The Pendulum Swing...
I'm slowly coming to accept that being an adult means that I will fluctuate daily between brilliance and failure. This is even more true as an adult amateur rider.
After a solid run of 4 prelim horse trials with clean xc, Leo and I got eliminated at the Horse Park of New Jersey last weekend on cross country! It's my first elimination on cross country. Boo.
Dressage was fairly good for us, we broke 40! We also had a great stadium round despite having 2 rails. The cross country was well within our capability and we started off well. The first 6 fences were good and then it all went to shit really quickly. Fence 7 was a turning combination. Leo and I had a miscommunication at fence A and I caught him in the mouth, but he jumped out well. Fence 8 was a large galloping table, followed by a downhill grade to fence 9, a corner. My distance to the corner wasn't awesome and I felt Leo hesitate but he still jumped it. Fence 10 was a large brush fence. Leo backed off this fence too and in hindsight I should have gotten after him on landing. Earlier this spring, Sally mentioned that she thought he might be a horse with a brush issue. During that lesson, Leo struggled with a corner with brush on op and with an angled combination of brush fences. On xc at New Jersey, I failed to connect the dots in order to prepare for the next brush fence....
Fence 11 was the coffin which consisted of a table, 4 bending strides over a knoll to a (surprise) ditch, up a hill 2 strides to a large brush fence. Everything was going fine over A and B and the distance to the C element was right there...but Leo put on the brakes. I had no idea it was coming, nor did I expect it because I didn't walk the complex expecting a refusal so I had no idea how to re-approach. Advanced shared the same complex so there was a web of jumps. Leo refused again on my second approach. On my third approach, I wasn't really sure if he was going to go but he did.
Fence 12 was a brush table which he jumped poorly. At this point, Leo was being very fussing in the bridle and not moving forward into the bit at all. Fence 16 was a very large, skinny chevron with 3 tiers of brush. The approach was uphill and at this point, I was really concerned about it. Leo jumped it great. Fence 18 was the second water. It consisted of a table in the water (no biggie, we had already jumped this question at MCTA) followed by 4 bending strides to an angle brush fence - which looked exactly like the fence he stopped at in the coffin.
Well, I didn't put this together either. I saw a forward distance to the table in the forward but Leo wouldn't lengthen into the fence. He wouldn't move forward into the bridle at all. We jumped long and I was way behind the motion. We got to the B element on a more severe angle then I planned for, but it was still a doable jump. Leo stopped. he stopped the second time as well and we were eliminated.
Boo.
So what happened??? I think there are 3 things at play...
After a solid run of 4 prelim horse trials with clean xc, Leo and I got eliminated at the Horse Park of New Jersey last weekend on cross country! It's my first elimination on cross country. Boo.
Dressage was fairly good for us, we broke 40! We also had a great stadium round despite having 2 rails. The cross country was well within our capability and we started off well. The first 6 fences were good and then it all went to shit really quickly. Fence 7 was a turning combination. Leo and I had a miscommunication at fence A and I caught him in the mouth, but he jumped out well. Fence 8 was a large galloping table, followed by a downhill grade to fence 9, a corner. My distance to the corner wasn't awesome and I felt Leo hesitate but he still jumped it. Fence 10 was a large brush fence. Leo backed off this fence too and in hindsight I should have gotten after him on landing. Earlier this spring, Sally mentioned that she thought he might be a horse with a brush issue. During that lesson, Leo struggled with a corner with brush on op and with an angled combination of brush fences. On xc at New Jersey, I failed to connect the dots in order to prepare for the next brush fence....
Fence 11 was the coffin which consisted of a table, 4 bending strides over a knoll to a (surprise) ditch, up a hill 2 strides to a large brush fence. Everything was going fine over A and B and the distance to the C element was right there...but Leo put on the brakes. I had no idea it was coming, nor did I expect it because I didn't walk the complex expecting a refusal so I had no idea how to re-approach. Advanced shared the same complex so there was a web of jumps. Leo refused again on my second approach. On my third approach, I wasn't really sure if he was going to go but he did.
Fence 12 was a brush table which he jumped poorly. At this point, Leo was being very fussing in the bridle and not moving forward into the bit at all. Fence 16 was a very large, skinny chevron with 3 tiers of brush. The approach was uphill and at this point, I was really concerned about it. Leo jumped it great. Fence 18 was the second water. It consisted of a table in the water (no biggie, we had already jumped this question at MCTA) followed by 4 bending strides to an angle brush fence - which looked exactly like the fence he stopped at in the coffin.
Well, I didn't put this together either. I saw a forward distance to the table in the forward but Leo wouldn't lengthen into the fence. He wouldn't move forward into the bridle at all. We jumped long and I was way behind the motion. We got to the B element on a more severe angle then I planned for, but it was still a doable jump. Leo stopped. he stopped the second time as well and we were eliminated.
Boo.
So what happened??? I think there are 3 things at play...
- A cut makes a sensitive mouth even more delicate. After xc, we discovered that Leo had a large cut in the corner of his mouth on the right side - right where the bit lays. I'm not sure when it happened. It might have happened when I caught him in the mouth at fence 7. It also looked like he bit the inside of his cheek on the same side. Knowing his nature, I think this was a strong contributor to his performance.
- The corkscrew doesn't work anymore. I don't know why, but Leo no longer tolerates the corkscrew which worked for the last 2 years. I xc schooled with Sally on the Tuesday before Jersey and I started feeling issues then. Before my xc round, I thought about running in the slow twist but didn't listen to my gut. Leo is really particular about his mouth and over the years I've had to change his bit every 6 months or so. I don't know what I am going to do next but I can't use the corkscrew and the slow twist won't work either.
- Brush fences. At this point, even if Leo didn't have an issue with brush fences before, I'm pretty sure he's going to have a negative association to them now. It's just the type of horse he is. These brush fences are also quite big and he needs to jump through the fence - not over it, which I'm not sure he fully understands. Before the next competition, I'm going to be schooling lots of brush fences.
- This was the first prelim course I walked by myself. In hindsight, I properly don't have enough experience to walk a prelim course by myself. I did have Becca come out and walk a couple of the combinations a second time with me, but we didn't discuss the course as a whole or walk combinations with a plan B in mind. I'm thinking this likely contributed to my round. Or maybe I am just making excuses :)
that's definitely disappointing about the elimination - sorry! great assessment of what might have gone wrong tho - hopefully by being armed with that knowledge you'll be able to resolve his mouth issues (for now at least!) and brush fences!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely stinks to have an elimination, but it sounds like you have good analysis on the issues and a plan to work on it. He sounds like a challenging horse and its great that you had good fences in between the problem ones.
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