Okay, first off, I must preface this by saying that I am officially the worst blogger & this show happened nearly 2 weeks ago and I am just now blogging about it. Whoops. Oh well, better late than never, right?
So we went ahead and decided to enter Novice again at our local little schooling show! We are consistently schooling around that height in our lessons and its feeling better and better, I just need to keep learning how to make better decisions!
Because its a smaller schooling show, we ran some of the divisions out of order, so I did SJ first, and then Dressage later in the morning. I'm sure for some people in my group that made a big difference (either good or bad), but with Banner it really makes no difference for us.
Since Novice is technically 2'11" max, they put us in the 2'9" group instead of 3' just to keep it under max height. 2'9" is the first class of the day that they run (mostly so the people jumping the bigger jumps don't have to wait through the giant groundpoles/crossrails classes). Banner was mostly a good boy, although unfortunately somewhat channeling his inner deer. I wasn't managing him as well as I should, but it didn't help that he was going back and forth from being too bold, to half asleep depending on the jump.
By some miracle, we made it around 2'9" clear. He really is a solid, practically packer pony at 2'9". Those fences have become "easy" for him, and he can clear them even when he is jumping like a moron, or taking the weirdest distances imaginable.
I'm trying to get more miles (mostly for me more than him) in the 3'0" ring, so we did our normal and went back in for a 3' round. Guys...it was rough. Like so rough. I swear we missed every single distance, and we completely massacred one jump and took a few other rails down.
For some reason, I have consistently been screwing up my first round in the 3', so I usually have been entering a second round for schooling anyways, but that first round was seriously probably my worst round at that height yet. I threw him in a second schooling round and expected it to be a bit better (at least maybe we could keep all the jumps up). Nope.
We didn't completely demolish any fences in our second round, but we still took down rails at 2 fences and it still felt very scattered and not put together. I definitely walked away somewhat frustrated with how I rode, but it was just kind of one of those days I think. Banner still got dozens of cookies though, because he is still a good boy, even when he jumps like a deer and his pilot can't ride.
We were done with our jump rounds by probably around 9am, so Banner just hung out at the trailer for a bit and snacked while I chatted with friends and perused the mobile tack shop. His new jump bit is a cartwheel bit and because of the way it moves, I wanted to snag some bit guards for his bit to make sure it doesn't pinch or rub him. While looking for bit guards, I looked at their bit selection as well. They had a fairly reasonably priced loose ring, 3 piece anatomical bit, and I have been meaning to snag one for him anyways, so I decided to pick it up, and I actually popped it on his dressage bridle to use in our test. One really great thing about Banner is that no matter what bit I put him in, I don't really fear him running away or completely blowing me off, he's quite soft in the mouth and so I never worry when I switch out bits that I might not have "enough" (this was definitely something I worried about with Charmer haha).
Our dressage test was scheduled to start at 11:11, but they were running about 10 minutes ahead in the ring (unheard of!), so I got on around 10:35 just in case. We wandered over to the dressage ring, and I spent probably about half of my warmup just walking and suppling him, so I had a quite loose, relaxed horse on my hands. He also seemed to really like his new bit! Dressage warmup is on the grass, and he doesn't usually love that, but he relaxed enough to be very fluid and soft!
They were ready for me to go in about 15 minutes early, so I put him through a couple transitions just to see what I had, and he was great. I was able to keep him very round and he wasn't evading the contact or my leg which was lovely. We headed into the ring and I felt great about the test we put down (unfortunately I got no media at all!). It was reflected in my score which was a 32.86! We shaved 4 whole points off of our last score & he impressed this judge clearly much more the second time around.
We were sitting in first between our dressage and SJ scores. I knew XC is still probably our weakest phase at this particular time at Novice though. Banner is still just a bit intimidated by some of the fences - particularly anything with a ditch, whether its open or as a trakehner. I assumed we would not hold our lead on XC the next day, but I was happy to be where we were on placings after the first couple phases. 4 out of the other 5 horses in the division we were in are horses who actually go out to recognized shows at Novice, so I was impressed to hold my own against horses and riders that are more accomplished than either Banner or I.
