Figuring Things Out

Charmer has lived at my house for about a month now, and it has been absolutely amazing. He loves living on a nearly 2 acre pasture for most of the time, and is more than happy to be ridden in our arena, or climb on the trailer for lessons and shows.

I gave him nearly 3 weeks off when he first moved to our property because we were working on making the arena ready to be ridden in - pulling weeds, getting a drag, etc. Once the arena was finally done, I climbed up on my horse (which was a little comical, as we don't have a mounting block yet, so I wandered around trying to find something tall enough to use as a mounting block for the day). As we were walking around the arena, the horses in our pasture come galloping over, and I was sure Charmer was going to have a full blown meltdown. Wrong. He lazily flicked an ear in their direction and went right back to work. Even halfway through our ride, the neighbors' horses decided to start screaming and running because ohmygosh there is a horse being ridden! Charmer perked up and neighed back at them once, and then couldn't have cared less the rest of the ride.

Since he was being so good, I decided to set up a lesson with one of the trainers at the barn last Saturday. We loaded up and headed over (I love that 9 times out of 10, Charmer walks on the trailer without any coaxing whatsoever). There was this cute little grid set up with a few single jumps at one end. We started out slow and small, since Charmer can sometimes get a little wild in grids, but he took it all in stride and was being really good. We even got the jumps put up to about 2'9" and he didn't hesitate at all, just ate them right up. He even offered me a few flying changes which was super fun!

What a beast!

After such a fantastic lesson, I set up a XC lesson for Monday. There was a derby on Saturday and I was interested in doing it if Charmer was up for it. On Monday, we again loaded up and headed over to the XC schooling area. As I was tacking him up at the trailer, he fell head over heels in love with a few foals at the property "ohmygosh mom can we get one?!" was what his face was saying the whole time. When the trainer showed up and we started our lesson, he had a couple of moments of stupidity, solely because we were leaving the babies, and then he settled down and we went to work. We started off just cantering around the field, getting him used to all the sights and sounds, and I cantered him through the water a few times. Then trainer CP had me start working on some of my own position. We worked on cruising position (no interfering! Its hard for me...), then getting him prepared for the fence and maintaining the pace all the way to the jump. Once she felt good about his gallop, and about my position, we started over fences. Our first jump was a cute little coupe that we cantered over a few times, and Charmer never once hesitated.

Cute little BN coupe

After getting him nice and warmed up, she started to add more jumps to our little course. We jumped basically every BN fence on the property. Coupes, rolltops, log piles, a steeplechase jump (my favorite), we even did banks (up and down) and went over a faux ditch, as well as a real one. He powered through everything. The only time he hesitated was dropping down the bank, but once we did it a few more times, he was fine - and his down bank form is awesome!

Faux ditch

Once we had jumped everything, trainer CP double checked that I felt good about it all, and that there wasn't anything else we wanted to do, and then she said "he is getting so fun now!". Huge compliment from her in my book. And Charmer really is getting super fun now, I am blown away with him. I talked to her about the upcoming derby, and said that I really just wanted it to be an all around positive experience for both of us, since we both could use confidence building. I asked her what height she thought we should jump. I told her I would love to do the Beginner Novice, but was happy to drop down to Intro if she thought it would make for a better experience for him.

Killing it over the rolltop

She said honestly he was doing fantastic and told us we were definitely ready to try the BN. I just about threw a party then and there. It has been so long since I have even thought about wanting to do BN, or since any trainer has thought that I could be doing it, that hearing CP tell me we should do the Beginner Novice was the best thing I've heard in a long time.

Loving this cross country machine

On Saturday morning, I fed him breakfast, got the trailer all packed up, put his BOT boots on him, and we loaded up to head to the show. Luckily for me it was not an early show, so we had time to mosey around a little in the morning. I arrived at 8:30, and went and got my course map and walked the cross country. Luckily the show is at the same place we schooled, so he had already seen most of the elements, they had just added a few for the show. I double and triple checked the course in my head and then unloaded Charmer and let him eat until we were ready to ride. 

Always tidy with the hind end

Our first ride time was at 11:15, and the show was running fairly on time. I decided to get ready about 10:30 so that I would have plenty of time to warm up in case Charmer was a nutcase. I got on and started walking around when I realized I didn't put my cross country vest on! Luckily I had a friend on the ground who ran to the trailer and grabbed it for me. Charmer waited patiently while I put my vest on and then we continued wandering around warmup for a few more minutes, then trotted and cantered around. I played around with my various positions, and sent Charmer forward and brought him back, and he responded really well to all of it. I popped him over a crossrail a few times and he did awesome, despite being cut off by some crazy ponies twice on the way to the fence!

