Fair Hill XC: horse doesn't know what "TE" means

Or, in other words - Isabel had no real way of knowing that we had been eliminated in stadium. Sure, we had some shitty moments but what else is new, right? I tried to keep that in mind as we headed over to the start box to make our way out on course.

out of the start box!

Honestly I had briefly considered just scratching after SJ out of pure frustration with myself. Why oh why can't I jump this horse anymore?!? What is my problem? But those thoughts are just a distraction and are easily pushed aside (at least until that long lonely drive home ugh).

friendly log to start

And we were already there and I had already paid, so dammit we were gonna jump that xc course.

isabel knows the drill

And that resolution was made even easier to stick to knowing that the cross country course looked AWESOME. So fun. omg. And yes, it absolutely proved to be just as fun riding it as I had hoped!

little house for fence 2. please excuse my defensive stance and recall we had smashed through a stadium fence in very recent memory... 

First few fences on course were the same as last year, and Isabel slipped easily into gear.

lazy over the ramp
(also, is it just my imagination or has my position slid from "more or less good 'nuff" to... whatever that is ever since the K&M entered our lives?)

We jumped the log and house in rapid succession, with a short sprint to the ramp, then the same produce stand from last year.

blue produce stand caused some trepidation last year. pretty sure either would be fine now

A nice thing about revisiting the same venues is that I *know* this stuff is all fine for the mare bc she ate it all up like candy last year with way less experience under our belts.

Also - I spent much of my walk checking out the novice fences too. Truth be told, we should be going novice right now. And I am seriously seriously annoyed with myself for slipping so much in my riding. Ugh.

legitimate up bank combo for all three levels (with log option on left)

Also - I also realized after uploading all of these pictures that I could have interspersed more novice fences into my course (or instead of the BN fences) without fear of elimination since... well, you know.

See, I'm a big fan of mixing schooling opportunities into my actual assigned course. For instance, I wanted to try the above shorter route to the roll top for N instead of the longer bend to the coop for BN. But since all the lines were flagged AB I wouldn't have made it over the novice B element without crossing my path on the way back to the BN B element thus garnering 20 penalty points, so it got nixed from the plan.

friendly little coop

Had there been more time for me to process the elimination and it's repercussions (no more worries about penalties on course!!) between SJ and xc, maybe I would have come up with a new plan. As it was, it honestly didn't even occur to me. I was so wrapped up in moving on with the 'PLAN' that I didn't consider that I was free to move about the cabin course now.

can you pinpoint the exact moment i lost my helmet cover?

Oh well. I'm cool with it as it was. Would have been nice to jump some of the bigger fences but I'm always happy to walk away from an outing wishing we had done more, rather than the alternative. 

easy out! 

And for this particular combination, it didn't much make a difference anyway. Isabel handled it beautifully imo.

this red table scared me to death last year. this year? n looks totes doable

Then another little gallop to some fences set in maybe the muckiest wettest area on course. The big red tables from last year. Somehow they look much smaller now tho. Still very wide, sure, but still very inviting. 

she doesn't exactly make it look small, but she does make it look easy. meanwhile can we just pretend that i'm doing my best pdutty impression?

Isabel got a pretty good shot too - she was just totally in the zone, eating up whatever was in her way. I have zero doubt that she would have paid any more attention to the bigger fences either.

we've seen this before

For some reason there were lots of oblivious folks walking the course while we were out, and our approach to this wagon marked the second time I shouted "heads up!" to get people out of the way. So I'm just gonna go ahead and blame that for our slightly tight distance to this wagon... lol

long straight-aways for both bn and n, lasting three jumps each

Then starts the section of the course that I am MOST regretting not jumping the N stuff - there's this string of three fences all set in a straight wide open flat line and Isabel was cruising.

roll top schmoll top

Next time I'll remember to update my cross country plan should we be eliminated in stadium haha. But please Emma, let's not have a next time, mkay?

