Running I ETS

This last weekend, TC and I competed in our very first ETS! 

ETS stands for Equine Trail Sports and it's basically a way more formal version of the ranch competitions we did last year that TC loved so much. 

We ended up just going up for the in hand class on Saturday, it was super hot and staying overnight ended up being a bit too much to deal with given how my work schedule has been. But it was super worth a long day trip (and TC and I have recovered from it)! 

Hanging with friends! Peep Peony's adorable baby
horse Goose on the end

Since I assume a lot of people who read this blog are here from the glory days of dressage, I'm going to quickly go over what an ETS entails, at least the in hand class. Apologies if I make this even more confusing. 

There were eight obstacles and each obstacle had three levels to choose from. Level 1 was the most basic and Level 3 was the most advanced. Each level is worth the corresponding number of points. To qualify for the Novice division, you need 8 to 11 points, intermediate is 12 to 18 (I think maybe 19) points, and Advanced is 19 to 24 points. You can get 8 points by doing Level 1 for all eight obstacles. You can get 24 points by doing Level 3 for all eight obstacles. 

For each obstacle, regardless of the Level you do, you get a rider score and a horse score out of ten. Then your level is a multiplier, so if you do Level 1 really really well and get a 10/10 on both, that'll be way better than doing Level 2 terribly and getting a 2/10 on both horse and rider scores despite Level 2 having a multiplier. 

They differentiate between horse and rider so that if your horse is perfect and you're screaming like a banshee, they can give your horse a good score and you a bad score. Or if you're perfect but your horse is screaming like a banshee, they can give you a good score and your horse a bad score. If you're both terrible or both great, you can get the same score. 

So there's some strategy to it! We competed in the Novice division, so I aimed to do five obstacles at Level 1 (5 points) and three obstacles at level 2 (6 points) for a total of 11 points.

Went on a walk around the property

We arrived in time to watch the first round of horses and have a friend go over the course with me. Then it was our turn! Here were the obstacles in the order that we did them:

Pedestal (Cross over obstacle)

We opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle and it was a bad idea. For Level 1, you had to get both of your horse's front feet on the pedestal and then have them step off of it. Given that TC likes to stand on things, I think we would have scored better if we'd done Level 1. But I had a tough time deciding what to do, and Level 2 had you walk straight over it. I figured TC would be fine walking over it and I was wrong. We attempted twice but he only managed to get his front feet on it and then straddled it with his hind feet (it was VERY narrow). Oh well! 

For this one, we got a 4/10 for me and a 4/10 for TC for a total of 8 points. The multiplier took that 8 to a 10.40. 

I took *very* shitty pictures the whole day, oh
well, but this is the pedestal

Ring (Turn on the forehand)

Filled with dread when there were options for TC to stand on things that he wasn't supposed to stand on, we decided to just do Level 1 for this obstacle. There was a tiny metal square we had to put his front feet in and then we just had to do a 180 degree turn on the forehand. 

In true TC fashion, he stepped on the sides of the square (it was totally safe, just annoying) but he did do it less than I thought he would! So we ended up with a 5/10 for both of us for a total of 10 points. No multiplier because it was Level 1. 

Watching the competition from his day pen, he was
immediately destructive, apparently he hasn't
outgrown wanting to dig holes and climb
pipe panels yet

Teeter Totters (Cross over obstacle)

I was certain that TC and I could do Level 2 or even Level 3 with any teeter totter obstacle. He is a star when it comes to standing on things, after all. But both Level 2 and 3 used the BIG teeter totter and he's never been on one that giant. I decided that day was not the day to push it and so we opted for Level 1, which was just to walk across the teeter totter. 

TC was absolutely perfect and we both got a 10/10 for a total of 20 points! 

You can kind of see the teeter totter behind the judge

Sidepass 'T' (Sidepass)

TC somehow learned to side pass like a BOSS in the last few years. Like I didn't expect this. I think the belly tickler from the ranch competitions helped him? I don't know. He went years being kind of awful at side passing and now he's so good at it and let me tell you, we did not work on it. 

So I opted to do Level 2 for this obstacle. It was three logs in the shape of a capital T. For Level 2, we had to side pass over half the top of the T facing the bottom part, then at the intersection, do a turn on the forehand and side pass over the bottom part of the T. 

