Pinocchio has been on my mind a lot today. But not for any of the obvious reasons unless you've read the title of this post. In which case it is probably very obvious.
After the day off and the hack day that Apollo was allowed after Maryland II we went into dressage boot camp.
A recurring theme in Apollo's dressage work has been that he is too strong in the left rein with hardly any contact in the right creating (or maybe it's resulting from) a crooked horse. Well the problem with that is that you can't push impulsion through a crooked horse. It just doesn't work (oh and impulsion is the desire to move forward for those of you that don't know). If you happen to be either A) a pony clubber or B) a dressage queen then you know you pretty much can't do diddly-squat unless your horse is straight and forward.
Well a magical thing happened, and her name is Holly Hudspeth. Since she's been back riding for a full half of a week now I thought it was time that she put her fear aside, cowboy-ed up and attempted to ride my horse (Holly and world, if for some reason you are reading this, I am 100% joking. All I had to do was mention her getting on Apollo and she jumped at the chance to fix my lovely thoroughbred with her magic but is too modest to say so)
After watching her work her voodoo on my unsuspecting pony I got to get on the next day and see how much voodoo juice was left in the poor sucker. And let me tell you, there was plenty. So much so that all my bad habits could do were attempt to dent the straightness Holly had instilled in Apollo. Suddenly I went from kicking a brick and air around the ring to actually riding a dressage horse. There was like, an actual neck there!
And so is the story of how a cross country machine learned the subtle art of dressage and they all lived happily ever after.
Just kidding about the happily ever after, I can guarantee that we are going to have some more arguments in the future. But right I'm just happy that Apollo is my very own Pinocchio, a real [dressage] boy at last!!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
This Is How We Do It
After a fantastic week back in NC (which included falling off Freddie, Holly's four year old TB, incurring a painfully scratched elbow on my part) Allie, Maxine and I headed up to the Maryland HT II at Loch Moy competing in Training, Novice and Prelim respectively. Allie and I charged ahead on Friday afternoon to set up our stalls in the surprisingly wonderful stabling. Then we each headed out to do our own course walks to get an idea of the course and specifically where we would need to walk with Holly to get some necessary pointers.
We then tacked up to do a school mostly working on getting basics established (bend, connection, etc) so that the following days would go well. The next morning Maxine and I schooled a bit when Allie did her pre-warm up ride, and while walking back to stabling Maxine and I met what turned out to be our lucky charm, Patrick the CWD guy.
I spent the rest of the day grooming for Allie and running into friends while Maxine took on her nanny job full force while watching Hailey. Allie finished 6th in her division ending on her dressage score of 39.1
Next day was an early one. I rode Apollo at 6 am to get any jitters out so that he could focus on me in our actual warm up. He wasn't in my right hand, an ongoing issue that we're working on, so the ride involved a lot of dramatic bending and moving of his haunches to get him straight. We were still working on that in our warm up but it was a lot better.
Our dressage test was one of my better ones. Although he did get tight in some of the transitions, overall it was a large improvement from what he has been doing.
2 double clear jumping rounds later Apollo and I ended on our dressage score of 39.6 putting me in 5th out of about 25. So now i've gotten a 5th, 6th and 7th at prelim!
Our little girl Maxine also had a fantastic day ending on her dressage of 39.1 (which all of us, except her, were convinced she and Ned Divine could do) earning her 2nd place at her first show with Ned!
With all 3 of us ribboning (and strangely ending with the same dressage score even though we had different judges at different levels) I think it was a fantastic weekend for the Holly Hudspeth Working Students.
P.S. With my pink ribbon and light green dressage test looked like baby HCH colors, then with Allie's green and Maxine's red ribbons we were just representing HCH all over the place!!
We then tacked up to do a school mostly working on getting basics established (bend, connection, etc) so that the following days would go well. The next morning Maxine and I schooled a bit when Allie did her pre-warm up ride, and while walking back to stabling Maxine and I met what turned out to be our lucky charm, Patrick the CWD guy.
I spent the rest of the day grooming for Allie and running into friends while Maxine took on her nanny job full force while watching Hailey. Allie finished 6th in her division ending on her dressage score of 39.1
Next day was an early one. I rode Apollo at 6 am to get any jitters out so that he could focus on me in our actual warm up. He wasn't in my right hand, an ongoing issue that we're working on, so the ride involved a lot of dramatic bending and moving of his haunches to get him straight. We were still working on that in our warm up but it was a lot better.
Our dressage test was one of my better ones. Although he did get tight in some of the transitions, overall it was a large improvement from what he has been doing.
2 double clear jumping rounds later Apollo and I ended on our dressage score of 39.6 putting me in 5th out of about 25. So now i've gotten a 5th, 6th and 7th at prelim!