Working on that form (both of us!)

Since we had over half an hour to our round, I took him out of the warmup with those scary ponies (he wasn't all that phased, but they really frightened me when they ran right in front of him a few times). I found a nice place to stand and watch the other riders go around, and it gave me time to run through the course in my head again. Charmer stood patiently and watched as riders went, horses galloped, a rider fell, several refusals occured, and throughout it all he stood like a rock. We watched one of our best friends go and kill it around their 2' course, and watched about 10 other rides go. Then we had 10 minutes to go until our ride time, so I headed back into warmup and took a few moments to canter him around again. We jumped a 2' jump once, and jumped a 2'6" jump twice. He felt awesome, and I knew I was doing two cross country rounds so I didn't really feel the need to jump his legs off in warmup when he was being perfect. Instead, I just went over to the lady running warmup, and chatted with her for a while, before we headed over to hang out with the people at the start box. 

Playing over the coupe again

We had a good time talking and having a few pictures taken of Mr. Photogenic. The people at the start box even commented on his quiet and calm demeanor and the fact he even had a leg cocked! He was completely unphased by the whole environment. When the rider before me finished, we walked into the start box and he stood quietly for the coundown. I just trotted him out (I don't want or need him to jump out of the start box at this point, I would rather have calm and quiet experiences for him) and then picked up a canter to our first fence. The first fence on course is one he hadn't experienced before, a faux trakehner, it it just a hanging log with some different colored bark underneath, but it resembles a ditch underneath enough that Charmer was hesitant, but with a squeeze and a tap of the whip he soared right over. We took a nice little gallop between the first and second fences and then after the second fence he bolted, so we took a circle to tuck our brains back in our skulls and then continued on to fence #3.

Fence #3 is an inviting maxed BN rolltop

He went full beast mode through the next several fences. Rolltop to faux ditch, then coupe, into the water (no hesitation!), then out of the water to a fun little table. Then we had a nice amount of space to gallop. Charmer hit his stride and I stayed out of his way. We regathered up for fence #8, a stadium jump in the furthest end of the field. Honestly I think the stadium jump in the field threw Charmer off more than any of the other jumps, but he jumped it well and we headed off to the steeplechase jump, then followed by going up and down a dirt mound - which again really confused him, but he went through. We finished our course strong with a triple log, to a log rolltop, back around through the water, then one more stadium jump followed by the same rolltop as fence #3. We hit the ground and I loosened my reins and really let him gallop through the finish flags.

Finishing strong!

I could not have been prouder of him. I had the biggest smile on my face as we came out. The timers told me I was the fastest time thus far, including my circle, but there were still several riders to go, so I did not expect to stay in the top. It definitely surprised me that we had been the fastest, since I felt like we wasted a lot of time in several parts of the course, but I guess that is the perk of owning a fast OTTB. He doesn't even have to be trying to be faster than half the other horses out there.

Log rolltop

I opted to keep our second schooling round, just to really nail in some confidence for the both of us, and honestly it was just so much fun!!! It also gave us some opportunties to fix the few bobbles we had in the first course. The second one didn't count for prizes or anything, but it gave us a really fantastic second round where we took out the circle, didn't even try to bolt once, and took out the few parts where we trotted.

Quintessential cross country picture

Even after the second course, Charmer wasn't breathing hard at all. I walked him around the grounds for a little while before hopping off, and he was a cool customer. I couldn't believe the fact that seriously nothing had set him off all day. I untacked him and gave him some food at the trailer, lots of cookies, and then headed off to the office booth to see what the scores were like. I didn't expect to be first, but I figured we probably ended up in somewhere like third? When I went over to check, they were just finalizing the scores and I WON! I couldn't believe it! Blue ribbon for us! And we even got a cool new saddle pad saying "Duck Alley Derby Champion". I was SO PROUD. It has been a long journey gettin gus here, but through the course I felt confident and like I could trust him to get me to the other side of every fence safely, and Charmer felt brave and bold and confident. It was the best feeling in the world!

I honestly don't remember a time in my life that I have had more fun on a horse. Every other time I have had an experience this good, it was always on a very schooled horse that I was going several levels below where they were experienced, but for the first time this was on a horse that I have trained, and it was his first time going through this. It just felt like the biggest accomplishment in the world. I have gone from the track to here with this horse, and it feels so good. He has such a fantastic future ahead of him, and I feel so excited and privileged to go along this journey with him.

Best. Horse. Ever.