My Definition of Success: Keeping the horse between you and the ground...

Leo and I just got back from MCTA in Maryland. It was a very successful weekend. I moved back up to Prelim. We got our best dressage score ever: 36.6, jumped a clear stadium on the grass, followed by a clear xc with time. We placed 10th in an open division, competing against the likes of Boyd Martin and Phillip Dutton. Becca made a second attempt at an Intermediate move-up with Spy, conquered her stadium demons and jumped a brilliant clear xc.

But.....

My cross country round was not a great round. It was one of those rounds that was pure luck. I could have easily had a rider fall or a run out. Leo was very game and very brave, but we were not in sync. I was missing my distances and struggling to maintain my position on landings. I would see one distance to a fence, Leo saw another.

View the course here >

At fence 13 - a large, upright table, Leo was blowing through my aids and extending his stride towards the jump. The distance we got was way too long, and I forced him to add a stride (at least I think that is what happened). He was going too fast and we were too close for him to be able to make a clean jump. He hung a leg and nearly went down on landing. Turns out Leo has the magically fifth leg. I thought I was going to fall off when we landed in a heap on the other side. But Leo recovered and pulled us up and forward. He stayed straight, I stayed in the saddle and on we went to fence 14. (Me, aggressively trying to re-assert myself as the driver.)

We had a rough jump through the coffin (same confusion over take-off spots) and then I had to find my line to fence 18, a huge corner. I was second guessing myself and Leo at this point. We got a long spot. We both hesitated but then Leo took off. He didn't get a great jump because I hesitated and we literally scraped over the corner. The pictures of us at this fence represents a classic "oh shit" moment.

Then the same thing happened at fence 19! Leo was lengthening his stride into the fence and I lost the distance. This time I was ready to go long and Leo added. Out of sync. Again.

We were a hot mess.

Luckily for us, all the skinny questions were on the first half of the course. And Leo was really great at these questions! The fences were big. I'm still getting used to the fact that there is no small prelim course. At Training, there are definitely small trainings and large trainings. Area 2 Prelim is just big.

Naturally, I have been obsessing about our rough, but clear round (which is our third qualifier for a 1-star). I remember Spy and Becca going through the same thing last year. There are a few things that could be contributing factors:

• I'm rusty at galloping big fences at 520 mpm 
• My eye sucks on xc (see what happens > you get your act together in one phase and everything goes to crap in another phase).
• Leo isn't fit enough to be able to carry the right frame in his gallop. 
• My lower leg position sucks right now and my imbalance is affecting my decision-making.

So what am I going to do....

• Leo is going to get a second bridle just for xc with a corkscrew. He just can't go in the same bit for both stadium and cross country. Three bridles - what a pain! 
• I have GOT TO improve my lower leg position. I just got new leathers and I think they may be too long so first I'm going to fix that. Then I am going to make a point of riding with stirrups once a week and I'm going to look up some equitation exercises. 
• Leo needs fitness work. This means hacking out to the "Cross Field" and trotting up and down hills for 25 minutes up, followed by a 2 minute 450 mpm gallop uphill. This needs to happen once a week. 

I bought a video of our cross country round and I'm very interested to see if I remember the problems accurately, and see what I can learn.