Mid Summer Show 2019: Day 2

Now on to the super fun stuff from the weekend - CROSS COUNTRY!!! 

Our ride time again was crazy early but I was kind of happy to beat the heat (I think it hit like 97* or something on Sunday afternoon). I had to be ready to leave the start box at 7:45am. Based on our last few outings I wasn't 100% sure how that was going to work for us. I've been re-evaluating our warmup, as Banner has gotten infinitely more fit than he was last year. 

B jumping the heck out of this Novice table!

I decided to leave my house around 6:20, which got me at the facility around 6:40am. I was the first one on property, but that worked out totally fine for me (good parking spot!). I let Banner marinate in his new Back on Track sheet for a bit while I brushed off his legs & booted him. Then I started on the process of putting in studs. I retapped his stud holes the night before so it would be easier, but it still took me a good 15 minutes I'm pretty sure!

Once we got studded, I finished tacking up, and I think I was on by 7:10? Luckily by this point other people had shown up so I wasn't totally alone if my horse decided to be a little psycho!

We wandered around for a few minutes before I put him to work. I gave myself plenty of time just in case we needed to do a 20 minute gallop set like we had to do earlier in the year! I gave him a couple laps of a solid, forward canter, and he felt awesome! Plenty of forward, but not losing his mind either. Since we had nearly half an hour before our ride time, I decided to just stand around for a bit and chat, now that some of our friends had arrived

Once it hit about 7:35, I went back out and warmed up some more. We got some nice warmup fences and he felt fantastic - super rideable and adjustable! I headed to the start box feeling very happy with my horse and how we were starting our morning.

The night before, I went and walked the course. It was a fairly beefy, solid course for Novice. I'd jumped pretty much everything there at one point or another with B, but there were a couple of new questions and I hadn't jumped them in a full course either.

We left the start box in a nice little gallop and headed toward the first fence! A big faux Trakehner. It's really just a hanging log, but there is black bark put under it to fool the horses into thinking there might be a ditch. We have jumped that fence multiple times, came in at a lovely pace and bam. Stop. 

I was a bit surprised that he stopped at the fence, but we reapproached and everything was fine. I think he was taken aback at the first fence, but once his head was in the game we were fine!

Then, a short gallop to an up bank, 2 strides to a down bank. He ate that up! I decided to trot him off the down, but I don't think he would have cared if we had cantered!

We had a bit of time to cruise and galloped over an inviting little A-frame. Short gallop to a log pile and into the water! Banner thinks water is the coolest, and never has a problem with that, so he was super happy about getting to splash through the water!

A fairly tight turn out of the water complex to a nice big rolltop, which Banner attacked! I was feeling super happy with him and his confidence out on course. Next was a half coffin - ditch to another rolltop. Banner was awesome with ditches last year but for some reason has had some slight issues with them this year. I dropped to a trot and really tried to get him in there. He clearly backed off once he saw the ditch, and I managed to get him over, but not without a good 1.5 second pause as he decided if he really wanted to go over that. 

Next thing on course was one of the only things we haven't jumped here. A beefy Trakehner that is definitely a bit intimidating to a green Novice horse. Sure enough, we had a stop there. I think I probably could've ridden it stronger and gotten him over it the first time, but I kind of figured he would stop and I don't think I rode it well enough to set him up for success. 

Once we managed to get over the trakehner (not very prettily mind you), next was a Steeplechase fence that was in the shadows and definitely weirded out a few horses of the day, but Banner couldn't have cared less. We had another half coffin, and he hadn't jumped this particular ditch before, which is larger than the one he was already skeptical about, I rode in swinging and forward, and stop. We reapproached and got it on the second try but I definitely need to do some more ditch work with him!!

Now it was time to head back to the water - Banner's favorite! He splashed right in and we were headed to a hanging log out of the water. He felt fine, and then all of a sudden took off a full stride early. I'm thinking he didn't see it very well, since the jump was headed right into the sun and there was a fair amount of glare on the water, but I'm not entirely sure what happened. He managed to mostly clear the fence, and we both were fine (he got a couple of dime-sized scrapes but nothing that a little ointment didn't clear up overnight). 

I considered retiring, but trotted him off and he was still sound and seemed game, so I decided to finish out the course - its a schooling show after all! We came back around and dropped into the water off the down bank (one of his favorite things to do), and jumped out over a log pile. 

Here we got a nice little gallop stretch between the log pile & the next rolltop fence and I'm glad I continued because Banner felt fantastic!!

Rolltop to the table in the first photo of the post, and then one final gallop stretch before ending over the same Trakehner we started on! 

All in all, I had a blast, despite several bobbles and mistakes in our course. Banner is definitely still very green to the level and this was a big ask of him and I knew that. He showed up as a good partner for me and honestly I was super happy with him. Clearly we have some homework to do before trying it again, but if we get our ditch work cleaned up, I really think I'm pretty close to having a nice little Novice pony on my hands!