Our little girl Maxine also had a fantastic day ending on her dressage of 39.1 (which all of us, except her, were convinced she and Ned Divine could do) earning her 2nd place at her first show with Ned!
With all 3 of us ribboning (and strangely ending with the same dressage score even though we had different judges at different levels) I think it was a fantastic weekend for the Holly Hudspeth Working Students.
P.S. With my pink ribbon and light green dressage test looked like baby HCH colors, then with Allie's green and Maxine's red ribbons we were just representing HCH all over the place!!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Rollercoastering
While I returned home late on friday night, I never really consider it "being home" until I have seen more that just my pets and my bed. So when I actually came home (aka went out to the barn the next morning to make sure my boys hadn't died from any field injuries or side effects from excessive rolling [Apollo!]) I was greeted by a lovely surprise from my to-be groom/awesome friend who rides Cory when Apollo and I are galavanting around the east coast, Emily Lehman. Emily is not only a young rider with incredible determination and natural talent but also an unbelievable artist in her free time (when she's not jumping 3'7" stuff on foot). She took the time to make me a picture of me (I assume it's me) jumping Apollo with MER Eventing painted around it. (excuse the bad photo of it. It is being framed right now so all I have is a cell phone pic of it) (did I mention that she's only 15?)
Why she thought it necessary to give me a present I have no idea (I'm hoping that she just got bored, and not that she has bad news like she's moving out of the state or something) but I thoroughly appreciate it. Especially since I just "created"/ named MER Eventing this year and the novelty of being at a level where I feel I have earned the ability to name my eventing career hasn't worn off yet and this is the first concrete proof of that.
The low of this post (hence the rollercoaster title) is that I just saw the news that Boyd's father passed away this weekend after getting hit by a truck while cycling last weekend. To know that while I was working for Boyd, Windurra was just starting to return to normal. After a successful weekend for Boyd at Surefire, he had to receive such terrible news seems just plain unfair. I do have faith however that Boyd will rise up from this tragedy stronger and more determined than ever.
If there are two things I learned while in PA, they are to always remain calm and clear headed, and that no circumstances are unrecoverable.
So RIP Ross Martin, you sounded like nothing less than an incredible person
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Home again, Home again...
After a week spent in Lexington, VA (which after going there 4-6 times a year for the past 4 years feels like home anyway) I'm finally home, but only for six days, so just enough time to turn 18 and remember that there's life outside of the barns.
OCET camp was it's usual amazing self. It was my 4th time doing the camp so you'd think that I'd have the basics covered and would be amazing in all aspects. Well unfortunately that is not true at all. As one of my fellow campers put it in the last moments of the last day, going to the camp is such a humbling experience.
Sure I know the Rider Responsibilities backwards and forwards and could recite the four aids while doing backflips out of an airplane, but that's about it as far as mastering goes. I've done the same flatwork and show jumping exercises four times now and they still manage to bring out my faults and weak areas.
It doesn't matter how many ribbons you've won or how many FEI competitions you've been to, cantering between two poles on the ground set on a 20 meter circle and being asked to be straight to each pole and get the same number of strides each time is going to make you feel like you've just come off the lead line.
Of course then the instructors do the amazing thing of taking a simple exercise like cantering between two poles, and before you know it you're doing up bank-bounce-3' vertical-bounce-down bank-one stride-3' 3" vertical with complete ease even when the last vertical is set at an angle to the bank (that exercise wouldn't be seen on any course lower than a 2* at lowest).
The hardest part comes after, remembering everything you've been taught, and trying hard not to screw up the progress you've made with your horse.
OCET camp was it's usual amazing self. It was my 4th time doing the camp so you'd think that I'd have the basics covered and would be amazing in all aspects. Well unfortunately that is not true at all. As one of my fellow campers put it in the last moments of the last day, going to the camp is such a humbling experience.
Sure I know the Rider Responsibilities backwards and forwards and could recite the four aids while doing backflips out of an airplane, but that's about it as far as mastering goes. I've done the same flatwork and show jumping exercises four times now and they still manage to bring out my faults and weak areas.
It doesn't matter how many ribbons you've won or how many FEI competitions you've been to, cantering between two poles on the ground set on a 20 meter circle and being asked to be straight to each pole and get the same number of strides each time is going to make you feel like you've just come off the lead line.
Of course then the instructors do the amazing thing of taking a simple exercise like cantering between two poles, and before you know it you're doing up bank-bounce-3' vertical-bounce-down bank-one stride-3' 3" vertical with complete ease even when the last vertical is set at an angle to the bank (that exercise wouldn't be seen on any course lower than a 2* at lowest).
The hardest part comes after, remembering everything you've been taught, and trying hard not to screw up the progress you've made with your horse.
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