Right so while I haven't been blogging I have been riding and so thats good. My little man is making excellent progress. So in the run up to the horse trial he got really badly grass affected and I could hardly ride. I added a toxin binder to hid diet and he was rideable but still not quite his cruisey self. Later I would put the cattle through his paddock to eat out the clover and take the ride out of his diet and now he is beyond cruisey.
So at the time my expectations were pretty low and I just had him settled in his dressage warm up and got sent back by the steward to get gloves and when I got back to the arena I was one away and he was worked up again so it was interpretive, still he settled into some ok trotwork so that was ok and then the Judge comment leapt into transition which was very kind on the back of the sideways leap flail onto the wrong leg that I rode. Still it happens and I wasn't too worried about out with having done hardly any dressage later and him being very sensitive still. Showjumped clear as you would expect seeing as he has been jumping much higher. Though looked a little at the fillers.
Cross country day was interesting. He stopped at the tiny warm up fence and he was so looky. So we canter to the first fence which was a tiny log and he was all "Oh man this is a fun canter, I like this, oh watch out theres a log in the way Mum, we should go round it. Mum! Mum! Oh god its right there, stop and leap" and it pretty much went that way for the first half of the round. It took a lot of very committed riding right to the base but about halfway round he kind of stopped looking at all of the things and started to lock on and I gave him a softer ride and the quieter I got the braver he got. (interesting side note to this horse- if I pretend the fences arent scary he is brave, if I support him, or add, more contact, or encourage him to make him braver I make him chicken which is different to most of the horses I have ridden. Figuring this out has been crucial) Still the second half of the course was a lot more fun and in the end he had a step back at the water for faults but he finished happy as and going forward so even though at fence seven I was never going to event him I might give him another run.
Then I had a really good showjumping lesson which was basically about putting the polish I used to have back on. I'm making the right choices just too brusquely and not smooth like I was when I was riding a lot more. Here we dialed into the stay the same and he is brave thing. Sometimes I find him a little irritating because he can just be an idiot hot head but he is just a horse. At a local show he jumped the 1m class for one rail but never looked at any of the scary fill!!!! Then with some bullying from my trainer I jumped the 1.10m class (3'6") He was clear in the first round and had two rails in the jump off for 2nd place which was huge. He was incredible over the bigger fences, just so much jump!
The weekend just been he had one rail in the 1m class and the ground was hard and slippery and mentally I was not in the right head space so I gave him big pats and lots of love and didnt do the 1.10m class. Dont see the point in punishing him for jumping well but landing on very hard ground. Love this guy, and if I dont ruin him he is going to be a very very good horse for me. Photo is of the 1.10m class.
