the clown show

This has obviously been a crazy year for goal setting and horse showing and basically all levels of expectations and reality. You don't need me to tell you that, lol. And like so many of you, I basically swept everything I thought 2020 would be right out the window months ago.

At this point, my only real focus with riding is to continue doing the things that are exciting to me - that sound like fun, positive opportunities. One such idea popped into my head a couple weeks ago: maybe Charlie and I could enter our annual home show?

cherry picked pretty hard to find even this mediocre shot lol

After talking through the pros and cons etc with various friends and trusted professionals etc, we decided to go for it! There seemed to be a lot of advantages for showing at home too, ya know? 

Like Charlie could chill in his stall all day... And obvi we're super familiar with all the grounds and jumps etc, had plenty of opportunities to walk the courses multiple times, and obvi skipped all the packing and driving. Plus I even managed to pick up a discounted entry from another local rider who couldn't use it!

idk we did the things so that's good 'nuff!

I was also super SUPER grateful to have a few friends on hand to help out with all the things (mostly relating to moral support lol bc y'all already know I can be a hot mess). Shout out to Austen, Rachael and Jay for that lol!

Things started off well enough in dressage too. Our ride was late enough that there was plenty of time for stuff like braids and studs (since riding in grass ring), and Charlie had done me the favor of staying clean overnight lol.

glad it's over

He was pretty darn good for the test too, at least, when measured against my own personal yard stick. He was responsive, not pulling on me, going when I said go, and whoa-ing when I said whoa. And ya know.... that's basically it haha. 

Which is another way of saying.... Well, it ain't much lol. I kinda sorta gave up on dressage a few months ago and.... it definitely shows. We need to be rounder in general, and needed a little bit more of everything in this particular test too. 

I never picked up the test so idk what it actually scored, but probably some combinations of 6s and 6.5s, for a final score of 38%. Which.... was about what I expected after finishing the ride lol. 

our combined expressions here lol... we both know some shit's about to go down

Honestly, for my purposes, the day was always going to be about the jumping. Which meant I was more than a little surprised when my trainer mentioned a few days prior that she wouldn't be available for coaching. I had kinda just assumed by our conversations that coaching was a given, but you know what they say about assumptions. 

And esp in this covid-era, volunteers are increasingly hard to get so running the show was basically an 'all hands on deck' situation. It just hadn't occurred to me that she'd be busy.... esp considering how coaching was kiiiiiiinda a critical part of my game plan lol. 

So, uh, lesson learned: maybe next time I should use my words instead of just making assumptions?

annoyed that charlie punched this one out with a front

Because it was pretty much immediately apparent when we arrived at warm up that.... things were not getting off to a great start haha. Charlie was AMPED omg. 

I'm not sure exactly what set him off -- he's competed successfully in this exact same field set up multiple times (including that one time we won at N....). But whatever the case, Charlie was lit. And very barn sour. Just getting through our warm up was.... challenging. 

The warm up jumps were well arranged (sometimes they get placed in a more sloping part of the hill that I distinctly do not like haha) but we had issues with going toward/away from the barn, and with rating speed and balance. 

OOOH, and. Haha, And. Tack issues.... Turns out my fancy new soft grip Nunn Finer reins are slippery as fuck and I straight up could not hold on to them. 

charlie 'n emma: terrifying innocent bystanders since 2016

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I had the wrong bridle on altogether. Should have had a flash strap on, 100%, and possibly a different bit. As it was, Charlie was basically yanking the reins right out of my hands, singing "La la la la, I can't hear you!!!" as he merrily dragged my ass around warm up. It was embarrassing. 

The jumps were ok, tho. Actually, the warm up jumps were fine. Just.... Everything in between was no good. So idk. I guess I hoped for the best and went in for our round determined to stay active as a rider. 

emma: "charlie i swear this is a 6, buddy -- plz wait for it!!!"

Which... Eh. I feel like I was semi-successful in that endeavor, at least to start. Like, cantering around to the first jump I actually had this moment of being like, "Emma. Sit the fuck down in that saddle and ride this horse in a balance to the first fence."

And actually, jump 1 kinda went ok. Altho Charlie just punched it the fuck out of the cups bc obviously. Jump 2 had a slightly fussy turn but Charlie got himself organized and jumped the crap out of it. Sadly my video is from the wrong angle to see it, but the pro got a nice shot. Maybe I'll suck it up and buy that but... Eh, maybe not lol.

The next jumps were set on a 6 stride line (pictured above and below) with a little downhill dip in the middle, and I knew from watching other riders that it would ride short for us. 

ping!!!

Somehow tho we made it through that alive, and then over the next end jump too. Tho you can see in the video that we were definitely losing it. 

Next up came the triple, measured at 24' to 72' on the dot. Which we naturally did in 1.5 (taking the middle element) to 4. All with me practically standing up and back in my stirrups trying desperately to get those slippery reins back. 

pictured: what it looks like after doing 4 in 72'

And like. Side note. This is what's so annoying about Charlie on video. He makes the 4 strides look almost reasonable. Practically like I'm just holding him back from getting the right distance. His 14' stride looks natural and proportionate for his big body and long legs. 

But ya know. The combinations are set for a 12' stride. And at this point we really don't have any excuse for getting that strung out in show jumping. 

wheels firmly off the bus

So ok. We made it through the triple after leaving a stride out, with 2 rails already on the card. We took the next rail after whiffing it to the two stride too, then landed in a heap and circled. During which circle I literally wrapped the reins around my fist in a desperate attempt to find grip. 

20 penalties later tho and we did indeed finish the damn thing

Made it over that jump then circled again. I had already decided in the first circle that we'd be withdrawing, but was determined to finish the round. So looking at the video makes me think I maybe kinda gave up a little bit tho with the second circle. 

But eh.... At that point I preferred to take the penalty in exchange for a better final jump since none of it really mattered anyway. And we did indeed get a pretty good shot at the final fence, go figure.

oh sir. you are so extra.

So. Lol. Finally through the finish flags. I eventually was able to pull the horse up, too lol. I let the judge know on my way out that we'd be withdrawing, to which she replied "Good." haha... Sigh.

Talk about a mortifying spectacle. And I fully admit to being more than a little disappointed. Mostly in myself (and also those slippery fucking reins which are now #forsale). But also a little with Charlie. 

I just straight up don't get to ride this side of him very often -- and virtually never in lessons (where we go in a simple loose ring snaffle and can adjust and half halt and all the things...). So it catches me totally off guard when he's wild like this. And considering we've been schooling 3'3 for two years at this point, I can't rely on the jumps to back him off any more either.

 

combined dressage + sj video here

So. Yea. 'Twas a clown show haha. I have exactly zero regrets about withdrawing before cross country, tho. There's just no way in hell it could have gone well.

Even if Charlie had somehow by the grace of god settled into a rhythm, it's almost guaranteed that I would have still ridden too defensively and not trusted the forward when we needed it.

On one hand I'm sorta proud of myself for giving it a shot at all, but eh. I don't feel particularly inclined to repeat that experience any time soon either LOL. Ugh. Horses, man.