A less than ideal run at Fair Hill
The short story is: Fair Hill didn't go nearly as planned. The longer story for me will involve taking the time to try and figure out what I need to change so I don't have a similar experience at the next event. It was my first ever event that I drove myself to, and was essentially solo at - besides running down to Sally's truck from time to time with questions - how much Chill is too much? A: no such thing as too much Chill. Can I get away with no studs since Leo is being an asshole? A: It's not worth coming all this way and then slipping on xc, tough it out and get them in.
Jekyll and Hyde
Leo was a different version of himself at Fair Hill, in comparison to MCTA. Now, it was still Leo. It was just a side of Leo I haven't seen in a while. From the moment I took him off the trailer, he was a problem child. He wouldn't walk and eat grass, he'd just dragging me around trotting on the lead. He was obsessed with what was going on at the track - I heard bagpipes and there were a lot of people. I had to look it up, because I was terrified there might be racing that day. There wasn't, but there was a Scottish festival, hence the bagpipes.
I tried tying Leo to the trailer and he would just pace back and forth on his short tether. At one point he started bucking and hauling on the tie until he broke free. I was horrified. But luckily he just ran around to the other side of the trailer and stopped to stare (again at the track) and I was able to grab the lead. If I left him on the trailer, he would alternate between calmness and intense weaving and head shaking. It was in general a no-win situation. So I left the trailer when ever I could so I couldn't see (and then stress) over what he was doing.
Dressage
I gave him 200 cc of Chill before dressage, and it had little effect. Our flat had not been going well all week so I wasn't surprised. He was so tense in his dressage warm-up all I could think about was that I had to be sure to stay in the ring during the test. I spent an entire 45 minutes just trying to get him to stretch and loosen up his back. Oh, and go slower. He settled a little bit and I thought he really quite workmanlike in the ring. But we lost points everywhere. He would brace and resist against the bridle once in every movement - even if I got a decent connection and a little bit of stretch; he just couldn't it together. We scored a 45.5. I thought it would be worse honestly, but we're no where near our goal of trying to be consistently in the 30s.
Stadium
We did not have many good warm-up jumps. Leo was either too strong or behind my leg. It was an indiction of things to come. I couldn't control his stride at all; he kept lengthening to the fences and we'd leave long or have an uncomfortably short distance. He was also knocking rails - jumping round but not picking up his feet. I was naively still optimistic for our round.
The Fair Hill course is in a large grass area, right next to the final 2 fences on the cross country course. The course is nice and open. For Training there were 2 doubles. The first was a triple bar, 2 strides to a vertical, 5 strides to an oxer. Followed by a left turn to another double: an oxer, 2 strides to a vertical. The rest of the fences were more or less unrelated. Note to self - if they are unrelated, there is probably a terrain question involved.
Leo had fence 3 down, going downhill. His stride got away from me and we got too deep. In the 5 stride line, he got away from me again. I didn't react fast enough coming out of the double and mentally froze. He did the line in 4 and I made him put in the 5th stride; we took out the top 2 rails on the oxer. Leo was pissed and our communication problems didn't get better. We jumped the next combination successfully, then had the last 2 fences down. I really tried to get Leo back for the last and sat him down in the ring, but he wasn't careful at all with the fence.
Four rails down was seriously disappointing. Way more than dressage. I know the dressage is bad, but Leo is a good jumper and I've worked so hard at getting better in stadium. I wasn't expecting it to unravel to that degree. Sally gave me a little pep talk. She said, the good news was that while Leo didn't respect any of the fences in stadium; he was actually jumping well and I had a good horse under myself for xc. In regards to the bad news, I couldn't change what had happened so I had to push it from my mind. In her words, I had a lot of work to do ahead and that's what I needed to focus on.
Cross Country
The cross country course was very straight forward in comparison to MCTA, only 2 combinations versus 5. Larger fences but wide open galloping. First 3 fences were good. Fence 4 was at the bottom of a hill, so I planned where I wanted to get Leo back and the canter I wanted to the jump. This worked out brilliantly. Fence 5 was at the top of the hill and this is where I started to loose Leo. Fence 6AB, was the water. It was off a left turn. It was a house, 3 strides up and over a hump, then a bank into water. I can't exactly remember how the striding worked out for Leo, but he took a huge leap into the water and did what felt like a belly-flop. Fence 7 was a coop. Leo was surging at his fences now. Which is always an intimidating feeling, especially when I realize I may or may not get him back. I got him back for 7. Fence 8 was the trakehner, Leo jumped long here and landed galloping.