TC did want to stand on the logs instead of side passing, so I ended up having to do a lot of management, reducing our scores to 8/10 for both of us. Because of the multiplier, we got a 20.80. So you can see how even if we'd gotten a 10/10 for both of us for Level 1, doing Level 2 but getting an 8/10 ended up being better points-wise! 

LOL my favorite picture of TC and
Goose

Bridge (Cross over obstacle)

I was unsure of whether to do Level 1 or Level 2 for this. The bridge was quite high off the ground, and Level 1 was just putting your front feet on it and then backing off, while Level 2 was halting in the middle of the bridge. I didn't trust TC's sense of self preservation to not fall off the bridge if he had to stop forward motion, so I opted for Level 1. We each got a 10/10 for a total score of 20.00. 

And you can see the teal bridge, also my horse's
chonky belly

Get on your Soapbox (Forward movement)

For this obstacle, we had to stand on a mattress and send the horse around us. Level 1 was just in walk and Level 2 was at the trot. Level 2 also involved halting for 3 seconds and then bringing the horse toward us. Well, oops. I forgot about that part. But we did do Level 2 and TC was PERFECT and the judge said "you can put him in my trailer any day," but still gave us a 4/10 for each of us because I didn't do the obstacle properly. Oops! Sorry TC! Total score was 10.40. 

Bright and early at the gas station!
Literally the worst pictures

The Narrow Path (Forward movement)

This was another one where anything beyond Level 1 was going to be ridiculous.  There was an L shaped pathway with big metal logs on each side of it. At first I thought it was a rein back obstacle and I think TC would actually be really good at that. But nope, Level 1 you had to walk your horse through it, Level 2 you had to trot your horse through it.

I need to work on trotting TC in hand, he is not a candidate for a breed show. Every time I trot him in hand (not longeing, just alongside him), he thinks it's the most hilarious game and usually leaps into the air, strikes out, and then tries to snatch at me. It does not help matters that I laugh at him every time. So we opted for Level 1. We got a 10/10 each for a total of 20 points. 

We did get a cute picture of them too

Tunnel (Cross under)

Remember that covered wagon from last obstacle show? Imagine that, darker, with logs inside of it, and ANIMAL PELTS ON THE WALLS. 

This is where this sport is sold for me. When we were walking in, TC saw one of these animal pelts for the first time, it was hanging on the gate. He *lost it* and was snorting with his neck all arched and his entire body rigid. We were blocking the way and I quickly tried to shuffle him out of the way (he would not move) to let some people in and some people out. The people trying to come in said "don't worry about it, my horse is going to have the same reaction, just let him get used to it" and the people trying to come out said "oh, it's okay, we are in no rush, let him work through it" and then the judge yelled over to me "you can let him smell it, it's pretty scary if they haven't seen that before!" 

Like literally he'd be judged on his tolerance of these things in the tunnel (which is why I saved it for last) and everyone was so kind about letting me do my clicker training. And the judge still gave me a 10/10 and him a 9/10 when we did the obstacle, despite her watching me clicker train it earlier. Like, wow. This sport is so much "for the horse" and I just love it. I've definitely been told multiple times to "not let him do that" when TC has been nervous at dressage shows. 

Anyway, 19 points to round us out (Level 2 was like, turning around and doing it again and I forget what Level 3 was, we obviously did Level 1). 

The dreaded tunnel

I ended up heading out before I knew what we'd gotten but the next morning, the scores were posted! We got 130.60 overall and that was good enough for THIRD PLACE (out of twelve!!). I am SO PROUD OF HIM. This was our first rated show in this new-to-both-of-us discipline and he was such a star. 

Like, I can't believe this is the same horse who was a chronic bolter and was so spooky. I still remember writing this hilarious post about things I hated because of him. Going to those bombproofing clinics out of desperation eventually led us to this amazing discipline. I'm glad to have something to work towards that isn't dressage. 

Why you house the horse? Horse
hates to be housed

We have two schooling shows coming up and then we'll be back in the rated ring in July. We're definitely camping overnight - a family friend has a solar powered electric fence I can use to keep him contained! I cannot wait, and I think TC is excited for the next one too!

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 2

Here's part 2 of our fun at the obstacle play day! Last we left off, we were halfway through the course and the horse had only just started to calm the fuck down. 

