2013 Accomplishments Part I: The Horse

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Britt

Dressage at Portofino

This year has been a big one for Foster and I. After ~~the crappiest winter ever~~ basically the whole winter off, we started our spring season with him being lame and myself being busy (wedding planning > riding, and that’s just the way it goes). So it wasn’t until May that we really started to figure out the problem, but after a plethora of treatments he was finally serviceably sound and ready to go.

After that, it was a matter of rebuilding the lost muscle and teaching him to be confident and trust that the movements wouldn’t be painful. We tried very hard to find zen and I rediscovered how much my horse thrives on positive (vocal) reinforcement.

After that things started moving quite quickly, so without writing a novel here are some of our accomplishments this year:

Dressage

Acheiving straightness
Leg Yields at the trot
Shoulder-in at the trot
Becoming steady in the bridle

Shoulder In

At a dressage show over the summer

Show jumping

First gymnastics
Cantering an entire course
1 & 2 stride combinations
Jumping 3’6″
3′-3’3″ courses

Standing next to our first 3'6" (3'7"?) fence

Standing next to our first 3’6″ fence

Showjumping at the Carolina Horse Park

Cross Country

Baby ‘trakehner’
Jumping in/out water
Galloping/making time!
Novice & Training fences
Jumping downhill/terrain

Before: Our first XC school in Feb 2012. Note tiny jump and horrible release

Before: Our first XC school in Feb 2012. We’re jumping the log- note my non-existent release

After: Training Table Nov 2013

For myself too, I have seen some improvements:

Sitting more, using core
Better elbow-to-bit line
Looking straight
Leg Position
Better release during and after fences
Better use of positive reinforcement

Shameful photo of me jumping Merry in a dressage saddle circa 2007

Look ma! Soft hands!

Overall I am quite proud of what we have done in essentially 6 months of the year. There have been plenty of ups and downs, but of course that is the nature of owning and training a horse. I can’t wait to see what he does next year!

Cross Country Schooling at the Fork [Video]

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Britt

It is so helpful to see the video, and have a good friend put this together for us! So fun!

XC Schooling

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Britt

And so passed another weekend of going 200 mph. Story of my life. Friday night I hosted a get together for a group of lady friends, Saturday snuck out to the barn briefly to see Foster before going bridesmaid dress shopping and then finished off the night at a gala!

All dressed up for the gala!

You guys are probably most interested in my cross country schooling yesterday at the Fork though!

We arrived shortly after 1 PM, and it was clear that most of the people there were wrapping up and heading home. We got out to the beautiful cross country course to discover we had it all to ourselves- score! It was decidedly warm yesterday, around 60 degrees, and I was thanking my lucky stars that Foster was trace clipped but still worried he would run out of steam quickly, so we kept warm up pretty minimal.

We popped over one Beginner Novice fence and then proceeded to tackle the Novice course one fence at a time. It was apparent that Foster is slightly less confident (as in, not blasé anymore!) to these fences, but grew bolder as we went on, and felt pretty adjustable throughout. We even tackled a few training fences, including a bending line from a max table to a roll top- he was great!

Breezing over a Novice fence

The courses at the Fork are always relatively tough, and tend to be maxed out in height and width, and it seemed that this one was no different. The only exceptions were when technical questions were asked- such as a couple combinations and in jumping into water, etc.

Overall it was a great learning day with many successes! Julieann conquered her first Prelim fences (badass!) and schooled the training course, and overall Foster showed great competence at the Novice level. We will definitely benefit from more schooling this winter, but this was a great place to start!

Approaching a Training Table

I should be getting a video sometime tonight, and will be sure to post it so you can see our XC awesomeness! Stay tuned!

A Show Recap: Carolina Horse Park and making time (finally!)

Posted on November 12, 2013 by Britt

All braided up and showing off his not-so-fuzzy face!

The show Sunday was a success in many ways. While we did have a bit of a colic scare (not Foster, but his trailermate, Jasper) the supportive community of eventers around us helped us find a vet and eventually send us home safely. We are so glad he is okay and ready to fight another day! We were busy all weekend, seeing lots of familiar faces, including that of a Connemara gelding that my family used to own and breed many moons ago! It is so refreshing to see horses end up in forever homes with wonderful people, and at 18 years young, this guy is going strong! I know because he beat me this weekend! I look forward to seeing this pair again in the future!

Foothills Waterman as a stud at our farm, and this weekend at the show!

Dressage
While there was some tension in our dressage test, we still somehow managed a 32. But the test looked like a giant 7 with a couple 6’s thrown in for the more tense moments, so maybe it didn’t look as bad as it felt. Positive moments included ~~relatively~~ straight centerlines, definitely straight movement down the long sides of the arenas (instead of haunches in!), and a fairly good free walk. We also got straight 7’s in our overall marks, a first for us as a pair! We will continue to work on getting a more active trot and correct transitions, but as always, it’s a work in progress.

Such a ham!

Showjumping
In our warm up, Foster felt really behind my leg, and I was experiencing an odd shooting pain in my right ankle. As a result I kept the warm up minimal. Luckily Foster’s motor and my ankle started to improve as we started our round, and he put in a solid effort to finish with all the rails up and only 1 time penalty point. The first 4 jumps included two serious rollbacks that we lost a bit of impulsion to, which is I think where we didn’t make time. His spots were also not perfect, but at this height I’m not terribly worried. However, I am pleased with my pony for cantering the first fence (no more first fence syndrome!) and getting through almost double clear.

