Cob Jockey

Today we leave for Waterloo. And the packing, OMG, the packing.

Part of the reason I felt like it was necessary to do Waterloo was that I need to practice traveling for long and far away shows before Pony Cup. We haven't traveled away from home for a show since the last time I did Pony Cup in 2017, and we haven't shown five hours away from home or done a four day show trip since Fox River Valley in 2016.

 

Fox River Valley. Eventing this horse was such a f****** adventure, lol.

As a result, I've lulled myself into this false sense of security about things like packing and laundry. When you live 20 minutes from the show grounds, you can come home and wash your whites in between rides and it's not the end of the world if you forget your grain at the barn. When you're five hours away from home...yeah.

Like, who knew you needed to own more than one show shirt?

And more than one pair of white breeches.

And a cooler. (We've been married a decade and somehow have never owned a proper cooler?)

 

Filled with the proper horse show supplies, naturally

This is also the furthest I've ever hauled by myself, so the truck is got an oil change and a bumper-to-bumper inspection complete with photos of consumable parts from my favorite shop, and two new automotive fire extinguishers.

We're as ready as I'll ever be! Now, if only I felt this prepared about riding 2-2...

It's hard for me to make a yearly schedule, because where I go completely depends on what everyone else wants to do, since we travel as a unit, sharing the trailer and my trainer.  Every year, my trainer puts all the events that are feasible for us to attend on her Google calendar, and we decide as a group where we're going.

Road trip!!!!!!!

This year, I intend to do:

- 4 rated events at BN
- 1-2 of those rated events maxed out in height for the level
- 1 schooling event, just because
- As many schooling jumper and Dressage shows as I can get a ride to, which is probably 0.

When my trainer asked what my plans for the year were, I told her I was looking at a couple of easy BN's we hadn't been to before, which is when she said we didn't need easy, and that I should look at doing maxed out stuff later in the year.  I could feel her just about to say something about that preparing us for an eventual (really eventual...) move up to Novice, but she stopped herself.  That's something we need to keep in the back of our minds, but not discuss until he's quietly going around a BN course.

The following events are on the barn's calendar as "possible".  We won't go to all of them, but I'd love to know if any of you are planning on being at these events!

May 1-3: Penny Oaks Horse Trials (Hoosier Horse Park, Edinburgh, IN)

Penny Oaks 2014, Starter

June 13-14: Queeny Park Horse Trials (St. Louis, MO)

June 19-21: Midsouth (Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, KY)

June 19-21: Fox River Valley Pony Club Horse Trials (Barrington Hills Saddle Club, Barrington, IL)

This one is so much fun because my mom grew up in that area, and I have 4 sets of aunts/uncles/cousins, her 3 best friends, Mary, and another college friend of mine that all live up there and came out to watch.  Definitely want to do it again, even though it's a long haul for us at 5 hours.  Unfortunately, it doesn't have Starter, which means half the team couldn't go.

August 7-8: Otter Creek Horse Trials (Somewhere in Wisconsin) (This one would be awesome, because it's in Mary's territory and she will be there with her CWD booth.)

August 20-23: Richland Horse Trials (Somewhere in Michigan) (I can't go to this if Nicole qualifies for the CrossFit Games again)

And let's be honest, I would totally choose being alone in a room with Rich Froning and Nicole again over going to Richland...

September 11-13: Flying Cross Horse Trials (Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, KY)

September 25-27: Jump Start Horse Trials (Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, KY)

This one was just fun, and I was so happy to be able to stay on the grounds with my parents in their RV!

October 22-25: Hagyard Midsouth Three-day Event & Team Challenge (Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, KY)

Any excuse to show at the KHP...

We've never done this one before, but my trainer suggested it as a good maxed out end to our season.

Midwestern eventers, any plans to attend any of these?

In the comments of my RIP GDHT post, Abigail said she enjoyed hearing about our first event, and that she'd like to read more of our early show recaps.  I've decided to replace my show results page (in the top navigation bar) with this.  Being able to read the posts that I wrote during the shows means a whole lot more than just seeing what place we finished.  The numbers only say so much in the journey of a green horse.

Photo by Gingereventer Photography

What's next?

Well, in my related personal life, my husband's contract with the NCAA ended last month, so he's once again not bringing in a paycheck.  Ergo, I'm skipping what would have been our next event (Leg Up on the 5th), and the show jumping/XC schooling weekend the IEA is putting on this weekend.  It's a bummer, but it's also set a fire in me to break this contract/unemployment cycle by doing what's in my own power to end it.  More on that soon, hopefully.

St. Louis Cardinals game (baseball heaven!) June 2014

The sad part is, that schooling event at the Hoosier Horse Park this weekend ($7/SJ round on Saturday, as many rounds as you want, with each level going at a specified time, flat rate for XC on Sunday.  Really cool concept!) is exactly what Connor needs.  Oh well, such is life!  This is what I got out of Fox River Valley:

Dressage: Keep on keepin' on.  The warmup is working for both his brain and his body, I need to spend more time in the actual Dressage arena and learn how to ride a corner, but otherwise, very happy here.

