Waredaca Horse Trials
I'm super happy to report that I didn't screw things up at Waredaca and ended the year on a great note!
Despite the fact that Leo's flatwork at home has been really stellar, our dressage test was still tense and inconsistent at the show. We scored a 41.8. Sally said now that we're getting more consistent at home and producing better work, I'll slowly start to see better work at our competitions. Leo is definitely getting stronger and Sally is urging me to ask more of him at home: more lengthenings, more leg-yields, more transitions, more 10m canter circles. The hard stuff makes Leo tense and nervous, so I tend to avoid it. BUT I can't get complacent and just accept relaxation.
Stadium at Waredaca is notorious hard. The ring is small. There tend to be a lot of related lines and hard turns. This course was more flowing than past courses I have seen, and the distances were set so that you could keep a forward pace over the entire course. Sally warmed me up and specifically told me that if I didn't get a forward jump into the related lines, that I needed to land and kick forward immediately. We've been working on my reaction time at home so that I can make a quick adjustment based on the type of jump I get into the line. In the past, I would wait 3 strides to make a decision which is too late. I'm learning to make a decision in the first stride.
On course, Sally's voice was in my head. Fence 3 was a vertical, 6 forward strides to an oxer to vertical 1-stride in-and-out, set at a forward 24 feet. Oxer to vertical in-and-outs at 24 ft are my nemesis. We got a conservative jump into the line and I immediately put my leg on and sent Leo forward. He jumped the in-and-out like a pro. Leo has been very sticky with liverpools at home and there was a liverpool on course with an option - avoid the liverpool but take a longer route. Sally said to get the training in and go for the liverpool. If I had a problem, then take the option. Leo was fine with the liverpool but didn't jump up and around the fence and had his only rail on course down. The final line was an oxer, 5 bending forward strides to a vertical 2 strides to a vertical, 6 forward bending strides to the last oxer. I half-halted too hard coming out of the in-and-out and almost pulled Leo up! We made it over the last though and needless to say I was ridiculously pleased with our round. We were completely in-sync - definitely our best stadium performance since MCTA.
The course country course was fairly straight forward, but a couple of the questions were challenging. Nothing was flagged as a combination, so that was generous, but all the difficult questions didn't really jump well unless you jumped them as a combination. Fence 6 was a bank, 4 strides downhill to a skinny decorated with bright orange flowers. Fence 15 was a jump into water, but it was off of a left hand, rollback turn. Fence 17 and 18 had us all scratching our heads. It was a rolltop bending line through water, up a small hill to a corner. Jen, Becca and I were all wide-eyed over that one. Sally told me corners out of water actually rode really well. (Yea, for a 4-star rider!) Fences 19 and 20 were 2 tables on a short bending 3 strides at the top of a hill.
I had a plan to get Leo into the water before approaching Fence 15. He has been jumping the water jump at home well but I didn't want to take any chances. I knew pulling him to make my way into the water would eat up valuable time so I made a point of letting him galloping on early in the course. We had a lot of problems trying to make a left hand turn to fence 5, Leo wanted to gallop back home, so I wasted time trying to get him under control and back on course. That was annoying. He jumped fence 6 and the skinny at 7 great but we ended up getting 5 strides instead of 4. He was great over the trakehner, through the coffin and over a bunch of galloping fences. I pulled him up and trotted him through the water and he jumped into the water at fence 15 just fine. Whew! Then we galloped over to the second water at Fence 17. The rolltop was right against a fence line and a bunch of horses were hanging out there. Leo spooked and bounced off the fence line and I barely got him straight for the jump. He was super distracted but we got over the corner too. It wasn't pretty, but we got the job done! Jen pointed out that that's what cross country riding is all about.
We finished 18 seconds over the time and had 7.6 faults, but no jumping faults! As usual, there are a lot of things I would like to improve on - like Leo's turnability xc. He still doesn't listen so well when he's galloping. I'd like to get to a place where I can ride a little bolder cross country now that I know I can slow him down.
It's been a whirlwind year. We started off with a bang at MCTA which made me think our year was going to be easy. Alas, it was hard and bumpy. We faced a lot of physical/soundness issues, training and biting problems. Four weeks ago, I really didn't know how our year would end, but happily we finished on the same note we started and with the same level of confidence. I didn't ruin Leo. Our partnership has been re-established. We're officially back on track!
