MDHT #3: cross country!

Let's close out the month of May with a photo-heavy jaunt across 9 fences spread over 500m of terrain, shall we?

patiently waiting for that cue to go. thanks Austen for so many pics! and GRC Photo too!

As I wrote yesterday, the real tests of this event were the dressage and stadium phases. Cross country was short. Really really short haha. And, with one exception, we jumped all the same fences last month.

through the start gates!

Mostly I just wanted to see Charlie go out there and put in an honest and consistent run. Canter the fences. Keep a steady pace. Be a good boy. And he did not disappoint!

nice inviting stick horse

Tho honestly he was sliiiightly wiggly to this first fence. Nothing naughty, but also just kinda taking stock and shifting gears.

easy peasy

He jumped it fine tho and cantered on easily to the tree line and around the turn for jump 2.

world's most adorable brush

I'm a little grateful that we did have that slight turn between fences, as most of the rest of the jumps are one right after the other. And it felt like that little canter towards nothing in particular helped Charlie settle a little bit.

good pony!

He was still a little wiggly to jump 2 tho, but felt pretty easy.

we've jumped this garden gate before!

Mostly my only real goal was to have a more confident feeling horse than last time we were here. If you recall, last time Charlie broke down to trot ahead of most of the fences - especially in the middle portion of the course. He didn't necessarily feel backed off, per se, just that he needed more time to process the jumps on approach.

way less backed off than last time

So this time I was hoping that he'd be able to keep coming to the fences like he had at Jenny Camp, and do his thinking and processing while maintaining a little more pace. And he definitely did! Still took a little leg and wasn't dragging me to the fences like he had by the end of Jenny Camp, but he honestly felt pretty good.

friendly roll top - but note the red arrow pointing to that suspicious dark fold in the terrain ahead (also note the construction mound to the right)

The course obviously wasn't particularly challenging but they still found a way to weave in some interesting terrain. On approach to this roll top, the dug up earth and construction to the right caught my eye and had me thinking I'd ride a little to the left to avoid anything spooky.

But... surprise, surprise, that red arrow is actually pointing to a fairly massive feature in the landscape. Plus, right on top of the point of the arrow is our next fence, so clearly the straight line wasn't actually the right ride.

pictures almost never do terrain justice, but this was a fairly substantial and steep drop in the ground immediately after the roll top

On the landing side of the fence was this steep slope that is clearly used to create more challenge for higher level tracks haha (like the training brush on top of the hill that you see in the above picture).

It turned out our best course of action was hugging the construction zone on our right - which Charlie happily did, tho not without a minor "oh shit" moment when we got long to the roll top and I kinda had to play catch up a little bit to avoid taking my heavy-on-the-forehand-and-prone-to-tripping ottb down that damn slope haha.

then back around to this wide-but-low roll top again

Anyway, tho. Once that was accomplished we could make a sweeping turn toward the familiar roll top that we kinda biffed from a trot last month and begin making our way back up hill to the finish line.

we kinda futzed it but all's well that ends well

Charlie got right on up to the base of this jump but made it over just fine. In a way it kinda reminded me of jump 4 from our stadium round, and I'm beginning to wonder if we're starting to see which lead Charlie is stronger in jumping from (hint: probably not the left lead lol).

then rising ground to the rail road tie

Then we sorta cruised up hill to the next few jumps - which was nice bc it served as a reminder for me to try to push my hands forward and let the hill influence Charlie's balance and pace vs me trying to do it all myself.

horse is unimpressed lol

And this was where Charlie finally felt like he was settling a little bit. With such a short course and the jumps all right on top of each other, the horse had maybe been a little slow to get into the zone.

same coop again!

But he cruised right on up to the coop too, continuing his easy lope up hill.

pictured: cruisin!

A giant part of me wished we could have cruised like that for another hundred meters or so bc it felt perfect :)

i actually kinda love this fence lol

But then all to soon we were onto our penultimate fence - the only "new" one on course for us. This really unique and visually interesting brush fence.

and charlie jumped it well!

It was a good size and felt like a good fence to catch Charlie's attention and make him think about it - but situated as it was toward the end of course when he was finally getting more into a groove, I didn't expect it to pose issues. And spoiler: it totally didn't.

same final jump as last time

Then a quick turn to our final fence, the same raised log we saw last month. Only this time without any pretty planted flowers in it.

and naturally we had to get in one goofy flyer lol. atta boy, charlie!

We got a little long to the fence (it had to happen at some point, right? lol.... some things will never change) but he cruised right on over nbd.

quickest helmet cam video evar right here.

seriously. it's 1:37 haha. 

It took me a minute to pull Charlie up and he was maybe a little surprised that the course was already over. Bc again, I can't emphasize enough just how short this rode in comparison to last week's Jenny Camp, or even the elementary at Fair Hill.

treats at the trailer make everything better

But it was good. Charlie did everything that was asked of him - and honestly I don't think it's a very bad thing for a horse to walk away from an outing thinking, "Hm that was a lot easier than I expected!"

such a good boy <3

Still tho - a longer course would have allowed him to settle more and stretch his legs out and shift into cruise control. So I'm thinking we will probably stick to longer course formats from here on.

mini xc course machines right here lol

As it was, Charlie definitely knew he was a good boy. Definitely was happy and relaxed when I hopped off and got all his gear loosened and tucked up. It was just icing on the cake when I saw how well our dressage score had placed us too!

charlie wanted to tell bella all about how awesome he is at this game

The rail was a shame since it dropped us a few places to finish 6th - but imho that green looks mighty fine on Charles haha.

really tho, it was a good day had by all. brita and bella continue to kill it out there - snagging another 2nd place finish

So now we get a little break - probably about a month or so until our next event. Lots of time to just settle in to work on refining our training, and schooling more of that stuff on xc that we're going to be seeing more and more of. And maybe take a few dressage lessons too haha.

naturally we were happy to have Lyra watching over us all day too :D

Do you ever feel like the actual "training" work kinda has to get put on a back burner while you work on preparing for shows or events? Or like you can finally settle back down to focus on the 'normal' stuff once the showing is over?