So we went ahead and decided to enter Novice again at our local little schooling show! We are consistently schooling around that height in our lessons and its feeling better and better, I just need to keep learning how to make better decisions!
Because its a smaller schooling show, we ran some of the divisions out of order, so I did SJ first, and then Dressage later in the morning. I'm sure for some people in my group that made a big difference (either good or bad), but with Banner it really makes no difference for us.
Since Novice is technically 2'11" max, they put us in the 2'9" group instead of 3' just to keep it under max height. 2'9" is the first class of the day that they run (mostly so the people jumping the bigger jumps don't have to wait through the giant groundpoles/crossrails classes). Banner was mostly a good boy, although unfortunately somewhat channeling his inner deer. I wasn't managing him as well as I should, but it didn't help that he was going back and forth from being too bold, to half asleep depending on the jump.
By some miracle, we made it around 2'9" clear. He really is a solid, practically packer pony at 2'9". Those fences have become "easy" for him, and he can clear them even when he is jumping like a moron, or taking the weirdest distances imaginable.
I'm trying to get more miles (mostly for me more than him) in the 3'0" ring, so we did our normal and went back in for a 3' round. Guys...it was rough. Like so rough. I swear we missed every single distance, and we completely massacred one jump and took a few other rails down.
For some reason, I have consistently been screwing up my first round in the 3', so I usually have been entering a second round for schooling anyways, but that first round was seriously probably my worst round at that height yet. I threw him in a second schooling round and expected it to be a bit better (at least maybe we could keep all the jumps up). Nope.
We didn't completely demolish any fences in our second round, but we still took down rails at 2 fences and it still felt very scattered and not put together. I definitely walked away somewhat frustrated with how I rode, but it was just kind of one of those days I think. Banner still got dozens of cookies though, because he is still a good boy, even when he jumps like a deer and his pilot can't ride.
We were done with our jump rounds by probably around 9am, so Banner just hung out at the trailer for a bit and snacked while I chatted with friends and perused the mobile tack shop. His new jump bit is a cartwheel bit and because of the way it moves, I wanted to snag some bit guards for his bit to make sure it doesn't pinch or rub him. While looking for bit guards, I looked at their bit selection as well. They had a fairly reasonably priced loose ring, 3 piece anatomical bit, and I have been meaning to snag one for him anyways, so I decided to pick it up, and I actually popped it on his dressage bridle to use in our test. One really great thing about Banner is that no matter what bit I put him in, I don't really fear him running away or completely blowing me off, he's quite soft in the mouth and so I never worry when I switch out bits that I might not have "enough" (this was definitely something I worried about with Charmer haha).
Our dressage test was scheduled to start at 11:11, but they were running about 10 minutes ahead in the ring (unheard of!), so I got on around 10:35 just in case. We wandered over to the dressage ring, and I spent probably about half of my warmup just walking and suppling him, so I had a quite loose, relaxed horse on my hands. He also seemed to really like his new bit! Dressage warmup is on the grass, and he doesn't usually love that, but he relaxed enough to be very fluid and soft!
They were ready for me to go in about 15 minutes early, so I put him through a couple transitions just to see what I had, and he was great. I was able to keep him very round and he wasn't evading the contact or my leg which was lovely. We headed into the ring and I felt great about the test we put down (unfortunately I got no media at all!). It was reflected in my score which was a 32.86! We shaved 4 whole points off of our last score & he impressed this judge clearly much more the second time around.
We were sitting in first between our dressage and SJ scores. I knew XC is still probably our weakest phase at this particular time at Novice though. Banner is still just a bit intimidated by some of the fences - particularly anything with a ditch, whether its open or as a trakehner. I assumed we would not hold our lead on XC the next day, but I was happy to be where we were on placings after the first couple phases. 4 out of the other 5 horses in the division we were in are horses who actually go out to recognized shows at Novice, so I was impressed to hold my own against horses and riders that are more accomplished than either Banner or I.
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