Mia's eventing debut Pt 1

With Mia's 1 year anniversary coming up, I wanted to see how she looked compared to how I got her. Her feet are now 100% mine and while there is still a single crack in her right front that has never gone away, her feet look awesome.  I loaded up the camera and got some pictures.  It wasn't until I made comparison shots that I was blown away!  Left pic 9.6.14, right pic 10.3.13

Funny, her neck looked SO long and now looks SO short!

Click to view large :)

I just can't even!  The amount of muscle is super impressive.  Her neck looks to be doubled in size!  She holds it much nicer now and it isn't very ewe-necky at all!  Her topline has filled out significantly and her build is much thicker.  Go Mia!  The only thing that would have been better is if I had some actually GOOD lighting, this was taken in the shade as the afternoon sun was way too harsh for any decent pics, this girl is super shiny!

Saturday was finally here, time to go cross country schooling before the big day!  Eventually, anyway.  I decided it was probably a good idea to ride dressage first since I hadn't been able to ride in a couple of days (BAD, BAD, BAD RIDER!) so I hopped on and was so glad I did, Mia was HORRIBLE.  I rode outside in the pasture so I could simulate the conditions for Sunday and she just couldn't function.  Bolting into trot transitions.  Refusing to bend At All.  No consistent contact.  If I gave her a correction, she would double her efforts in offence of the correction.  A solid 30 minutes of fighting went on before she finally decided to give a half rear in defiance.  I absolutely flipped my lid, absolutely not mare!  By this time I had a dressage whip and I put her nose to my knee while I smacked her with the whip on the haunches and forced her to spin a few times.  I then made her stand there as I made her bend her nose to touch each of my toes.  I walked her forward again, asking for simple bend and she threw her head up and around in defiance so I planted her nose to my knee again and smacked her again, hard.  Girl, you need to stop being so much of a redhead!  That seemed to do it, as soon as I let go of her nose her attitude was different.  She stopped fighting and was agreeable.  We did not only some walk/trot but was even able to get a canter transition that was good!  We finished by going in the arena and riding the test twice (just to be sure lol) and had not a single argument.  Phew!  I untacked her and let her back out into the pasture so she could relax for the 5 hours before cross country schooling.  Hopefully that would go better than dressage!

Mia was easy to catch and loaded right up into the trailer and we made it to the farm with no difficulties.  We tacked up and started the course, she was a cool cucumber.  Mia didn't scream for the other horses milling around and wasn't at all hot and excited, win!!  We started out introducing the start box and Mia didn't care.  We walked over to the first fence, a cross rail sitting between to 2 pine trees.  It was a little dark over the jump and Mia stopped at the fence so I gave her a good smack and she stepped over it.  I rode her to it again, this time at a canter, and she almost stopped in front of the jump before jumping it.  This, of course, threw me way forward and if she had stopped I would have come off.  Ride defensive silly!!!  I made her go over it about 6 times before being happy that Mia wouldn't stop and we went to fence 2, a vertical.  It was another one that she came up to before she stopped.  Uh, mare?  These are little stadium fences, you shouldn't be stopping!  She got a hard smack with a crop for refusing and I circled her around again.  This time I sat WAY back and she jumped over it without looking at it.  Silly mare!  Fence 3 was a stadium oxer and she hopped over it like it was nothing.  Yay no refusal!  Fence 4 was our first cross country fence and not only did Mia not refuse, she took it in stride and was awesome!  The rest of the ride, actually, was awesome!  I went over everything 2-3 times and at the end I rode the entire course from start to finish and she was perfect.  Yay!!  In other news, a Beginner Novice course feels SO slow and short compared to a Novice course HAHA!!  I guess all that time with TWH is paying off, when I was done with Mia's course I was thinking, Gee, that's it??

Time to get a good night sleep and go to our first eventing show in the morning!