Walking Over Logs

There was a woman in the course walk who was pointing out how unfair this log pile was for short horses to walk over. And another woman pointed out that there are obstacles that were unfair for large horses too. TC conquered the log pile easily with his giant feet and big stride. I had a moment of thinking he might get claustrophobic in there and try to jump out, but he was pretty relaxed by this point in the course. 

Most of the time it isn't great to have a large horse
for these shows but for this obstacle it was

Standing On a Tire

But then the next obstacle involved him having to stand on a platform (a filled-in tire) and he is so giant that it felt like sitting on an elephant who was standing on a ball. He didn't quite understand that I wanted all his feets on the tiny tire but he did make an effort and I took it and praised him quite a lot

These are not large

Photo Booth

This was such a cute obstacle, they had us stand off to the side and get some pictures of the other riders on course. TC was an absolute pro and pretty smug about it. 

Had to catch this smug horse when I put my phone
away and he thought I might have cookies

We had another minute to wait but TC had settled in finally. We hung out until the next judge was ready for us. 

Ring Toss

We had to trot around some plants with a hula hoop and then stop and toss the hula hoop over one of the plants. TC was fine with the hula hoop and the tossing, he did some head shaking in the trot but I think by this point he'd settled enough to not murder me. Excellent. 

I love it, I will eat it - TC

Not fussed

Windmill

I forgot to say that it was kind of cold and windy this day so when we had to side pass around a little windmill, I didn't know how TC would handle it. Would he spook? Apparently not. He didn't spook, but I've never had to hold a horse back from stuffing his face into actual whirling blades. He was ADAMANT that he poke it with his nose and I was like... my friend... this is a metal windmill. 

Begging me to let him touch it

Duck Pond

This last obstacle was ADORABLE! We had to take a net and fish two little rubber ducks out of the makeshift pond with it. I picked up the net and TC was NOT okay with it for some reason. WTF. I have carried around my archery stuff with him, carried around my tripod, carried around a shrieking toddler... but a pvc pipe with a little net on the end? Terrifying. What was even more terrifying were the ducks. I did NOT expect him to spook but as I grabbed for my ducks, he sat down and ran backwards. I stuffed the net in front of his nose and he was like OH THE DUCKS OF COURSE and calmed right down. But I only got one duck, oh well! 

Skeptical about the net

Very concerned about the ducks in the net

I walked him out and as per usual, the horse is a celebrity. I think he just sticks out like a sore thumb and has this super chaotic-good type of personality. I got a lot of compliments with how I handled the duck situation too, which was really nice. The vibe is so different than at dressage shows, I'm kind of getting used to how friendly everyone is. I am definitely the kind of person you have to come up to and force your friendliness on, especially lately with work being so insane, I've needed way more alone time than usual. But everyone was so sweet and easy to talk to! 

I took him back to the trailer to hang out after letting him graze a lot while chatting with the person who won the advanced division the day before! He and his horse have been doing this for 18 years together! And his horse is Rico's age, 27! I think Rico would have loved the obstacle shows, maybe I'll let him play with some of the obstacles I'm making for TC at home. 

Back at the trailer, I ate some lunch and TC told me all about how much it hurts his soul to be tied to a trailer with a hay bag. He got a lot of carrots for his suffering. The woman next to me came back and we chatted about how it went, she does some pretty cool western stuff that went over my head and I just kind of gestured to my pawing machine and was like "yeah this thing was a bolter in his youth so I signed him up for bombproofing clinics to try to chill him out but instead I just discovered that the only thing he likes more than bolting is chaos so now I bring him to these events?"

Making sure the ducks are safe

I then decided to take TC on a walk to give him a break from the horrible plight of being tied for twenty minutes. It was lunch time, so we got to explore the part of the property that wasn't being used for the competition. There were some bridges and steps that we walked over and TC was REALLY EXCITED that obstacle time wasn't over. The first bridge he flung himself onto in a really dramatic way.  Then he actually took off trotting and dragged me over another bridge that he promptly ate shit trying to get onto. He did this several more times before I finally got him under control. 

We even ran into another person who does clicker training, I apologized because her horse was looking at me like he wanted to get paid too. But it's so cool to just casually run into other clicker training people in the wild. I really love this sport. 

I used the clicker to help him learn how to do the teeter totter backwards for the first time! Stepping up on the tall side and bringing it down. I was super proud of him for that! He also walked over a suspension bridge for the first time. He thought hard about jumping onto me (I was to the side) but then thought better of it and continued. 