Despite the fact that Leo's flatwork at home has been really stellar, our dressage test was still tense and inconsistent at the show. We scored a 41.8. Sally said now that we're getting more consistent at home and producing better work, I'll slowly start to see better work at our competitions. Leo is definitely getting stronger and Sally is urging me to ask more of him at home: more lengthenings, more leg-yields, more transitions, more 10m canter circles. The hard stuff makes Leo tense and nervous, so I tend to avoid it. BUT I can't get complacent and just accept relaxation.
Stadium at Waredaca is notorious hard. The ring is small. There tend to be a lot of related lines and hard turns. This course was more flowing than past courses I have seen, and the distances were set so that you could keep a forward pace over the entire course. Sally warmed me up and specifically told me that if I didn't get a forward jump into the related lines, that I needed to land and kick forward immediately. We've been working on my reaction time at home so that I can make a quick adjustment based on the type of jump I get into the line. In the past, I would wait 3 strides to make a decision which is too late. I'm learning to make a decision in the first stride.
On course, Sally's voice was in my head. Fence 3 was a vertical, 6 forward strides to an oxer to vertical 1-stride in-and-out, set at a forward 24 feet. Oxer to vertical in-and-outs at 24 ft are my nemesis. We got a conservative jump into the line and I immediately put my leg on and sent Leo forward. He jumped the in-and-out like a pro. Leo has been very sticky with liverpools at home and there was a liverpool on course with an option - avoid the liverpool but take a longer route. Sally said to get the training in and go for the liverpool. If I had a problem, then take the option. Leo was fine with the liverpool but didn't jump up and around the fence and had his only rail on course down. The final line was an oxer, 5 bending forward strides to a vertical 2 strides to a vertical, 6 forward bending strides to the last oxer. I half-halted too hard coming out of the in-and-out and almost pulled Leo up! We made it over the last though and needless to say I was ridiculously pleased with our round. We were completely in-sync - definitely our best stadium performance since MCTA.
The course country course was fairly straight forward, but a couple of the questions were challenging. Nothing was flagged as a combination, so that was generous, but all the difficult questions didn't really jump well unless you jumped them as a combination. Fence 6 was a bank, 4 strides downhill to a skinny decorated with bright orange flowers. Fence 15 was a jump into water, but it was off of a left hand, rollback turn. Fence 17 and 18 had us all scratching our heads. It was a rolltop bending line through water, up a small hill to a corner. Jen, Becca and I were all wide-eyed over that one. Sally told me corners out of water actually rode really well. (Yea, for a 4-star rider!) Fences 19 and 20 were 2 tables on a short bending 3 strides at the top of a hill.
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| Fence 6 to 7 |
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| Second water, fence 17 bending right line to the corner at 18 |
I had a plan to get Leo into the water before approaching Fence 15. He has been jumping the water jump at home well but I didn't want to take any chances. I knew pulling him to make my way into the water would eat up valuable time so I made a point of letting him galloping on early in the course. We had a lot of problems trying to make a left hand turn to fence 5, Leo wanted to gallop back home, so I wasted time trying to get him under control and back on course. That was annoying. He jumped fence 6 and the skinny at 7 great but we ended up getting 5 strides instead of 4. He was great over the trakehner, through the coffin and over a bunch of galloping fences. I pulled him up and trotted him through the water and he jumped into the water at fence 15 just fine. Whew! Then we galloped over to the second water at Fence 17. The rolltop was right against a fence line and a bunch of horses were hanging out there. Leo spooked and bounced off the fence line and I barely got him straight for the jump. He was super distracted but we got over the corner too. It wasn't pretty, but we got the job done! Jen pointed out that that's what cross country riding is all about.
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| Trotting through the water before approaching Fence 15 to the right |
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| Translates to a brave jump in! |
We finished 18 seconds over the time and had 7.6 faults, but no jumping faults! As usual, there are a lot of things I would like to improve on - like Leo's turnability xc. He still doesn't listen so well when he's galloping. I'd like to get to a place where I can ride a little bolder cross country now that I know I can slow him down.
It's been a whirlwind year. We started off with a bang at MCTA which made me think our year was going to be easy. Alas, it was hard and bumpy. We faced a lot of physical/soundness issues, training and biting problems. Four weeks ago, I really didn't know how our year would end, but happily we finished on the same note we started and with the same level of confidence. I didn't ruin Leo. Our partnership has been re-established. We're officially back on track!
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