By fence 10, things were getting out of control. It was taking way too long to get Leo back. Fence 11, he jumped huge and then saw fence 12 and surged towards it. After fence 12, there was another long gallop and I had originally planned to let him go a bit (and had a place where I wanted to get him back), but I was fighting for control the entire way to fence 13 which was the largest table on course. I never got him back and he accelerated and lengthened his stride the whole way to the table. He left long, jumped huge and landed way out from the backside of the table. He's got crazy scope. Then there was the coffin; it was a generous 3 strides and 5 strides. I was sawing on Leo's mouth to get him to slow down. We had a good jump in and he still did the combination in 2 and 4 strides.
Fence 15 was the scariest. It was a red table thing. Leo left out an entire stride. I saw a whole other stride in front of the fence and Leo just took off. I was mentally having an "oh shit" moment and I'm pretty sure I was holding my breath. In hindsight, this is where stadium came into view so he might have seen a horse. I got him to add a stride to 16. But at the last fence, we were arguing the whole way. He added, but had so much momentum the jump was awful. And somewhere on course he stabbed himself with a stud in the back of his forearm.
Leo leaving out a stride
Leo accelerating
We actually had time faults. The speed was 450 mpm. We ended up 10th out of 15.
Sally and I conferred. She said the snaffle has to go. I need to be able to know I can hold him, otherwise I can't ride him forward, can't get the canter/gallop I need to the jumps and can't jump safely. She also said, she thinks that cross country being next to stadium probably did not do me any favors. And it could be that Leo might never have a good run at Fair Hill. She said her one advanced horse, Joule, can't come to Fair Hill. The jumping setup stressed him out so bad, he actually laid down in the warm up ring! It's funny, because Fair Hill seems so calm and low-key since everything is so spread out.
So what's the silver lining to this day?
Jekyll and Hyde
Leo was a different version of himself at Fair Hill, in comparison to MCTA. Now, it was still Leo. It was just a side of Leo I haven't seen in a while. From the moment I took him off the trailer, he was a problem child. He wouldn't walk and eat grass, he'd just dragging me around trotting on the lead. He was obsessed with what was going on at the track - I heard bagpipes and there were a lot of people. I had to look it up, because I was terrified there might be racing that day. There wasn't, but there was a Scottish festival, hence the bagpipes.
I tried tying Leo to the trailer and he would just pace back and forth on his short tether. At one point he started bucking and hauling on the tie until he broke free. I was horrified. But luckily he just ran around to the other side of the trailer and stopped to stare (again at the track) and I was able to grab the lead. If I left him on the trailer, he would alternate between calmness and intense weaving and head shaking. It was in general a no-win situation. So I left the trailer when ever I could so I couldn't see (and then stress) over what he was doing.
Dressage
I gave him 200 cc of Chill before dressage, and it had little effect. Our flat had not been going well all week so I wasn't surprised. He was so tense in his dressage warm-up all I could think about was that I had to be sure to stay in the ring during the test. I spent an entire 45 minutes just trying to get him to stretch and loosen up his back. Oh, and go slower. He settled a little bit and I thought he really quite workmanlike in the ring. But we lost points everywhere. He would brace and resist against the bridle once in every movement - even if I got a decent connection and a little bit of stretch; he just couldn't it together. We scored a 45.5. I thought it would be worse honestly, but we're no where near our goal of trying to be consistently in the 30s.
Stadium
We did not have many good warm-up jumps. Leo was either too strong or behind my leg. It was an indiction of things to come. I couldn't control his stride at all; he kept lengthening to the fences and we'd leave long or have an uncomfortably short distance. He was also knocking rails - jumping round but not picking up his feet. I was naively still optimistic for our round.
The Fair Hill course is in a large grass area, right next to the final 2 fences on the cross country course. The course is nice and open. For Training there were 2 doubles. The first was a triple bar, 2 strides to a vertical, 5 strides to an oxer. Followed by a left turn to another double: an oxer, 2 strides to a vertical. The rest of the fences were more or less unrelated. Note to self - if they are unrelated, there is probably a terrain question involved.