Your life is the worse (he had water
but was flinging it all over so I took it
down for a bit)

Trails through the campground!

I also decided to walk over to the campground to see how it looked. It's SUCH a nice campground! There are four little pipe pens to every picnic table/campsite and most of them were accessible enough to get your truck and/or entire rig near. I'm definitely going to camp next time we do something like this. TC thought it was great and had a blast walking through the more wooded area. 

I stayed a little longer to watch some more of the competition and say goodbye to everyone. I wasn't going to wait the entire day for the awards. I figured we'd been last in our division due to my animal being so feral. It didn't bother me though, I'm glad we challenged ourself with the Intermediate division and I'm glad we had this outing before we head to our first real ETS this weekend. 

Look how cute these campsites are! This one was
a bit overgrown (didn't want to post pictures of
peoples' setups)

It was great to see how he was at a brand new facility for the first time... I guess since October, but still. It was also great to get my rig out for an outing before hauling a lot longer. And it was good to see how TC did over obstacles he'd never seen before. 

We'll definitely try to make the next one of these! And hopefully we'll be camping next time too! I got a few more things to make my trailer camping situation even more comfortable. Hopefully this will be the last year I camp out of it because at the top of my list is to buy a camper for my truck so that I can do more comfortable horse camping adventures. 

SCCHA Obstacle Play Day Pt 1

At the last minute, I signed up for a schooling show! It was perfect timing because we'll be competing for real at this facility in July and we also have our first official ETS this weekend. The horse hasn't done obstacles since last fall and we haven't traveled much since then either. 

It was so fun!

It ended up being a great day! My truck and trailer both needed new tires this spring, so that was a bummer for my bank account, but I'm glad I could stop worrying about their age. They felt great hauling over the hill in the morning to get to the facility. 

We got there about a quarter of the way through the course walk. I left TC in the torture chamber trailer and got us registered, then I walked the course. 

Look how cool this covered wagon is!

I had signed us up for Intermediate because Advanced sounded hard and Novice sounded easy. There were no descriptions, I just decided that arbitrarily. The Advanced was hard but even the Novice was no joke! These are some hardcore obstacle people in comparison to the local ranch competitions TC and I did last year. 

After walking the course and deciding that as long as TC didn't get too enthusiastic, it would be fine, I went to get him out of the trailer. He unloaded, saw the obstacles, and lost his ever loving mind wanting to go over to them. 

I took him on a walk around the property that wasn't blocked off for the event. I realized that this was going to be the first time we didn't get to practice the obstacles beforehand. Hmmm. TC tried very hard to yank me over to the obstacles and I had to drag him back to the trailer to tack him up. 

Why must the horse be contained

Now, there was definitely a lot of sass radiating out of this animal that made me realize that he was going to consider launching me so that he could get to the obstacles sooner. You'd think the best plan would be to ride him down, but this horse doesn't ride down or longe down. He just gets chock full of adrenaline and audacity and is an actual nightmare the more he does. This is the type of day where at home, I would have immediately turned him out and watch him gallop around and around. 

So I decided to not ride him. We did ground work and then I got on him about 3 minutes before I was supposed to go out on course. 

Except that the judge wasn't ready so we had to stand and wait pace in small circles because someone thought that standing still may require rearing, which I think is a feeling he's learned that he can give me so that he can keep moving. 

Reining Back Serpentine

Obviously the first obstacle included reining back, so we did not do particularly well on this one. Normally the horse is quite decent at reining back, but he was all bunched up and wanting to poke the obstacle we were reining back along. When I wouldn't let him, he figured his butt might be able to poke it, so he swung his hips around and then refused to do anything but walk directly backwards toward the obstacle. I had to take a step forward to get him to not hit the obstacle. But then he figured it out and it ended up okay. 

The first three obstacles

One Rein Weave

The next obstacle included weaving around plants while only holding onto one rein. I knew this was going to be tough since the horse doesn't neck rein and it turns out I should probably teach him. I ended up picking the wrong rein. I decided that I loved pulling on the left rein that I may as well use that one. Except the first obstacle was to the left so when we went to turn back away from it, he was like nah and tried to drag me to it so he could finally touch it. At least he didn't snatch a plant like this one horse did, it was so cute!

