OTTB Charm

Well over the weekend we did a couple of exciting things that I had mentioned were coming up! V & I had a lovely jump school at home on Saturday morning, before a horrendous windstorm blew in. Charms & I also flatted, but no media from that and it was a pretty boring ride overall, so this is mostly about V's adventures. And on Sunday Verge & I had our first "real" cross country school together! V is starting to feel really  confident with the 2'/2'3" stuff, which is super exciting. Of course there are still sticky moments and bumps in the road, but her natural ability and steadily increasing confidence are so much fun. She's typically not much of an over-jumper, which I actually don't mind since it means she's not typically super phased or scared of the fences, but it has made it difficult to actually determine how much scope she really has! Pretty safe to say that she's got some springs in there I think. The oxers definitely can b...

I'm definitely still in a bit of a weird headspace, and obviously still not getting back to real consistency on the blog just yet, but hey, some posts are better than none, right? I'm not exaggerating when I say this canter is an actual dream to ride. All 3 ponies got chiropractic work from my vet a week and a half ago, and she confirmed a fear for me regarding Banner - his lovely Devoucoux saddle doesn't fit. Awesome. Its hitting his scapula, and even with quite a few weeks out of the saddle recently, he still had a lot of residual soreness along his scapula. Luckily I haven't been able to ride 3 ponies lately anyways, so he was on the backburner regardless so it doesn't change much in our immediate plans, but its never fun to know you have to sell a saddle/change plans.  My CWD on V (usually using a half pad, but was testing the fit without) I've got a few different ideas on what I plan to do with selling his current saddle/what I plan to replace it with. I...

At the end of my last post , we left off with Banner having ripped off his shoe, and while it is now back on, we definitely could not do our lesson on Tuesday. Originally, I was planning to just cancel that lesson, since B was clearly out of commission. But with my work schedule preventing my lesson last week, and ponies need dentals next week, so cancelling this lesson would have put me out for 3 weeks. Not the end of the world, but I also was a bit sad about missing lessons for that long. I wavered back and forth for a while on Sunday night about whether or not to cancel, and finally decided, what the heck, lets do the lesson & I'll bring Charmer! So I texted Trainer C, letting her know I would actually come, and that I was bringing Charms. He has been in off and on work for a little while, but my schedule has not been super flexible to keeping him in a program. And honestly, I tend to ride him better when I actually have a lesson or two with someone on the ground yelling a...

This weekend brought around another one of our local schooling shows! I entered Banner in at Novice again, as he definitely needs more & more practice doing that level. He is laughably bored at BN, but still just a bit intimidated by some of the Novice questions, so its a great learning experience for him each time we get out. In our recent show jumping lessons with Trainer C, we have finally unlocked a new level with Banner. He is finally feeling confident & schooled enough at the 3' level that I need to stop "helping" him as much (okay, lets be real, I need to stop micromanaging him). It is super  hard for me to learn to just almost sit there in a supportive role for him. I do my part, trying to set him up well & give him a fair chance to make a good decision, but now I need to let him take some of the responsibility. Banner is loving this new balance we have struck. When I finally stopped fidgeting with him as much, you could almost hear him sigh ...

Heading into day 2, Banner & I were sitting in 1st place! But to be honest, I had no expectation of keeping that placing or anything, and I was not worried about the placing we got at this show. Right now at Novice, XC is sort of our weakest phase. Banner eats up the galloping fences (rolltops, tables, steeplechase, etc.), but some of the tougher questions (1/2 coffins, trakehners, etc.) still back him off a bit at this height. Unfortunately for the barn that puts on these shows, their tractor broke, which didn't allow them to move any of the XC fences, so our cross country course was the same as it was in July . Part of me thought "whomp whomp..." because this didn't mean really any new lines or new challenges (they did add one up bank out of water, but that was it). But then I thought about it and actually this was perfect! I knew the mistakes I made last time and we had done some XC schools to improve our weird ditch issue. The course being exactly the s...

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...