Feilding IA and P Assn 1* Show.

So we only went over for the one day at this show to save money and because there were a bunch of jobs that had to be done on Saturday like moving the colts. So my first class was the 1.10m championsip on Butch and he was so amazing. I had a lesson on Friday the primary theme being, sit on him quiet, keep him insanely slow and get him there relaxed. Normally he is terrible from a deep distance but if I get there slow he is better and he actually jumps in a round shape. This round was definitely the slowest I have ever jumped him. It feels like I could get off and out walk his canter it's probably the right canter. He is so much stronger and better able to hold his canter now he isn't falling behind the leg the same. It would be the first time ever that he finished his round basically as quietly as he started and he stayed so soft.

Cpnnie did not rear or buck in the warm up of the amateur (1.10m-1.20) Though only the first fence was really 1.10m it was big for an amateur. She was a little bit naughty backing off of the the wall and then I hit her at the next fence and put her through the rail but after she had backed off I had to ride a little aggressively to make sure it was a one off. The rail in the double she didn't need to take. So here is connie. She wont blow your mind because she is just a bare minimum sort of a girl but I was still happy with her.  It was nice to actually get into the ring on her and they both jumped well enough.

Sometimes you are the windshield and sometimes you are the bug

Pukahu show. Debacle. Normally I have an okay show here but not this weekend. I wanted it to go well to much probably and should have been more chilled. I don't know I put so much pressure on myself but ultimately who really cares. I'm only riding against myself at the end of the day. Anyways, On the Thursday night before the show good old Butch kicked through the fence and hurt himself. I took him to the show anyway because he only really had some bark off, but being in a yard the swelling increased even when I did hack him so he didn't start all weekend. I really thought the orange bandage would blend right in to his coat but it didn't!

In Connies first class she hit the warm up and bucked and reared so much I went back to lunge her. I don't mind the bucking so much but the continuous rearing scares me. The only times I have really falling off her have been from her rearing and falling. Anyway the class was closed before I could get there. Cue 30 minutes of lunging until she went from zoomies to cantering and then another 20 mins of riding and I had my horse back. I jumped her in Butchs place in the 1.10m class and had a cheap rail though I could have been straighter and a circle before the double but I don't feel I rode as well as I could thouh I was still really really mad at her. She looks awesome though her condition is fantastic. No wonder she is feeling so well. 

On the Sunday she came out and had a slightly puffy fetlock and was lame. Boo and hiss my friends so she didn't start on the Sunday and I got to watch both my horses sit in their yards all day. Thankfully my bosses horses went well enough that there was plenty to be cheerful about. Also both Butch and Connie look a lot better today with no swelling. Thank goodness for small mercies. 

Countdown

So the show season is only 10 days away from the first ESNZ show. Ii still have yet to register Connie and myself but at least it is in the works now. I have been searching the couch and behind my car seat and have finally put the money together for Equestrian sports NZ to say I'm allowed to compete. Wonderful. I'd love to see some more of my registration money filter back down to the grass roots of the sport. Head office will tell you it does but that's not really true. And i only ever gets more expensive.

I haven't had internet for over a week but plenty of things have been going on. We had the last of the Winter shows. I rode a clients horse for a clear in the 90cm and second in the 1m speed class on the first day and then 1 rail in the 95cm class and the 1.05m classes respectively. Very cute funny little horse who is very generous and tries really hard despite being a little bit spoilt and slightly unorthodox.

Butch was superb in the 1.10m for 1 rider rail but stayed soft and round which he struggles to do indoos where he is a little fried. Connie had a rail in the jump off. In the warm up of the 1.15m I cased down a stupid distance and nearly killed connie and myself. Thankfully, clever pony is clever and kept her feet on the ground which is more than I deserved. The stupidest ride to the biggest miss of m life. I'm still a little rattled. Still 1 rider rail in the 1.15m but Connie hated the surface outdoors. (All my rails were rider rails bar Butch the next day) On the Sunday in the 1.15m butch warmed up super and then got int the ring and had about 7 rails. Not from particularily bad distances or anything. I would/do struggle to understand what happened from one round t the next. It was very much a case of two different horses from one day to the next. I might have been slightly tenser in my body, but no major difference. It's odd. It's horse. It's especially Butch, that being said they are so incredibly different to ride which Butch requiring a lot of tact and support while Connie just chugs around.. Connie had 1 rail in the 1.20m class which was awesome because I was so nervous and it was a reasonable sized tracks with a few big oxers and it always looks bigger indoors. I always worry that the jumps are too big for little Connie but she has jumped so many 1.20m tracks now I need to suck it up.