Side Pass Speed Bump

For some reason, there was a tiny speed bump headed into a grob, which had some water in it and was fenced off. We were to straddle the bump and side pass across it. The horse is shockingly good at side passing for an animal who was convinced that his legs would get permanently tangled if he ever went sideways as a young horse. But what he is not good at is ground textures, they elicit a lot of skepticism. When I did finally get him over it, he thought I might want him to jump the fence into the grob and I probably overreacted like NO YOU WILL NOT BE JUMPING THAT and he sat back like I TOLD YOU THE SPEED BUMP WAS DANGEROUS and put himself back on the safe side. We did eventually get through the obstacle though! 

Hated this thing, there were too many different
ground types

Step Up & Turn

We had to wait for a little bit after the speed bump, so we walked in small circles trying to get him to stop trying to mow down the competition so he could do more obstacles. There are always a few obstacles that remind me how gigantic my horse is. This was one of them. We had to walk up the soft side of a bank complex and then stand on top and turn around. Now, my animal is not an event horse, but at the very top of the bank complex he was certainly ready to leap off the (very small) double down bank and head off to Kentucky. But I did somehow get him turned around and he walked back down pretty quietly. 

Descriptions!

Covered Wagon

We had to walk over these narrow logs heading toward this big covered wagon made out of two gate panels and I guess some netting? It was super cool. The logs proved to be very confusing to TC, who is wide enough at his base to step to the side of each log, which was hilarious and not the point of the obstacle, I will be getting small logs to practice over. He then is a very claustrophobic horse, so I was SO PROUD of him for walking through the covered wagon and not losing his shit about it, especially on a day like this day where he didn't have a lot of shit to lose. 

Concerned horse, but he was so good!

Barrel Roll

I thought this would be a shoe-in for this horse, but it turns out his chaotic nature was dialed up and about a third of the way down the chute for the barrel, he thought it was hilarious to twist the barrel around, which is how he plays with poles in the arena. I didn't want to give up (or have him think that the point of barrels is to twist them) so I had him shove the barrel down sideways. He thought that was kind of stupid because why shove the barrel down when you can stand on the logs that are containing it? Or on the barrel itself which I had to yell "NO" at him lest he squash their barrel and/or hurt himself. 

Before he twisted the barrel

But by this point, he was pretty relaxed and having a great time. But this post is getting insanely long, so I'll post the second half of the course and day tomorrow!

Another Leadline Adventure

The kiddo did her second ever leadline show this weekend and it was again, SO ADORABLE. 

This one was a small, very casual show hosted by the resident pony club at Kate's barn. I didn't pay much attention to the main ring, I wasn't riding, but it looked really well run and everyone had a blast!

I did, however, pay attention to the trail class, which doubled as the leadline class. It was all set up in a small ring with seven obstacles. The first was to weave through cones, then to pick up a bean bag and put it into a muck bucket. Then opening a gate. Picking up a flag and putting it in a cone. Taking a letter to a mailbox, halting and reining back in a line of poles, and standing on a tarp. 

TC would have dominated. And by dominated I mean destroyed half the obstacles trying to make everyone laugh. Glad he wasn't invited. He'll do an obstacle show in early April! 

How unbelievably cute is the show outfit?

Miss Kate was very kind to lend us Elrond, who was far more suitable to the class than Sunny Horse who has honestly been mildly neglected by me this fall due to being busy at work. He is getting a much deserved winter off from being ridden by the kid as well, she is riding double with me sometimes but I'm trying to let him chill a bit. He thinks she's a *lot* to deal with. 

Elrond thought she was great though. The worst thing she did was practice her posting, which is still a bit erratic and overenthusiastic. And all he had to do was walk incredibly slowly and decide that standing on the tarp was unacceptable despite standing on it earlier when one of Kate's kids took him through the course to make sure he would do everything. Best day ever. 

Walking over to get her borrowed pony

And it was for her too! She got a RIBBON. A rainbow ribbon. And she was once again the star of the show with everyone wanting to talk to her and ask her what her name was and how old she was, to which she'd say things like "I drove here in my black car" or "this is Elrond, Miss Kate's pony" or "I have bows" which are at least true, given that at the last show she told everyone that Flounder was her pony. 

My brother and sister in law (and littlest niece) had the best time too. They asked how many of these we can do a year and when the next one was. I said well, the show season is over unless you want to winter in southern California or Florida, which seems a bit much for a leadline kid. But we'll definitely be back in the spring. My littlest niece (4 months old) thought the whole show was a blast, I've never seen her smile so much! Pony kid number two, excellent, my master plan is slowly coming into effect. 