Leo had fence 3 down, going downhill. His stride got away from me and we got too deep. In the 5 stride line, he got away from me again. I didn't react fast enough coming out of the double and mentally froze. He did the line in 4 and I made him put in the 5th stride; we took out the top 2 rails on the oxer. Leo was pissed and our communication problems didn't get better. We jumped the next combination successfully, then had the last 2 fences down. I really tried to get Leo back for the last and sat him down in the ring, but he wasn't careful at all with the fence.
Four rails down was seriously disappointing. Way more than dressage. I know the dressage is bad, but Leo is a good jumper and I've worked so hard at getting better in stadium. I wasn't expecting it to unravel to that degree. Sally gave me a little pep talk. She said, the good news was that while Leo didn't respect any of the fences in stadium; he was actually jumping well and I had a good horse under myself for xc. In regards to the bad news, I couldn't change what had happened so I had to push it from my mind. In her words, I had a lot of work to do ahead and that's what I needed to focus on.
Cross Country
The cross country course was very straight forward in comparison to MCTA, only 2 combinations versus 5. Larger fences but wide open galloping. First 3 fences were good. Fence 4 was at the bottom of a hill, so I planned where I wanted to get Leo back and the canter I wanted to the jump. This worked out brilliantly. Fence 5 was at the top of the hill and this is where I started to loose Leo. Fence 6AB, was the water. It was off a left turn. It was a house, 3 strides up and over a hump, then a bank into water. I can't exactly remember how the striding worked out for Leo, but he took a huge leap into the water and did what felt like a belly-flop. Fence 7 was a coop. Leo was surging at his fences now. Which is always an intimidating feeling, especially when I realize I may or may not get him back. I got him back for 7. Fence 8 was the trakehner, Leo jumped long here and landed galloping.
By fence 10, things were getting out of control. It was taking way too long to get Leo back. Fence 11, he jumped huge and then saw fence 12 and surged towards it. After fence 12, there was another long gallop and I had originally planned to let him go a bit (and had a place where I wanted to get him back), but I was fighting for control the entire way to fence 13 which was the largest table on course. I never got him back and he accelerated and lengthened his stride the whole way to the table. He left long, jumped huge and landed way out from the backside of the table. He's got crazy scope. Then there was the coffin; it was a generous 3 strides and 5 strides. I was sawing on Leo's mouth to get him to slow down. We had a good jump in and he still did the combination in 2 and 4 strides.
Fence 15 was the scariest. It was a red table thing. Leo left out an entire stride. I saw a whole other stride in front of the fence and Leo just took off. I was mentally having an "oh shit" moment and I'm pretty sure I was holding my breath. In hindsight, this is where stadium came into view so he might have seen a horse. I got him to add a stride to 16. But at the last fence, we were arguing the whole way. He added, but had so much momentum the jump was awful. And somewhere on course he stabbed himself with a stud in the back of his forearm.
Leo leaving out a stride
Leo accelerating
We actually had time faults. The speed was 450 mpm. We ended up 10th out of 15.
Sally and I conferred. She said the snaffle has to go. I need to be able to know I can hold him, otherwise I can't ride him forward, can't get the canter/gallop I need to the jumps and can't jump safely. She also said, she thinks that cross country being next to stadium probably did not do me any favors. And it could be that Leo might never have a good run at Fair Hill. She said her one advanced horse, Joule, can't come to Fair Hill. The jumping setup stressed him out so bad, he actually laid down in the warm up ring! It's funny, because Fair Hill seems so calm and low-key since everything is so spread out.
So what's the silver lining to this day?
- As far as the competition in general, Sally said it's another one down. It's all about gaining the experience. (and believe it or not, it's still a prelim qualifying round!)
- I made it through my first solo competition with a very difficult Leo and am feeling quite comfortable driving the trailer.
- Leo is crazy brave and looks handsome when braided.
What next?
- I want to rule out that anything new physically is happening with Leo so I will schedule Liz to come out. Maybe its time for that SI joint injection.
- Then I need to see what I can change from a management perspective. I normally jump Leo the day before an event, but I didn't do this because Leo was on night turnout and I thought this would make up for the jump school. I'm going to go back to the day before jump school.
- Chill didn't seem to have an effect, so I need to experiment with some other supplements again.
- Bit experimentation time. Sally said to try a corkscrew and practice jumping in the ring and doing some gallop sets, and see how it feels. I think I also need to experiment with a new flat bit. Maybe a baucher.
- Plan the next competition!
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