This past weekend was the weekend of our first "real" eventing derby. We had to ride dressage in a walk/trot/canter and ride an actual cross country course. Our eventing derby last year was with our gaited dressage tests and was ridden in a 5 acre pasture with mostly stadium jumps, not even close in comparison to this. I was wise enough to sign up for xc schooling on Saturday and so we went bright and early. My goal was to go through the entire pre-beginner novice course and then go through the beginner novice course and see what the TWH would give us. I wanted to see if he would jump what I put in front of him or if he would refuse when asked a hard question.
The ride started very well, we skipped the normal warmup of going over a stadium fence due to a bunch of riders in the warmup area and no one on course so we went on course. The first couple of jumps over an 12" log were "off", it appears as though I was riding too defensively and getting left behind. A quick acknowledgement of the issue helped me relax and try trusting TWH and we were able to have some nice jumps.
After going over the small logs in unison, we moved to the SUPER SCARY LOG that we had refusals at in April. It was a beginner novice jump so I wouldn't have to jump it on Sunday but wanted to jump it anyway. I rode hard to the log and we went over without a second thought!
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| This is easy, over on the first attempt! |
Moving on through the course we found a coop with some straw. I figured I was feeling brave and wanted to really push the TWH and see what he would do. I figured if he would jump it I would keep going and jump a barn that was down over the hill. I was so incredibly impressed when I didn't get a single refusal and we jumped both the coop and the barn without needing any additional encouragement!
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Hands not forward/pulling on his mouth, attributing to the fact
I was riding so aggressively to ensure no refusals. |
We played in the water a little and introduced bigger banks in and out of water which were taken in stride, we had a lot of fun.
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| We love water now! |
We finished up with an off-course jump, a decent set of logs with a pretty decent sized spread. While the App and I have gone over this jump a few times, the TWH hasn't really gone over jumps with any real spread. We went for it and was disappointed in a refusal. Twice. TWH experienced an angry storm on his back in which he then decided it was much much easier to jump this scary jump!
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| Biggest xc jump ever for the TWH! |
We headed happily home for the day and rested in preparation for Sunday, our show!.
Gorgeous pictures!! He did so fantastic. Can't really blame him for the refusals, that's a big jump. You got him over it and he jumped so I'd say huge, huge success! Glad you had fun. Now I'm going to go read about the show. That's the only good thing about being behind on reading, I don't have to wait hehe. :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the pictures. I am quite pleased with him, despite the refusals. Here's to hoping the July 4th weekend goes just as well, I am thinking of taking him xc schooling again.
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