I find mentally in my head i get bogged down in thoughts that I'm not good enough to be jumping the heights I jump, which is ludicrous because I am jumping them. I just worry I look like a pig in a hen house, that I'm not as good as the other riders. Also ludicrous because I'm a competent enough rider and I should focus on my own stuff and forget everyone else anyway. I know in my head it doesn't matter if you don't have all the gear and the uber fancy horse, but I still find it intimidating. Never mind.

Last weekend I did a ctr endurance fun ride over 10km with a clients kid because she is only 10 and needed an adult to accompany her. It was a bit of a hard case. Beautiful sunny day for a quiet ride across other peoples farmland on my favourite pony. There is quite a lot involved but basically the winner is the person closest to the time with the lowest heart rate on arrival + heart rate at vet check within 30 minutes. We did awesome for time being only 2 minutes over but a miscalculation on my part had us hustling home and while her pony coped ok with it, Connies heart rate was quite high once we got in. She is a typical airy farty leg flaily andalusian mover, not at all economical so I don't hold it against her . Still fourth out of six, I just wish I had worked out the time properly in the first place! The kid I rode out with was second so that's really cool and we had a great gallop across a paddock. So that's off the bucket list now and I never have to do an endurance ride again. Actually I probably would do it again but I think it would benefit from more jumps!

Currently Connie has a nick on her leg that looks like it may be infected because it's swollen and Butch has a bit of thrush in one foot her is being a baby about so preparation for the first show is going perfectly! Horses. Still they should both be fine fingers crossed. Hoping to get away for a few days next week to the beach and have some fun with the ponies.

  

Chris Chugg Clinic

There is always a little bit of anxiety when you clinic with someone new. You never know quite what they are going to be like. Thats why I always put Connie up for new clinicians because our partnership runs pretty deep and she is a lovely pony. This time it was Chris Chugg a top Australian Showjumper. Yea we are going international! I did investigate on the internet to find out what the general consensus was about him and i found he was tough but fair and made people cry. Awesome. That's good considered after three years I have only just come off my anti-depressant drugs. Here comes the weepy train! For added excitement I was in a group with 2 grand prix riders and a 1.30m rider. Add to that the fact the weather was so awful but only mostly when my group was riding :/.

Of course I give neither myself or my horse enough credit. Connie was a super star and jumped everything in front of her. The main things I need to focus on are keeping my hands together and my reins organized and short (Guess who got a knot in her reins! On both days) Chris was very very good. He missed nothing and so you had to be so tidy.As long as you listened and did as you told he was very very nice. He said I had a nice feel (Yesss!) that Connie had a good rhythm and canter. Because Chris had turned out to be so good I rode Butch the second day in the same group. Butch can be a bit of a delicate flower and throw his toys when expected to do the same exercise to many times off of the left rein so I'm careful about whom I train him with.

Anyway it was much the same. I find it a bit harder on Butch to find my distances because he is more adjustable and i just don't know him like I know Connie, but that will come. Certainly since riding full time I'm a quieter, more effective and accurate rider. Apparently, Chris said I was an ok rider. Swoon! It was awesome just to hold my own in the company I was in. I had a few errors. With Butch I can't turn him up to a fence like I can with Connie because his brain is slower so on my roll backs I have to give him more room to sight up the fence. And I just have to trust my eye more and keep the faith and keep counting my strides. Like Chris said with our group we could all ride it was just putting the finesse on. It was all basic stuff but the more I learn the more I learn it's all about the basics. Go straight to the fence, land straight, keep your hands together maintain a good canter and LOOK where you are going.

First show tomorrow with Connie and Butch so lets hope the clinic has helped! I think I will leave the knot in my reins lol. The knot made a huge difference in helping keep the horses straight through the turns and just in keeping me organised. I'm not as bad on Connie but with Butch who is quicker and more extravagant I have a lot of trouble keeping him organised.
Anyway, snippets of Butch

XC schooling video.

I'm so sorry , not much has been happening but we have Chris Chugg coming to this weekend from Australia to hold a clinic. I hear he is tough but fair so safe to say I'm shitting myself. I'm such a sensitive little flower. So easily reduced to a quivering mess of nerves. I am for the first time in like 3 years off of my antidepressants and I'm holding steady. A bit more emotional but still chipper and doing well. I have been running and have lost a lot of the weight I piled on last year so that's good. The weekend after that we have the last of the winter shows at Manfeild and I have 3 or 4 horses to ride depending on owners and things.