chunky, yes, but pretty inviting trakehner

Because I had really wanted to work this N fence 9 into the course. My thoughts that morning had been to jump this first, then loop around and jump the BN fence to continue on. But I worried that it was unfair to add in a lot of extra distance (of all the BN and N fences, these two were maybe the farthest apart from each other. and poor mare is admittedly a bit on the fat side right now...), or that it might disrupt our rhythm too much - breaking the mare out of the zone, so to speak.

that novice oxer looks WAY more doable than others i've seen at this venue

Similar story for this N oxer. I've been saying for a while now that novice at Fair Hill scares me bc of the oxers they have on xc... but this is definitely not the one I had in mind (so perhaps the one I'm thinking of isn't actually novice?). This looks challenging and a little scary, sure, but I think we could give it a shot.

oddly enough, this novice fence 11 was removed by the time i made it on course. notice the water right upon landing

Oh well. Just add it on to the pile of regrets I have from this event lol. Anyway, Isabel ate up the fences I pointed her at and we continued happily on our way to the water. Where I finally found a way to incorporate schooling the water into our xc course.

bn had an easy in, no out. novice and intro both had outs tho

BN didn't have anything on the far side of the water, but N had a house on the left side, and Intro had log pile on the right. The N house honestly looks a bit beyond us right now - esp given my absurd dislike of jumping uphill (it was pretty steep!).

this. we shall school this. i will finally do good by my plans to make the water count

But Intro looked jusssssst right (in retrospect, the little house next to it probably would have been more appropriate). Close enough to water's edge that I had to be committed before we even entered the water, but small enough that I knew we would get over it one way or another.

Isabel was a little surprised at my insistence that we trot on and try to canter through the water, since I usually let her meander and dawdle, but she was a good girl and moved right on up. Score 1 for schooling!!

surprisingly steep downhill in a forward 6 strides to the ditch (filled with water, natch)

After wending our way back on course, next up was the only other really potentially tricky question after the earlier bank combination. A long straight steeply downhill approach to a full size roll top, 6 strides to a big ditch. These two jumps are notably numbered separately, so one could theoretically circle between.

But I expected Isabel to be totally fine. And she was. Marched right on down and skipped over the ditch like nbd. Yassssss!

lookie here, it's another coop!

We were both definitely starting to get tired tho, so I mostly let her just gallop along as she liked to this coop.

might have preferred this to the bn version...

The penultimate fence on course would have concerned me a little - and frankly I would have considered this novice up bank easier if it weren't for the fact...

never actually tried one of these before

That the bump on the hill was shared with Intro. For whatever reason we've never schooled this style jump before so I wasn't totally sure what to expect and was maybe a little nervous.

bumps on a hill are apparently easy

It was totally fine tho! We saw a good spot a ways out and Isabel happily marched up and over. Good mare!

same cute train to finish as last year

Then one last short gallop stretch to the Fair Hill train!

choo choooooooo!!!!

We got in a little tight but just fine, and then were home free and clear!!!! (except obvi for that pesky elimination in SJ... oh and also the fact that we probably would have accrued time penalties for being too fast, as they were in fact timing this course - but the range was something like 4:50-9minutes haha, so only those too fast would be penalized).

fierce through the finish flags

I couldn't have been happier with the mare tho. She was super honest and easy out there. Again my riding leaves something to be desired - it's not the exact same set of issues as SJ but it's related. So far tho, the mare jumps the (solid) jumps and makes it feel easy.

And call it a cop out if you want, but I'm beginning to question how well this K&M saddle is working for us - and it certainly doesn't appear to be doing much for me position-wise compared to the Bates. Is it possible that my weaker and less secure position is contributing to our current woes? Hard to tell. I feel an experiment coming on...

helmet cam video here

ANYWAY. This helmet cam video is honestly one of my favorites so far to watch - Isabel just manages everything so well and the course was super fun. I hope you enjoy it too!

Hopefully we'll be able to get a similar feeling at our next outing in two weeks - still at BN bc no rational person can justify moving up after an elimination ugh. And I obviously need to fix my stadium demons. 

We'll see what happens, esp as I have a few new plans of attack.