schooling familiar xc with marginal success

Ok ok, so I already told you we went cross country schooling at the lovely AOPF this weekend. In an ideal world, our first outing of the season would include professional guidance in the form of one of my trusted trainers.

But when jump trainer P had to cancel our typical Saturday lesson, Brita and I decided to take things into our own hands. So off we went!

horses look happy and ready to go!

And of course, readers love getting the gory details first, so we'll cut straight to the part where I fell off voluntarily dropped from my position clinging to the horse's side like a monkey. 

Still not entirely sure what happened here, other than one stride lines of oxers have posed problems for us in the past (ahem, HERE and HERE) - so perhaps this one stride line of raised logs had the same effect? And let's just forget that we've jumped this exact set of fences a ton before... that was last year and this is this year. So be it. 

the exact moment shit got real. technically still mounted at this point

Regardless, we stopped at the in. Then made it over the in on reapproach and ran out of the out. No good, Izzy, no good. Reapproached again with similar results - except ran out to the other direction, thus leaving me precariously dangling off Isabel's left side. Good mare trotted a couple steps then came to a halt while I struggled in vain to pull myself back into the saddle.

Those efforts were unsuccessful, alas, so I just dropped to my feet. Boooooo Isabel! (but seriously tho, thanks for just kinda standing there while I flailed around instead of taking off bolting!!)

nope, no longer on the horse. finally. tho the shadow kinda makes it look like the horse is on me?!?

My helmet camera got knocked loose from it's locking mechanism, but was otherwise unscathed. And stayed hooked to the safety tether so that while it was annoying to have the thing dangling around in my face amid the whole mess, the camera didn't fall or get stepped on or anything. Yay for sturdy equipment?

wicked would like to announce to the world that he felt VERY ALIVE at this moment

So anyways, that was but a blip in our outing. An unfortunate blip, yes, and one that doesn't really do much for my recently rediscovered soft squishy yellow belly. But. Like I said. New year, new us. For better or worse. We'll work through it.

The rest of the schooling was actually quite positive and uneventful. (Even if I didn't feel great about it). We did most of what I set out to do:

• keep the height in my comfort zone, we want confidence!
• cover all the important questions 
• get in, get it done, and get out. no need to wear the mare out after the day prior's intense dressage clinic!

And I couldn't have been happier with Isabel's warm up - walk trot cantering all through the field around all the obstacles (including a preemptive check for groundhog holes). She was nicely balanced and mostly connected to the bridle, happily going up and down the hill.

Per our last xc lesson with Dan, Isabel was responsible for our canter lead as we changed directions. No signals or input from me - just the expectation that she'd figure it out. And she did. The mare behaved like a seasoned event horse out there - so we at least have that going for us!

three stride combination

Obviously "important questions" is a relative term when it comes to the lowest levels of eventing. What really are the questions at BN or N? For me, these mostly include related distances and trakehners for N, and the holy trinity of banks, water and ditches for BN and N. And generally, just jumping some weird lookin stuff.

video one: related distances and such

So we did lots of related distances - 4, 3 and 1 stride combos (one of which was decidedly less successful than the others... thank goodness N has a minimum of 2 strides!). And the occasional strange fence (hi carrot jump!!).

nom nom nom!!

And we covered banks and ditches. I stuck to the smaller BN ditch bc... see blog title. And the giant trakehners at AOPF were still on my 'nope' list even at my peak last summer so... this day was not the day for them.

But actually the lessons from last summer stuck and our ditch efforts rode really well in both directions. I was very pleased that I (mostly) kept us on our rhythm rather than allowing that last hesitant stutter stride before the ditch. Isabel felt slightly uncommitted to the up side of the Irish bank, but up she went, and down she happily dropped on the far side.

ditch in foreground, up and down Irish bank in background

We didn't make it to the water for... eh no real reason other than it was kinda far away and we took pity on our ground crew. I honestly just didn't feel like it. OF has a better water complex anyway so we'll be sure to dip our toes soon (maybe after our next lesson if we don't actually school their xc).

video two: related distances, ditches and banks, oh my!

All of these jumps have appeared on the blog before, so maybe it's boring to see them again (tho I swear these are new pictures and not repurposed from our other trips to AOPF!). But boring is good for me right now. So boring is what you get. #sorrykindanotsorry

Also worth noting - my saddle pads slipped quite a bit after the red roll tops in the second video, sparking concerns that the trial K&M saddle had climbed up Isabel's shoulders. Upon unceremoniously dismounting at the one-stride, I double checked and the saddle itself looked good - like just the pads slipped. But saddle fitter J is taking a look anyway.

So. First cross country school of the season is in the books folks. Boom. Splat.