This weekend was was one the most beautiful weekends this year. If you have never experienced fall in the Carolinas, you are missing out. The colors on the trees were stunning, and at a lovely 65 degrees, well, you get the idea. 

Gorgeous.

Saturday my best friend Nikki came out and gave me a lesson on Foster. Nikki is a lovely rider that traded off with me as student coach in our Dressage Team days, so I knew she would give me great advice. I gained a couple very helpful visualization tips to help us with dressage, aiming to reduce the bracing in the upward transitions as well as lift Foster’s back and increase his swing through the walk.

After about 20 minutes or so of dressage, we switched up tack and played around with fences. Nikki has a good idea of what we have been doing, and went ahead and raised the fences so we could really have some fun. Ranging from 3′ to 3’6″, the course we did included a triple combination (one-stride to a two stride with a 3’6″ oxer) and a heck of a tight rollback to a 3’4″ish chevron fence. I was so proud of my boy for handling everything with good grace, and got another excellent visualization tip that will better my equitation over fences. Nikki then hopped on Foster and hopped over a few fences, giggling over each one as she did! Having not jumped in years, it was great to see her have so much fun!

What are you doing with me today??

After all the fun Saturday, we kept it easy Sunday, with a long and low session that went really well. Then Foster got his bath and out came the clippers! I did a simple trace clip on him, switching it up a bit from last year in that I used more curves than angles.

Foster’s clip last year, more of an Irish Clip with angles

Tonight we will do a not-to-demanding dressage school and tomorrow he will have off. With all these great tips up our sleeves I am really excited about the horse trials this weekend! At the very least I can say we are prepared for success!

I’ll be tidying up the clip job tonight and will be sure to post photos tomorrow!