Flounder the Lead Line Horse

So, when I saw all the little kids at the show in May, I started planting the seed that my niece could do her first horse show at the October show. 

Luckily for me, the kid is still unbelievably horse crazy, so on Friday midday, my brother, dad, and older niece drove down to the show! 

LOOK AT HER BOWS

The kid was immediately in her element. She knew she was there to show Flounder and wanted to do it immediately rather than waiting the excruciating 24 hours until the leadline on Saturday afternoon.

She spent all of Friday afternoon watching the various rings, pointing out which horses looked like the horses at the ranch, and learning all about different colors and markings from me. My brother even asked some questions about the different types of sports and what was going on. And my dad was an old pro, keeping track of the horses in the hunter derby and saying things such as "I think this is our winner back for the handy, this one got an 83 in the first round, oh wait, no I think there was one that got an 87, so this one is in second place so far" um okay wow dad.

Saturday morning they came out to watch me in my classes. I got so much clapping from the kid and after every class (I had three), she got to hop on Flounder and ride him back to the barn. She whined a little bit but was mostly really good about being patient and watching the show. Luckily there were some great areas for kids, she found our Halloween decorations really fun to play with and she also got to run around in a grass field above the show while we watched it. 

Watching the hunter derby

Literally so much in her element

Eventually it was time to get her ready. She got her breeches on (which I didn't know would happen, she likes to wear patterned leggings and call them breeches, but I think she saw that everyone was wearing tan breeches), we put her paddock boots on, got her garter straps (which I had to punch holes in lol she's so tiny) on. 

My sister-in-law ordered a show shirt and bows for her hair. The show shirt will definitely fit for a long time, it was fairly big on her! We had some time so we went over to the tack shop and found a belt that matched her show shirt. The tack lady asked her about horses and I've never heard the kid so talkative to strangers. She talked to everyone at that show, told them about Flounder and her Sunny Horse back at home too. 

I have no others without her face in
them so here's me again

Look at this fish!

Finally she let me braid her hair, put in her bows, and we got her helmet on. We put her on Flounder and led her around a bit. I had my brother help my dad FaceTime my mom and my SIL (who was up taking care of her father with my youngest niece) so that they could see the leadline debut. 

Soon, it was time to go into the big jumper ring. She was one of three kids in the class and it was ADORABLE. There was a huge crowd because it was right before the speed stake. The kids got to walk around and one kid (who was older than her) trotted a little bit and immediately my niece was like I WANT TO TROT and we had to tell her no, you're two and this is not your horse. 

After walking around once or twice in each direction, we were called in to line up in front of the judge. The judge then asked each kid what their name was, what their pony's name was, and what color their pony was. 

Look at me looking for my next fence and not at
the ground where I will definitely end up one day

Definitely splurged on some pro photos!

My niece is two and a half. She was the youngest kid there and she got asked her questions first, which meant that her answers were hilarious. She didn't want to tell him her name, but she was very enthusiastic to tell him what Flounder's name was. In response to the question about Flounder's color, what came out sounded like "SunnyHorsepalominoAuntMimirideswithmeonmySunnyHorse" *deep breath* "Flounder is white and gray" 

Granted, we didn't practice Flounder's specific color so that was pretty close!

For her efforts, she got a big blue ribbon and a pink and white stuffed pony. We got a truly insane number of photographs of her AND we got video of the entire thing. My mom was so annoyed she didn't come down (it was on her, she was invited! But she thought the leadline would be boring, not like her daughter was also showing or anything...). 

Apparently when the kiddo got home, she told everyone she knew about her horse show and has been wearing her horse show belt with everything she owns. Amazing. She does her next leadline in a couple of weeks!

I love this one so much

I was going to write a third post but there's honestly not much more to report from this show! Unfortunately for me, there were no more pro classes for the rest of the weekend. But it was still fun! I stayed in the .80s and did one class both days (I was supposed to do two the first day but they.. eliminated... me...? It was fine, I got to do my second class). 

It was such a good time moving up and feeling so confident. I didn't have a panic attack, rode way better in the ring than expected, and had a blast the entire time.

The whole weekend was just amazing. I love my barn, I love my (technically not my but I like to dream) fish, I love my best friend, I love this sport, and I love having grooming! Can't wait for the next one!