Totally delighted with his Dressage!

XC: This needs to get safer.  Jumping a table from a standstill is impressive, but not okay.  While the thought has crossed my mind that maybe he's too much of a chicken to safely take XC, I also know that he jumps more confidently/like a normal XC horse (read: across the fence, and not from a standstill) on the second half of every course, which leads me to think he just needs miles.  Many, many miles. Time penalties will shake themselves out when we start, you know, jumping the fences from the canter instead of stopping at each one.

Fence 13, jumping totally normally by this point in the course.

SJ: We need to slow everything down for him, so he has time to process the chaos around him, especially in new places and smaller rings.  I am going to heavily lean on my trainer for ideas here.  His warmup being so good and quiet, and his actual round being so crazy, I know I need techniques for dealing with this in-the-moment.

But the height is no problemo.  That feels good.


Overall?  We are seriously done forever with Starter, and that feels GOOD!

My mom grew up riding H/J in Chicago, and I still have tons of relatives and friends up there: aunts, uncles, cousins, women that are basically aunts, college roommates...definitely not a show I needed a hotel room for!

Photo credit to my amazing mom and her awesome camera skills (you should see how worn her Canon Rebel XTi is on the grip, it's in her hand so much).  She took a ton of pictures of not only me and my rides, but my teammates as well!

My mom's best friend Dawn (best friends since age 2!) and her horse loving niece (who has just taken two lessons so far) Sarah.

My mom's childhood friend Laura telling Connor he was a good boy after Dressage.

Connor asking my mom who this crazy lady is!

My groom - she wanted to take him the second I got off every ride!

My college roommate and accomplished Dressage rider Teegan.

True love!  Dawn recently retired her heart horse to a gorgeous retirement farm 6 hours away in Kentucky.

Also true love, and an equestrian being born!  She didn't say much, but gazed at Connor with stars in her eyes all weekend.

Grooming team post XC!

My uncle Scott and three year old cousin Larkin.

Laura's twin sister, Linda, also a horse person and my mom's childhood friend.

Connor loving on Larkin.

Linda and Larkin.

See?  True love.

Teaching Larkin where to stand and where to pet the pony.

Me and my mom

Uncle Scott and Larkin, my Aunt Carrie and my cousin Jaden.

He was totally interested in her.  Why?  She had been eating a Clif Bar, his favorite food.  Made for some good pictures.

Teegan, Connor's aunt Mary (repping her new employer!) and me.  Three of the four suitemates from my sophomore year.

Connor and I had a lot to put behind us on Sunday morning.  Like, the previous night's tornado warning and thunderstorm:

Not what you want to see heading for tent stabling.

which resulted in some Novice competitors galloping about a mile from XC warmup and hiding in the indoor, which was set up for the competitors' party (sponsored by Whole Foods, mmm mmm):

Those horses were saints.

And, no pictures of this, but I arrived on Sunday morning to find our aisle totally trashed - my little plastic tack trunk flipped over, my show pads stepped on, Connor's breakfast eaten, a haybale totally destroyed.  A competitor's horse had gotten out and had a party.

But, the course looked fun and easy, and we got right to work in the warmup.  It was the first time that Connor got a little flustered with horses coming up behind and around him, very chaotic, but he held it together and we were jumping beautifully.  Seeing distances, focused on each other, taking 2'6 oxers like they were nothing.  We were eating them up!  I was ready.

...and then we got in the ring itself, and Connor's little brain just completely melted out of his ears.  Not one single gerbil left up there.

Trainer: "You rode really well for him only giving you about 30% of his brain cells."

It was a new place, a much smaller ring than our usual haunts, and people had lined the ring to watch the first few rides go to see how the course was riding.  Connor lost his marbles.  But he jumped well, despite skittering to one side and then the other as we approached every fence.

This picture pretty much sums up the round.

We ended up having a rail at 2, and it was entirely my fault.  He jumped like a wild man at 1, then we rolled back to 2 on the rail, and he broke and I picked up the canter too close to the fence and he was cross-cantering, but I had no time to fix it.  He clipped it with a hind foot, no wonder.  But if we had trotted, he almost certainly would have refused in the state of mind he's in (too much time to think about things other than the fence) and I'd much rather have a rail than a refusal.

The offending fence 2

While the rail took me out of the ribbons (and who cares, this being both horse and rider's first BN!  I was just thrilled to complete it!), the round was very valuable to me.

- The height, 2'7, is no big deal to me or him.  That feels amazing.
- Just two months ago, his brain was like this in Dressage.  I need to work on ways to slow time down for his brain in the actual ring for SJ, knowing he's going to be foot-perfect in schooling and warmup.
- Don't jump from a cross-canter.
- He is going to go over whatever I point him at, and he'll clear it, even if it's not pretty.
- I need to use the same techniques I use for Dressage to get his focus on me and cut through his mental chaos.

So proud!

I'll have video from this in a few days!