Jenny Camp 2017: Dressage & Stadium

I really hope you guys aren't worn out and tired of all the show recaps lately. It's been a busy spring in Charlieland, I totally get that. And it's not even quite over yet - there's still one more run at Loch Moy before we close out the month of May.

BUT. This show, to me, felt like an important milestone. Jenny Camp had been slated on my idealistic events calendar as Charlie's "move up event" since my earliest ruminations on the horse's debut event season.

A: Enter Fabulous

And maybe you're tired of me finding endless variations of announcing "Charlie's first {whatever}!!!" But I'm gonna go ahead and put Jenny Camp onto a little pedestal of its own anyway, by calling it Charlie's first "full" run through all three phases.

Let me explain: Charlie rode the Beginner Novice Test A for dressage, a full w-t-c test that we will likely be riding for some time to come. He jumped a full stadium course at 2'3 - the full height at which we ought to be competing at present (rather than anything lower). And the real pièce de résistance, cross country, was a full 1,800m track of appropriately sized jumps with all three xc hallmarks (ditch / bank / water) in what honestly amounted to a watered down BN track.

hey look, it's a trot!

And he did it all like a horse who more or less understands his job. It was all more or less pretty easy for him, actually. Obviously that's not to say that we're competitive haha, bc we're definitely not - we finished in last place with a mediocre dressage test and penalties in both jumping phases. But I'm honestly pretty cool with it.

wow, it's a canter too!

Dressage has been a bit tough for us lately. Charlie had a big breakthrough about contact in the week before Fair Hill, was schooling well, then had a baller dressage lesson. But the last week before Jenny Camp showed a bit of a regression, on top of a horse who is maybe understandably a bit body sore from working in a new way.

It's frustrating, but again - I'm ok with it. I knew basically what I was gonna have going into show day and focused on just riding that horse. Our test lacked any of the glimmers and beginnings of give or softness or suppleness that we saw at Fair Hill, and our circles are still too small and misshapen (gah, Emma, c'mon!). But all the transitions happened more or less correctly and in the right places. Small victories, y'all.

video here

I unfortunately misplaced my test so couldn't add the scores and comments to the video - but this test won me my "straight 6's across the board" Bingo! square haha. Every single movement, including the collectives, was either a 6 or 6.5. Comments and feedback were right in line with what we're already working on. So. Ya know. Just gotta keep working.

matching expressions ftw

Our final score of 37.6% was nearly ten points improved from Fair Hill, but the real story is that this tied for 10th of 13, whereas Fair Hill was 6th of 9. In other words, we were still the same distance from last place, but in a more crowded division. So... yea it's really not about the "number" in these events. For me, it's more important to see how we do relative to the pack.

And for right now, we're showing our greenness in the dressage ring in a big way. It's cool tho - Isabel taught me a pretty deep appreciation for dressage (even the low level 'boring' stuff) and Charlie's had enough good moments of finding a 'nice' feel that I think we'll eventually get him to a better place. It might just... take a while lol.

off to a smashing start (puns lol)

 As far as he knows tho, he's the undefeated champion of the world Intro level dressage horse. And I sure as hell ain't gonna try to tell him differently! He thinks he's doing a mighty fine job (just ask him!) and I like that he's quickly figuring out the rhythms of a typical event: arrive at the venue, tack up, warm up, ride the test, then chill at the trailer. Charlie's got that down pat.

And then? When we go to put the tack back on? He knows that means JUMP TIME too :D

we like the left side, ok?

Fortunately he's still a pretty darn quiet guy, even as he figures all this stuff out. Bc the warm up for stadium turned into a zoo basically the moment we arrived. Riders from both the senior and junior splits were warming up simultaneously, and as much as I love seeing kiddos and their ponies out having a blast... some of them just aren't great at steering, ya know? lol...

Charlie didn't care tho. We found ways to keep mostly to ourselves on the flat - then kept the jump warm up super simple: trot the X, trot the vertical. Canter the vertical, canter the oxer. Use both leads as appropriate. Then be done. Good 'nuff.

wish my head wasn't cut off, but i'm still pleased with the fact that i'm carrying my hands more forward

I already mentioned my distaste for this particular stadium course, but here's a little more detail: It was fairly narrow, on a small and decidedly not flat section of ground, with almost every single jump coming up quickly. No related distances - but all bending lines and roll backs. Plus the ground fell away into the corners, making getting too deep into the corners somewhat inadvisable.

The first three were on an S-bend downhill, then a roll back uphill to 4 before another S-bend downhill from 5-6-7-8, then finishing up with the only "long run" back uphill to 9.

Given that Charlie can be quite strong on the landing side of fences, I expected this course to be a REAL challenge for us. At least the hardest turns (IMO) were to the left, Charlie's easier direction.

big horse over tiny fences!!!

Honestly tho? Despite my worry, the big guy came out and surprised me. He was half asleep at fence one and clobbered it good (lol) - then remembered to pick his legs up over the rest of the course. Ambled along, never got strong, came back when I asked, found most of his jumps pretty much fine.

I didn't really bother much with leads bc there was such little space and I didn't want to disturb his rhythm, but he either held the counter canter or made a full change himself when needed. Fine by me!

what can i say but that he's a good boy??

It wasn't necessarily "pretty," but actually it felt more or less "easy." The horse just jumped the jumps. I like it!

super quick video here!

In some ways, this might have actually felt like our "easiest" stadium course to date at an event. Maybe the trickier ground worked in my favor? Whatever the case, I was quite pleased with him. The rail was silly and careless, but also totally forgivable at this point IMO. It's actually maybe a bit of a miracle that we hadn't yet had any rails in previous outings, honestly.

So. Two phases down in a competition where each phase was testing Charlie to the fullest measure of his current level of training. And next up? His biggest baddest xc course yet.