show re-cap

Our second CT on Sunday went exactly how I hoped it would go - and I couldn't be happier about it. So here's the full feature length recap:

The day didn't start out super promising, as it was misting and foggy out, and the grass was SLICK. We delayed starting the stadium rounds until it was a little drier... but still had a few folks scratch. 

warming up for dressage in the mist

Unlike the barn's first CT, this one was actually publicized and we got quite a few entries from other farms. Plus they split the divisions by age, so I wasn't competing against little kids after all. 

My dressage warm-up went well enough. There weren't any stadium rounds running yet so the jump arena was open for schooling (over fences and on the flat). So I let Izzy look at all the flowers and hay bales and other fun stuff we'd be jumping later. 

We did a few laps around before drawing in the contact at the walk. I tried to keep it as easy-peasy and calm as possible, and she rewarded me with some nice stretching. We only walked and trotted, with lots of transitions to get her soft and steady. Then off to the test! 

So there's no actual video of our test. I had every intention of doing a separate post comparing the last test with this one... but the person taking video with my phone accidentally had it set in camera mode, so just got pictures of the beginning and end... and nothing in between. Whomp whomp. Another friend took a video on her phone and texted it to me, but it arrived all compressed and pixel-y. So you just get the judges notes and my word vomit. (sorry not sorry)

Anyways, the test was vastly improved from our last time - and the judge agreed (she remembered us). But she also told me that she judged us harder because the horse looked better? So the test was objectively better in almost every movement, but our score only improved by one point... Not sure how that works, but whatever. Still got excellent feedback. 

She saw some tension in Isabel that wasn't because of overuse of rider hands (yay!) - but still needs to be ironed out. Our circles were inconsistent, and Izzy popped her head up in the middle of our free walk to take a looksie around. Oops. Isabel had been stretching lowwww (judge said it would have been an 8.5 without the pop up), but she recommends that I actually try to keep her up a little more since I *know* that pop up is coming. That way, if I can keep her from going so deep, her inattention and little looksies will be less obvious. 

Our biggest improvement was in the collectives - on submission!! Yay! We jumped from a 3 to a 6, probably just from me not pulling and fighting so much with my hands and using my arms more correctly. So, in all, it was a good test and we beat our last score. Mission accomplished. 

On to the fences. 

the 1 - 2 line was actually slightly bending, and the 3-4 line wasn't offset

They ended up keeping many of the fences I had set up the week before, but we tweaked some of the distances, and turned one of the inside singles into a line. My background is in hunters so pretty much any course I set is hunter-y. Oh well. 

jump 1 - nice and inviting into the first line

Our warm up was, uh, a little wild. Isabel was on FIRE. She wanted to GO GO GO. My dressage was at 10:05 and stadium at 10:39, so I didn't get off in between - just went straight to warming up over fences. I probably *should* have gotten off to put on our martingale... but it ended up being ok. 

jump 4 - hay bales coming out of the diagonal line

There was a LOT of head flinging going on though, especially two or three strides out from the jumps. There were a lot of horses warming up all at once, and Isabel was being pretty, uh, expressive. And she was way over-jumping stuff again. Boo. But she didn't look at anything and didn't have any hesitation. (haha. no. no hesitating AT ALL)

jump 7 - oxer after a 90 degree turn

She was being super squirrely tho - like, ok ok where we going??? She wiggled so much down the first line that we got 7 where I expected 6. No big deal tho. We cleared everything and I felt like we could keep it together for the class. 

approaching jump 8, the coop

The hardest part of the course was the turn from jumps 6 to 7. It was a 90 degree turn to a single oxer going towards the crowd. If you were going to have a problem on this course, this was where it'd happen. Plus, the field slopes down to the left in that corner, leading people to unconsciously drift right - further complicating the turn. Lots of folks missed their turn, which made the oxer pretty much impossible. 

video of full course

We did fine tho for our actual round. She jumped well, was forward and straight (we did FIVE in the same line where we did seven before lol), and adjusted well enough that I was able to get her balanced around the corners (even tho we cross cantered around between jumps 2 and 3 lol). I started prepping for that turn to the oxer pretty much at jump 5, and it worked out well. 

After that, I stuffed the ponykins with candy canes and hosed her off and she galloped away down to the pasture. I think we'll definitely have enough fuel in the tank for next week :)