After our April show, showing 3' for the first time ever as a pair, Trainer and I decided to set up a cross country schooling day! Banner is consistently brave, bold and smart over fences now, so we wanted to take him out XC and see how he felt!
The weather had been lovely around this time - a gorgeous 70-75* with just the right amount of breeze and sun. Absolute perfect riding weather. And then our cross country schooling was coming up... Two days before it was a beautiful, sunny 75*. The day before it was about 63* and a little breezy, but mostly comfortable. The day of? 55* and 15mph winds. Awesome weather for bringing a super fit, bold TB out on their first XC school in 6 months, right??? NOPE.
We did an impressive amount of airs above ground while out that day. It was fairly disheartening for me. I knew there were a LOT of factors that went into that being a less than stellar schooling (no studs, horrible weather, firey horses around us, etc), but man I schooled this horse over his first ever Novice XC fences in front of KOC, and now I could barely pilot him over BN jumps without having an explosion.
Finally Trainer just told me to gallop him. So we did. We just went and galloped. For like 15+ minutes. There were definitely some airs above ground involved but the longer we went, the less I felt like I was riding a stick of dynamite. By the last 5 minutes, I had a fairly civil (if still slightly explosive) horse underneath me.
We ended the day finally jumping a few more BN fences and he was rideable and civil for them. I had hoped to take him over all the Novice stuff that day, but it just wasn't in the cards. I left feeling slightly defeated but a bit redeemed that we did in fact pull it together by the end of the hour. And I left with a better game plan for what I needed to do to set him up for our next schooling (which will be in another post soon!)
After that, B and I kept lightly schooling for a couple of weeks before he got 2 weeks off while I went to Florida for my honeymoon. Oh yeah, btw I got married!
When I returned, we had to kick it into gear really fast for our little schooling show that was only 2 weeks out.
The weather had been lovely around this time - a gorgeous 70-75* with just the right amount of breeze and sun. Absolute perfect riding weather. And then our cross country schooling was coming up... Two days before it was a beautiful, sunny 75*. The day before it was about 63* and a little breezy, but mostly comfortable. The day of? 55* and 15mph winds. Awesome weather for bringing a super fit, bold TB out on their first XC school in 6 months, right??? NOPE.
We did an impressive amount of airs above ground while out that day. It was fairly disheartening for me. I knew there were a LOT of factors that went into that being a less than stellar schooling (no studs, horrible weather, firey horses around us, etc), but man I schooled this horse over his first ever Novice XC fences in front of KOC, and now I could barely pilot him over BN jumps without having an explosion.
Finally Trainer just told me to gallop him. So we did. We just went and galloped. For like 15+ minutes. There were definitely some airs above ground involved but the longer we went, the less I felt like I was riding a stick of dynamite. By the last 5 minutes, I had a fairly civil (if still slightly explosive) horse underneath me.
We ended the day finally jumping a few more BN fences and he was rideable and civil for them. I had hoped to take him over all the Novice stuff that day, but it just wasn't in the cards. I left feeling slightly defeated but a bit redeemed that we did in fact pull it together by the end of the hour. And I left with a better game plan for what I needed to do to set him up for our next schooling (which will be in another post soon!)
After that, B and I kept lightly schooling for a couple of weeks before he got 2 weeks off while I went to Florida for my honeymoon. Oh yeah, btw I got married!
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| Shameless wedding photo real quick |
When I returned, we had to kick it into gear really fast for our little schooling show that was only 2 weeks out.
And by that I mean, I basically just had to remember how to ride, because B has hops and didn't forget a single thing after his time off.
He did however feel a little bit free with his hind end at the start of our jumping! He quickly settled right in and we had a nice little school. I decided to swap his bit from his Nathe to a fat, hollow, lozenge instead for jumping. I really like him in the Nathe & he will continue flatting in it, but because it is just a straight bit, it kind of encouraged him to lean on it a bit over fences which was not helping either one of us. He seems to quite like the lozenge bit though and it has improved our connection through jump courses!
Okay! Last thing before we are basically caught up to current times! We did a schooling show in the beginning of June. Popping through 2'9" and 3'0" courses again. Our 2'9" was literally foot perfect. Like seriously, couldn't have asked him to be better. Every single jump felt smooth and easy, no matter what the striding was. We also jumped our very first liverpool, which he literally didn't even notice.
We did 2 3'0" rounds, because someone (me) sort of forgot how to ride at a couple of the fences the first time around. He was lovely and adjustable throughout the courses though, only ever stopping or hitting a rail when I forgot to do my job correctly.
Our second round was better, but I definitely still buried him into one jump and we totally clobbered it. Best kiddo totally bailed me out and didn't hold a grudge whatsoever (which he had every single right to do!).
I'm glad I got more miles in the 3'0" though, because I definitely need them. He is pretty solid at that height now, but his rider needs to get a better eye! And I need to remember to ride every step. The biggest places we get into trouble are when I stop riding (or sometimes when I override something and put us into a crappy spot). Definitely great learning experiences though, and B is just such a fun, easy partner to learn with!!
Happy to be back to blogging, and now we are pretty much caught up to our current stuff, so (hopefully) our blog posts won't be just all long, giant recaps of the past month+ anymore.
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