Chatt hills

This weekend Funny and I showed at Chatt hills. And we didn't "cheat" before hand. ;) Ha ha. Meaning, we didn't go school the day before. Or even the weekend before. I mean, we jumped at Ashland recently, but we didn't school the course. Which, was freaking me out a little bit. But it needed have! She was such a pro!!

 

I got up early and fed her and bathed her and we hauled over to Chatt. I parked by the XC course and turned her fans on and took the e-bike and zoomed through my course walk twice while she waited patiently. The course looked super fun. It was her kind of course... lots and lots of big tables! And most of it was fairly gallopy. There were two combinations that were on the smaller side, but good combinations. One of the combinations was an "alley oop" type jump... there was a coop down in the gulley up against a tree and slightly angled into the tree line. The out was another smallish cabin on top of the slight hill that was offset. So.. not that tricky but the terrain and line made it a bit more complicated than a simple in and out. The other combination was a full coffin. Except they flagged it as 7A and 7 B, and then 8, but it was related enough that it would have been hard to circle before 8. And it was an open oxer, two strides (I think) to the ditch with a tree on the side of it, and then an angled line to a sharkstooth. The water was a simple in and out but there was a table a few strides before and a few strides after. And then there was some hilly terrain questions after the water. I wasn't too worried about it, except... the combinations. Mostly because if she peeked at the ditch, we might be in trouble and then the first combination was just... weird, so... I wasn't sure if she was going to be squirrely about it. I figured she'd be fine with most of the tables, but the stone wall was on course and she's had a beef with that before. Especially coming down the hill to it. So.. there was a little bit of eeeks going on. 

  

After that I loaded the e-bike back up and we hauled up to the barns and checked in. I found a lovely parking spot on the tree line in the shade overlooking the hills and arenas. And then realized they had added washracks there. Lovely!! So much better than hauling water around. I unloaded her and let her munch on some grass and then she stood tied to the trailer like a pro. I went down and figured out the stadium course too. It looked fun, but I didn't get to walk it. I just got to watch a few riders. And I ran into Mackenzie and Sadie which was fun. Then it was time to get ready for dressage.

 

We got tacked up and headed over to warm up. She was a tiny bit sassy but she settled fairly quickly and was quite decent. Eventually. Ha! But really, she started out better than previously and it didn't take too long for her to be lovely. Jacel was helpful and had me do lots of suppling work. We did figure 8 ten meter circles. Our "snowmen" to get her loose and bendy. And then we did some trot to canter to trot to canter to trot transitions and those got super smooth and lovely and she was in a good rhythm and balance as soon as she did the downward vs twenty steps later. I had to think "immediately underpowered and underpaced" to get it, but it worked. When I stayed upright and rode with my core and my belly buttonpointed to the inside, and softened the inside rein, she was quite nice. Whoo hoo!! And like all my horses, the more I rode her slow and rocked back, the better her gaits are. We took a few breaks and picked her back up and of course, I had to resettle her. But it got quicker each time.

 

We headed down to the arenas and I probably should have picked her back up and put her to work sooner than I did, but I wasn't sure if I was going to get in trouble for warming up. I tried to do a few transitions and some smaller circles but she had gotten a little amped up again. Then it was our turn. Our test wasn't too bad really, but there were definitely some not so great moments. I was trying to lift her into my downwards... but I guess I wasn't prepared early enough because I felt like I had to really ask hard to get her to actually do the downward so then she braced against me. (And flung her haunches out, which later.. I realized was because I closed all the doors so her energy had to go somewhere). And my geography was off a bit. My one circle was too big... And our stretchy trot sort of sucked. Ha. Now anything but a 10 is a disappointment. The stretchy walk was better but still not as good as she has done. And our halt was fussy. Oh well. The judge scored us a 38, which.. felt a little harsh. Especially after I watched the video. I really was kind of pleased with what I saw. I sent it to Liz and she said that I should be really quite proud of that test. So yay! Of course the 38 put us last. Sixth of six. And the first place girl had a low 20 something, so... dang... she could almost have a stop and still beat me. Which.. is a little depressing. But, I'm still proud of Funny and we are improving. It'll score better eventually. 