Jumping Fish

WOW I am behind, so much has happened and I'm hoping I can use this week and the next week to catch up!

Catch up like Flounder and I catching up on time
in the jumper ring a few weeks ago!

It was good to be back!

Two weeks ago, we were at another hunter/jumper show! It came at such a great time, I was able to hand off all of my work and actually take a total of 4 days off of work (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday for a recovery day). I didn’t even bring my laptop down! 

I spent all day Tuesday preparing to hand off my projects and then managed to ride TC. Unfortunately over the weekend, my back injury got worse, so I ended up taking it easy on TC that day and then not riding him or the pony Wednesday before I left. I wanted to preserve my back for the show, but did decide to hand off the ride on Flounder to someone else if I found that my back wasn’t up for it. I have a doctor’s appointment coming up for it and am taking it easy until then. 

On Wednesday it seemed like I might not ride at all. Luckily Kate did a warmup round on Flounder (the entire barn except the two horses I was hauling got down there on Tuesday), so I didn’t need to ride him AND he got a solid trainer ride on him in the arena I was going to be jumping in for the weekend. But I woke up on Thursday feeling surprisingly good and managed to ride the whole weekend!!

He is so cute

His cute little knees, I think I fucked this one up
but he didn't care lol

I opted to just do the jumpers this time. Flounder doesn’t have a change and is just not super competitive in the pro hunter divisions. Plus, I think the jumpers are really fun, the courses are so interesting! 

On the first day I opted to just do the .70 meter jumpers again. The first class had a jump off and we were definitely quite rusty. I went way too slowly and Flounder got annoyed that I wasn’t riding him forward to the fences, so he popped a fence down to let me know that I needed to pick up the pace or risk more rails. In my second class, I asked Kate if I should go faster and she said yes. Then as I was cantering to the first fence I heard her say that I needed to go even faster. So I went as fast as I could, which ended up being a completely normal pace. 

In true amateur hour fashion, for some reason I thought it was optimum time jumpers, so I took the long way around one of the turns noticing that I was a little ahead of time. It was a speed class though (why do they have speed classes at this low of a level?!), but we still were quick enough to get second place out of something like seventeen rounds! 

This absolutely made my day and then we were done before 9am, amazing! This was our first time having grooms (my first time in like 20 years!) and it was absolutely worth it. I got to hop off, change out of my show clothes and into normal clothes, and go watch everyone in our barn ride every day. It was so great. I had a little bit of sticker shock at first but then after the first day when I had horses unloaded from my trailer, my trailer unloaded and cleaned out, and then was parking after hauling in 15 minutes before… wow, absolutely worth it. This goes in the budget for shows from now on! 

He's literally so adorable over fences, no joke, Kate
clicker trained him to jump, he was actually a failed
gymkhana horse!

Look at all of his toes!

On the second day, I asked if I could move up to the .80s for my second class because there was only one pro class per height (and then no more pro classes after that, ugh). Kate said yes and so I did! It was good to have the .70s first to give me some confidence riding more forward. I managed to go around clean and fast for a fourth place ribbon.

It was my first .80s class on Flounder but he was a star. I honestly didn't even notice the jumps had gotten bigger! We went clean and clear and this time landed ourselves in THIRD place out of a whole lot of people. Such an amazing little fish!!

Friday evening, my brother, niece, and father came down to watch the hunter derby and stay overnight so that my niece could do her very first leadline class on Saturday afternoon. More on that tomorrow!

Rose in May Part 3: I'm a Dressage Trainer Folks

After Flounder had a super confidence boosting ride with his kid on Saturday morning, I hopped on! I was so grateful that I'd had the ability to do that and that she'd ridden him so tactfully. 

Kate had me jump one fence in warm up without much trotting or cantering. I think I was in there for maybe 2 minutes at most. That was the other great thing about this plan: I eliminated the warm up and went in cold. 

I loved these standards so much, I decided to get
really close to one of them

Good thing we did that because I proceeded to have the best round of my show so far. We dropped a couple of rails because my riding still wasn't quite where I wanted it to be, but I didn't lose my head at all. I only had a little bit of tunnel vision and I came out really pleased with even more information. 

There were some confounding variables, sure. I definitely felt more comfortable in the jumper ring just because we don't have changes and it's tough to make horse distances in the hunters (there were no combinations in the jumper classes for this show/level). I also liked how the courses were more complicated, as much as I was concerned I'd panic and not remember the course, it ended up being easy to remember and there weren't so many long lines that made me second guess myself. 

