Finally a clinic wrap-up

Things are moving along quite well here, I had a HUGE yard sale last weekend in which I made over $1000 from stuff that I didn't actually use anymore.  It was all things I could live without and WOW did I sell a lot.  About 90% of stuff, woohoo!  Moving is starting to become a reality.  The weekend prior we had our clinic which also went amazingly.  The problem?  I haven't had the drive to type it all out.  Blah!  I have lots of pretty pictures and could talk to you about my rides but writing it down?  Just not in the mindset still.  So here is my forcing it out :D

On the 18th we went to our clinic.  Mia had a hesitation when we went to load, she walked up to the trailer and said Nope.  Well, free will and all, she is welcome to say no.  The flip side is that there are consequences to actions so she got backed up and then smacked with a lead rope a few times and a threat to grab the dressage whip if she did that again.  We walked back up to the trailer and she leapt on but then immediately started to back out when I was about to clip her halter.  Uhhh, nope.  I pushed her out of the trailer and smacked her a few more times and tried again, she gladly hopped on and stood still while I tied her up.  She also figured out she needed to step over to the right so that the divider can be shut, she is learning because last year I was pushing her big butt over.  Yay!  TWH loads himself, he is such a good horse.  I think she will get there, maybe by the end of the year?

We made it to the grounds and Mia was behaving quite well.  TWH's dressage ride was first so I hung out at the trailer to make sure she would be okay.  Mia screamed a few times but not nearly like she did last year.  She also had no problem staying tied to the trailer, even when I was out of sight.  Progress!  I hopped on 20 minutes before our first ride and walked up to the warmup.  She walked fine but as soon as she started trotting she lit the little rockets on her hooves.  No relaxation, no listening to my seat, barely listening to my reins, going as fast as she can.  At one point we were trotting and she even bolted and I had to do an actual one rein stop to get her stopped.  Geez mare!!!!  I took the opportunity to do walk/trot quarter circles, where we walk a quarter circle, trot a quarter circle and repeat about 100 times.  After about the 15th transition she finally started listening to my seat instead of my hands and was starting to pay attention and I could do a real warmup.

We had our lesson and my instructor was M, she was very impressed with my progress over the winter.  YAY!!  She said that when she left in January, any lessons would have been trying to establish the new normal for my position and her contact, with her being gone I accomplished this myself and now we can move forward with new stuff.  Woohoo!

We let the tired mare relax as we waited the 2.5 hours for cross country and despite kicking TWH off of his hay bag (so we had to change which window each was tied at), she was content.  They went through my 6 gallons of water before cross country so we had to use the local water, if I show both horses I may have to use my bigger tank.  Good info to know.

SLOW DOWN!  Carousel horse pic!

Mia started cross country like a beast.  She had no problem doing a w/t/c with other horses and I started over the baby jumps Mia didn't care and would drag me to the jumps.  You wouldn't have thought she had a hard dressage ride with how she was behaving.  The instructor made the comment "she has a lot of jump!"  Uh, yeah you could say that!  We jumped every single Beginner Novice and Novice jump on the grounds and she was awesome.

Mare don't care about big jumps

I did, however, almost fall off.  And I mean I stayed on only due to sheer determination and pure luck.  All of the other horses were having problems with the ditch so my green horse, who had never been over anything other than a tiny baby ditch before, was a leader horse for the rest of them.  We jumped over it 3 times with zero issues.  The instructor had us string some jumps together and we were to go over a jump, over the ditch and up a small hill to another jump before continuing a gallop over to other jumps.  We went over the first jump fine, when she went over the ditch she jumped it oddly and I was a bad rider, I didn't keep my weight in my heels.  This tossed me forward with plenty of air between me and the saddle.  I was headed up and over her shoulder when I clamped down with my legs and grabbed her neck and JUST BARELY pulled myself back into the saddle.  I then had just enough time to ride 2 strides before she jumped the last jump before the gallop.  Wow I haven't come that close to falling off in a LONG time.

We finished up going through water and Mia was a total rock star.  Total.  Rock.  Star.  She was absolutely awesome and gave me 100% confidence to go Novice at our first show this Sunday.  We are taking the suggestion of the instructor, however, and am going to show Beginner Novice at horse trials this year to get her the experience she needs.  She was super sticky over stadium fences last year and we want to ensure she has nothing but positive experiences.  We know she can do height, let's get her some exposure before we start pushing her.  So that is the plan, Novice at the derbies and BN at the Horse Trials.  Hopefully I will have some pictures of this weekend and it goes super well!