Cross Country
Cross country was definitely the highlight of the show! The course was very nice and inviting, with lots of room to gallop towards the end, and included a sunken road that was so much fun! Foster had a bit of a spook into the water (which is itself quite spooky, being in the dark with an odd reflection in it) but went through the flags and cantered out. I can definitely say that Foster figured out how to gallop, and I finally felt him kick it into gear and feel ~~like Superman~~ confident coming to all the fences. My 1 minute warning beeper went off at the second-to-last fence, and we came in 34 seconds under time– a huge improvement for us! Also… we didn’t get lost!

The ORANGE fence I missed at the last show!

The sunken road

Overall, I am very very pleased with the results. We came in 3rd out of 17 riders and I definitely feel like that he is prepared for Novice- if only we didn’t have to wait till next year to try it! Next weekend we will be heading to the Fork to school their Novice cross country course and I feel like Foster is going to eat it up! So forgive me if I’m a bit quiet this week, and I will post the showjumping video soon and talk cross country on Monday! Congrats to all of the competitors this weekend and thank you to all of the volunteers that put on this great show!

PS if you want to see our photos (thank you High Time Photography!) click here!

Back at home and taking a couple days off!

A Show Recap: Portofino Horse Trials

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Britt

Hey there.

At this point in time, I will admit that I am a little too brain-dead to go into a full blown diagnosis of our show on Sunday. After an exhausting weekend filled with Michael Buble:

Buble, Box Seats, and Big finales- oh my!

and an engagement shoot for a friend:

A preview from the engagement shoot

by the time Sunday rolled around I was straight up exhausted. So I decided we were just going to have fun and see what happened, with our fingers and hooves crossed that things went well.

Well, we had truck issues getting to the show and a very kind friend ended up bringing the ponies out to Portofino for us. So I went way out of order, but luckily the show management was willing to be flexible and let things happen as they may. Thank goodness. Foster felt super relaxed in our warmup, so I rode around for 20 or so minutes before going in the arena.

I have watched the video plenty of times and hashed it all over in my head, but here’s the short version: In hind sight maybe I should have focused on getting him more in front of my leg, but whatev’s. I see plenty of things to work on (I smacked myself in the head when I saw my reins getting long again, what is WRONG WITH ME?!) and some bracing stuff, so all in all, not our best test, but not our worst. So frustrating that again our walk wasn’t up to par until the last couple strides, but good enough to get a 7.5. I think I was being a bit conservative because of the last show when he broke. Anyways, here’s the video, which speaks for itself.

Show jumping was catching a lot of riders out with refusals and what not, so I just decided to go in relatively aggressively (again, Foster was completely blase’ through our warmup but just in case) and get er’ done. He got in a bit deep in some spots and cross cantered a ton (where did that come from?) but because the footing was a bit deep I knew if we stopped we’d never get going again, so we persevered. Clean and clear, but not pretty. Oh well.

I had a tired, hot horse by the time we got around to cross country (PS what is up with the temperature going up 10 degrees on show days?!?) but felt pretty good about the course. Trotted over fence 1 as per our game plan and attempted to rock and roll, but unfortunately never got up to speed because Foster wanted to look at all the funny terrain questions (oh-mah-gerd what is the patch of sand doing there?! and Oh snap! there’s a pile of junk beside fence 3! ahh!) but was a good boy all in all. He hopped over the Novice sized (oh yes, 2’11” fences on a BN course!) fences easily. Not that he shouldn’t have, but still. Here’s the video of our cross country, in which I yell about a certain ‘outrider’ who was wandering around my fences as I was trying to go go go! So I (IMHO) politely was trying to tell people that she was being a distraction and needed to get out of my way! Sheesh!

We ended up 3rd out of 8th, on a 34-point-something dressage score and 5 time faults. I’m pleased and think we are very close! Entry is sent in for another horse trial at CHP on the 10th of November, where we will do our damnedest to make time on both SJ and XC!

Until next time.. keep kicking!

XC Schooling

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Britt

Yesterday we headed out to a local cross-country course to get some schooling in. We haven’t been over any kind of terrain or solid fences since June and I felt it was really important to get out again to continue building our confidence and prepare for Novice this fall. While we have been schooling 3′-3’3″ showjumping fences at home (training level height) we have never been over anything larger than beginner novice cross-country. I wasn’t worried about the height as much as my (and therefore his) relaxation.

It was super hot so we kept it minimal, but what we did I was really pleased with! We had a slightly rough start due to me losing my stirrups over a couple fences- this is because I desperately needed to shorten them and had been hoping to do this in a show jumping school, but hadn’t done it yet. So we rolled my stirrups (somehow I have the longest stirrup leathers in the world- just look at the excess!) and proceeded. As a result I feel like my leg was much tighter but my upper body felt a bit unbalanced with the change. Looking at these photos I realize I could do with closing my hip angle and a couple other adjustments, but nothing we can’t fix!

Foster sailed over the Novice fences like a champ. We had one minor discussion about the ditch as a result of my jumping up his neck on his first attempt over it, but thanks to Ali’s egging me on we made it over again. I definitely came away with some great feedback (like MORE ENERGY!) and am super stoked about what this season will bring.

Next week we have a showjumping lesson with Holly Hudspeth and then a dressage lesson over the weekend at Eliza Sydnor’s (where I’ll get to ride in front of mirrors! yay!) We have plenty to work on and I’ll post recaps after. In the next couple weeks I want to get in a jumping photoshoot with my new camera and a bangin’ new brick arch jump I’m about to go paint with Ali! Stay posted!