Anyway her are some clips from the first of the XC schoolings we have done this winter. The pictures of Butch were from the second one, so this other one would be over a month old. Which is interesting because I can see I have definitely lost weight since then so yay for me. Body protectors are so uncomfortable! I had forgotten but was quickly reminded! I think we did a few fences around 1.05m and Connie loved it. She got bolder as she went and isn't her dishy andalusian movement so adorable! She is such a good little horse. Not orthodox or super talented and a little bit spoilt and so hard to get slim but she just tries so hard for me. I'm so happy she is currently feeling sound and good, though still too fat. She is like a small pony to keep the weight off.

This is all the more impressive because beyond a small hickstead day 4 years ago and the derby I jumped at Taupo last December the pony has never jumped any XC fences. Love her.

Horses man :( :)

We have been really nice to our horses lately. They have gotten to go on lots of adventure rides. Last week we took a truckload out to a huge hill farm for hillwork and yesterday we took  truckload over the hill for cross country training. The hill work was mostly to tone up some fatties and put some fitness and go forward on some lazier versions. Connie naturally being a fatty needed the hill work! She was the slowest horse up the hill all day. I swear the hill was probably eroding down to her faster than she was climbing up it. That being said she has spent the last five months on a hill.

Now as a recap Connie was turned out for being lame. We never knew 100% what it was but she nerve blocked in her foot and was sound, and she had some balance issues with her shoeing. She does have a somewhat club foot that isn't easy to keep balanced. A course of Bute and two weeks off and she should have been sweet however the low grade niggly offness lingered. She would be less than a 1 out of 5. so i just turned her away until July, knowing that most likely it would be something that needed time. Also her x-rays were beautiful and her joints pristine. Roll on July and she has been feeling fantastic. However, after the hill ride it was back. Massive sad face. Huge massive sad face. That being said she was ready to be pushed a bit more, I have to know if she will hold up. Anyway at this point in time I will see what she looks like tomorrow and go from there. I am thinking perhaps of putting her in foal. Now while you all recoil in horror because she has a slightly clubby foot I would like to point out that if I knew then what I knew now it would have been a lot better and I would have gotten on top of it earlier and she is a proven jumper whom is otherwise a stunning horse and has a neat nature.

Yesterday was the bomb. I rode Willis and Butch. Cross country is very very scary. Willis was a good boy just very very green which he is, having never jumped any cross country fences ever before in his life. He got quite bold by the end but then he went past that and got over tired and adrenaline brained. Babies. They are such babies. So he had a paddle in the water jump and dropped off the bank into it and was in general a very good boy. He hesitated at the ditch in the coffin so hard that I saw spit fly out of my mouth but I didn't fall and he still went which is pretty much the goal! Horse stayed between me and the ground at all times.

Butch. Now Butch was a boss. He loves it! He jumped everything, never faltered, even jumped some pretty big fences and every time we pulled up he would flap his lips with happiness. Ditches, water, palisades, ski jumps, coffins, nothing was an issue. He was just the most fun. And then after like 4 hours of riding I was exhausted. Some pictures!

I love this last one! Anyone of the whole day these are the only pictures of Butch despite a million photographers being there. Just my luck. 

Full photo credit to Ella Bussell- Gallery here 

Here is Willis looking oh so cute. You can see how in the second picture he is has a full stress sweat going. That was one of the last fences he jumped before going for a play in the water jump and then walking home.

So much riding.

It has to be the warmest July on record. It's supposed to be the depths of winter and we are having such long sunny days, it's unreal and a little unnerving. The arena is being absolutely thrashed now that it's in and both Connie and Butch are here with me and coming into work. Connie is hella fat and I'm working on it but she is like me, quick to get fat and oh so slow to lose it.

Butch is the other way a little lean and mean but feeling strong and well in his body. Actually both of them feel good and strong under saddle even if Butch is much uglier than I had remembered. Though to be fair he certainly is a lot better now once he has been clipped. Not the easiest horse to clip because every time the clippers touched him he would jump and he had to be twitched to do his head and neck but he looks so much better now the rank coat is gone and his clipped coat has an amazing copper sheen. i have added copra and oil to his diet so I'm hoping he will pick up. I wish I could fix his back and make it like he was a 7yo again but it's so swayed now from poor saddle fit and unbalanced saddles. Even when you do tummy stretches he can't lift it that high. Still like I say under saddle he feels the best he has since I bought him.

Anyway we had a client come to try a horse and she spent a few days with us and took lots of photos. So I will share them with you now and you can see my ponies in all their glory. Yes I do ride in track pants it's because they are cheap and breeches aren't and then when I put my breeches on i have so much grip. If you can sitting trot in track pants you are secure lol.