   

I stuck around for Mackenzie's test, which was two riders after me.. and then the girl after her was the only one in the arena's, so I stuck around for her test. Funny was grazing so she was a happy camper and didn't mind. Then we walked back to the trailer and I hosed her off but at that point, I pretty much had to get tacked up for stadium. I did change my shirt to match the jump pad so she wasn't soaking wet still. We headed to warm up and Jacel said she'd meet me as soon as she finished dressage on the one she was riding. But they were running late so she didn't even go til after we had jumped. But no worries. I warmed up and just tried to do all the things Jacel always tells me. And it seemed to work. Funny was jumping great. She was jumping big and took a flier or two, but she was game and bold and mostly listening. So then it was our turn. The course was the usual big spread out course, but the jumps didn't look that big at all. She was pretty good and jumped nice and bold and going. I picked to the third fence so we had one rail. That course is so open and long that it invites a long strung out stride. Especially on a horse like Funny. I didn't package her as much as I should have, but she tends to jump pretty well from the long spots and the jumps weren't huge, so we managed just fine, other than that one rail. 

 

At that point we had an hour before XC, but... I never know how long it takes to hack all the way down there. So we went back to the trailer and I put the halter on over the bridle and got my vest on and added her XC boots. And offered her some water. She said no.. of course. Then I got on and we hacked down to the XC start. We even stopped and said hi to the giant spider fence. Hee hee. One day!! One day Funny...  We got down to the warm up and she got a bit squirrely and balky but eventually we made it to the warm up. And of course we had to wait forever!!! But they did let me go first even though I was supposed to be 4th or 5th of my division. She warmed up decently and we jumped a few because we kept waiting so long and she had been sitting. Or grazing. But it was finally our turn and off we went. And she was brilliant!!! She clocked around that course like a table eating machine! We had a fair amount of flyers. Ha ha. Of course. But she didn't look at anything. The first combination I had planned to ride her almost into the bushes, ie.. left to right. My thinking was that if I rode that way, she would be less likely to run out left which is where the terrain invited her to. So we did that. And I'm not exactly sure what happened but there was a low lying branch on the right side and I suspect that as she landed, the branch touched her foot because suddenly she almost spun 90 degrees and spooked. Or maybe she slipped? I don't know. But she turned around almost enough that she jumped the B sideways. I kind of pulled her over it, but bless her she did it. She jumped everything else great, including the ditch! She just locked on and went and then zeroed in on the out! The water was fine and she totally cantered right into and out of it. She balanced down the hill nicely and jumped smoothly over the stone wall! We were heading for home and I was like... "wow, that was really fun and it feels like we are done too soon... did we miss a fence??". But nope.. we got them all. And didn't even get a speeding ticket. Yay! We were actually pretty close to optimum, which... is interesting as I didn't feel like I took super long lines and didn't "rein her in". But she also was just clocking around professionally instead of having way too much fun. 

   

So we ended up finishing 4th, but only because one girl retired and the other girl got technically eliminated. Doh! Oh well. It was still a win because she improved our dressage (even if the scores didn't agree), and was ridable in stadium and then clocked around a tough cross country course without having ran the course the day before. So yahoo!!! I think we're ready for the Novice 3 Day! (Granted, it's not til November so we have plenty of time to get fitter, improve our dressage, and our stadium, etc, but... she's feeling confident and educated enough on XC now). I'm so proud of her!!

 

 

On the walk back up from XC, I had hopped off, loosened her girth, gave her a rinse on her chest and belly, and then pulled my vest and helmet and hair net off. When I did that I lost my hair tie. It was hot and I wanted to put my hair back up so I stopped and was bent down looking for it. It was hot pink.. how hard would it be to find? It took me a minute of wandering around with my head towards the ground, circling, and then Funny stepped on it but wouldn't pick her foot up so I was trying to get her to move when I heard "Are you okay""?..... "HOLLY are you okay"!? Ha ha. Marian had walked up and thought I was neurological or something. ha ha... Nope.. just blind. ;) But I got my pony tail holder and we had a nice chat. 

We  got back to the trailer and she just started to run out of shade. But there was a nice enough breeze. I untacked her, hosed her, let her drink from the hose, and then she stood tied nicely and munched hay while I reorganized and got packed up. And then I went and got some food and my test and my ribbon. And a carrot. She was just chilling when I got back. SUPER GOOD PONY! For all the reasons. So then we loaded up and headed home and she got to enjoy the rest of the evening! Which was beautiful!