But I think the lack of warm up was huge: I had absolutely nothing to trigger that visceral fear in me before going into the ring. Warm ups... apparently I'm totally fine with being mowed down in the dressage warm up, but someone gets a little close to me in the jumping warm up and I'm not okay. I mean... come to think of it, TC has always been the most enthusiastic horse in the warm up ring soooo maybe we're the ones terrorizing other people rather than being terrorized ourselves. Oh no. Oh noooo. 

He is the cutest

That wasn't my last class on Saturday though! I participated in the Hack and Splash later that afternoon. The class was a hunter hack class to benefit a charity, the catch was that we had to carry around a cup of water with us while we were in the class. Flounder had done it before and the fences were small, so I was game. 

I got my cup of water and went into the arena with 8 or so? other horses. There were 19 total in the class and we'd been split into two groups. Water was measured based on how much we lost out of our cup and the least amount lost won. 

As a dressage rider, the idea of riding one handed in a jump saddle, including over jumps, was concerning. Although in my last jumping lesson, I mysteriously started pulling on the right rein instead of the left, so I did jump some fences with my right hand behind my back. So you could say I was prepared. 

I don't have pictures of the fun class just yet, but
I'll use it for a WW when I do get them!

Shockingly, we did very well! After cantering the second direction, I realized that I'd actually not lost any water. How insane would it be to get through the whole thing without losing ANY water? Well, that almost happened as I took the first jump and no water spilled out. Holy shit. Buuuut I saw a short one for the second fence and got a little concerned about the water, causing Flounder to chip rather than just quietly shorten his step. I lost what ended up being 0.1 centimeters of water out of my cup.

We went to stand in the crowd and everyone told us how impressed they were that we hadn't lost any water over the first jump! I was like well, Flounder gives an amazing feeling over the fence. But it also felt REALLY good to be able to do this, clearly I had a lot of stability in the tack on the flat and over fences, and as someone who has, no joke, absolutely complained about how short my stirrups are in the jump tack EVERY SINGLE TIME I RIDE, I was pretty proud. 

The 0.1 centimeters lost was enough to win the class!! I got a very cute tumbler with the horse park's logo on it for my efforts and Flounder got a lot of carrots and cookies (I mean, he got lots of them all weekend). 

Such a fast fish! Note: we were not fast

Kate and I discussed and decided to end the weekend with just one jumper class the next morning. I was kind of torn because I was like... if the first course goes badly I would want to go in again, but if it goes well, I could always scratch. Kate said she'd rather us wish we'd done more, which was the right decision, so we just signed me up for the one class. 

This time I'd be warming Flounder up myself, so that would bring the warm up back into the picture, more information. It was a different warm up though, much larger than the hunter warm up. 

We didn't do a ton in warm up, just three jumps and then Kate asked if I felt okay to go over. I said yes, I feel as good as I'm going to feel. Kate asked what else we could do in warm up to make me feel better and I said that I could use like 40 Advil. She said that it was long past that time, which was correct. But seriously jumping that many days in a row completely destroyed my body! 

Such a good fish

The last course was amazing. I could not have asked for anything better. 

The course started out with a hilarious moment that made me laugh as I cantered to the first fence, that might have made the difference. Basically, I heard the buzzer and then glanced to the board to see if my name was up there, but it wasn't. I thought it had been the day before, it didn't matter since I wasn't competing for real, but I then second guessed if that was my buzzer. I really didn't want to be rude and start jumping if it wasn't my turn just yet. 

I yelled for Kate because again, it didn't matter, "is that my buzzer?" and she yelled back that it was. The announcer then said "yes, Megan, that's your buzzer" and I said "sorry, it's been a long week!" and he said "it's okay, she's a dressage trainer folks" which he'd found out when asking me why my number was upside down as I walked in. And probably assumed when I was complaining about my stirrups being short at the gate earlier. 

I laughed the entire way down to the first fence and then potentially put in the best round of my life. It wasn't perfect but I was able to ride just like I did at home and not lose my head. As I landed off the last jump, I was grinning, it was SO MUCH FUN! I can't remember the last time I had fun DURING a round. 

What an amazing way to end my first show! And more importantly, what a great information gathering weekend it was.