keeping my leg on. We scored a 42.5 and that put us tied for 7th.
Stadium Strangely stadium warm-up was much better for us. Loki was much more relaxed and I went into stadium feeling pretty confident. The course was mega simple. Unfortunately we had three rails. They were all my fault. Loki jumped the first fence beautifully but got a little unbalanced. I pulled him up before the second but once again
forgot to add leg so he just got flat and hollow and never got his knees up. The same thing happened with the third fence. Fences four, five and six rode much better but I'm not sure what happened at fence seven. He spooked or something and deer jumped it which caused my left foot to come out of the stirrup. (Don't grab with your knee!) All of this carried over to fence 8 where we had our third rail. Loki really wasn't bad. If I ever remember to just add lots more leg we are going to have an awesome round. Saturday just wasn't the day.
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Sadly, one of our better efforts |
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Riding very defensively |
Cross Country Well, what can I say about it? We had one run-out at the first of a three stride combination that was set on a downhill. I really can't blame my horse (again!) because I just wasn't supporting him with my leg
nearly enough at all, especially because jumping downhill still freaks me out. But honestly most of the course went fairly well other than I am still freaking myself out thinking we are going mock 2000. Seriously I have visions of someone running after us, yelling that I am riding dangerously and out of control. However, Lindsey from
Alchemy Eventing, whom I got to meet at Midsouth this past weekend (she is just as cool in person as she seems on her blog) happened to record the last part of my run and I have to say it left me smacking my head. We are going soooooo slooooow! I don't know what is wrong with me when I get on the cross country course but I have got to get past this. I need to let him run and use my leg to keep him from getting flat.
There was one fence we jumped that was amazing, though. It was a brush fence (#6). I was a little worried we'd stop at it because it looked huge but Loki locked on and we went right over and it felt freaking fantastic. I have a picture ordered of that fence but don't have it yet. The rest of these photos are all from Jay.
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First fence |
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My favorite photo from Jay. Over the second fence |
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Third fence |
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Fence 9b |
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up the bank (11) |
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Last fence (17) |
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On the way home |
At the end of the day we completed the event. We still have lots of work but as tempted as I am to be really bummed out about it I've decided I'm just not going there. I had a lot of fun this weekend. I battled nerves of course but in-between and after I really enjoyed myself. I will probably be taking a break from showing for a while aside from a few schooling shows here and there. I find myself feeling a little burnt out but still ready to battle back sometime in the future.