Friday, August 4, 2017

Mia's Novice Horse Trial debut

We have been doing a lot of CT's lately, no fault of our own.  We have entered a Horse Trial (maybe 2?) this year only to have it knocked down to a CT due to weather or other factors.  It is now mid July and we are literally having our very first Horse Trial.  Geez!

2 weekends ago we went XC schooling for the very first time this year.  It went very well!  We met Stacey and Mochi and had ourselves a wonderful time.  Mia went over her first training level jumps with ease.  EASE.  And 2 jumps I am curious if they were prelim because they were HUGE.  I know training is big, but these were big.  I have a pic!  And it was easy for her. She is such a beast.
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And that, my friends, is all I got typed up before things went to hell.  I have tons of pics, but those will have to be a media dump so we can get caught up with life.  So the quick recap:

Mia did excellent in XC schooling!  She loves water jumps and we got to play with so many elements.  We did a bank out of water to a three stride to a small pheasant feeder.  We went down the bank into water.  We did up and down training level banks.  We went down banks that had a small log on top of it (Mia's hardest question a few years ago).  We went over 3 different training (2 prelim?) jumps.  We jumped one of those HUGE hay bales.  Most importantly, we jumped what is the beginnings of a sunken road called a roller coaster.  You jump a fence, have an immediate downhill slope to an immediate uphill slope with a jump on top.  I am SO glad we schooled this because Mia did not understand the question!  She was game, but very confused and unsure how to proceed.  We went over it about 10 times before it was easy for her.

On show day, things went very smoothly.  Dressage warm up was good!  But....  I was still really tired and so I drank half of an energy drink on the way to the show and it really messed with my mojo.  During the dressage test, I did the unthinkable.  I.....yeah....I stopped riding.  BLAH!!  She was doing so well too and I just stopped riding!  ARGH!!  We ended with a 35% with her new "relaxed" dressage frame which had my reins WAY too long and not a lot of back/front connection.  Considering there were 2 people in the mid 20's, my 6th place placing of 10 wasn't too hateful.

Stadium was next and I was glad I took the time to walk it.  Fence one looked like you could make an easy inside turn to 2, there was NO way.  Phew!  Despite it being a relatively easy course, it was hard for everyone.  Only 2 people rode double clear, yours truly included, and one person even fell off.  Yikes!!  After fence 7 I lost my right rein and almost missed fence 8 completely and fence 10 I just froze, got a bad distance and Mia hit the jump but it stayed up and I didn't fall off despite looking down over her shoulder.  Grr.

XC was immediately after stadium, with only 20 minutes between the two rides.  And XC was on the other side of the facility.  Hustle!!  When we got there, we were held because a rider fell off, the horse took off and no one could catch it.  Yikes!  When they finally sent a horse on course, they still hadn't caught it.  XC rode very well.  Mia was wonderfully forward and got nice distances to the first few fences.  She got a little strong over 4 and 5 but came back when I asked her to trot through the woods. She dominated the water and fence 9 and we went to the roller coaster jump.

The fence was actually the "easier" jump, where you land flat for a stride before going down the hill, we had schooled the one that had an immediate drop.  She locked onto the wrong jump at first, then I got a bad distance to the correct jump so it wasn't pretty but it was easy peasy.  The up bank was a piece of cake and the ditch was SUPER!  I am SO happy that schooling the faux ditch at the barn has made ditches be a non-issue.  We finished up with a nice, slow dressage canter to eat up time and was still 30 seconds under optimum.  Double clear!

Our double clear resulted in a wonderful 3rd place finish, with only .8 points from second.  WOW!!!!!  If I had ridden just a half effort harder in dressage I could have gotten 2nd. Argh!  Not riding is not typical of me, so I am pretty sure it was the energy drink, but at least she was nice and relaxed during the ride and both jumping rides were amazing.  Mia got Monday off and we were going on a trail ride Tuesday.  Cliffhanger.....

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