yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking, but come on this year it feels like an event just isn't the same without some mud.
This past week was started a great cross country lesson with Gammon. Apollo showed her a taste of HIS preferred version of galloping and we told him OUR version. The next day he had a touch of gas colic but it passed quickly. So on wednesday we had a great dressage test lesson working on all those, uh, less than perfect moments I tend to have in my dressage tests.
Then thursday was awesome. I jumped Apollo by myself, and wow was he good. He was soft and supple (yes those adjectives are usually attributed toward flatwork but guess what? flatwork and jumping are connected! who would have thought?!) and was in fine form. The best part of the ride was the fact that I wasn't being evaluated by a trainer, judged by competition or trying to impress some onlooker (don't lie. You know you do it too). I was just jumping for me and Apollo. And it felt amazing. So next time you're having a tough time learning some movement, or finding strides, just go ride and remember why you do this.
Any way getting past my strangely deep moment, we got up to Morven at 6ish, and I immediately went to walk cross country before it got too dark. I have to say, in the 2 month break I took from competitions (for me this year, 2 months is a really long time) I'd forgotten the size of prelim cross country jumps and was a little backed off just walking around. I'm not gonna lie, the course looked hard. I started looking at it as "now if I manage to live through this combination, I should probably get my rhythm back by this point". Not the best thought to be having.
Saturday, after waking up at the God awful time of 4:45 we get out to the barn (and no I do not have multiple personality disorder, my mom came up to drive and groom for me) and I start braiding immediately. I walked the stadium course, which also seemed big and hard (the big part may have been completely due to the fact that it was set up for advanced). Then I finally got tacked up and hopped on (and maybe the hopping part was after a venti chai latte from Starbucks). After a quick good luck wish from Karen I started to warm up. And this is when it started to rain.
The thing about Apollo is he is a great horse: great work ethic, very sweet on the ground, fantastic jumper. The bad thing is that he's got a really sensitive nose. I'm talking any kind of rain, bug or dust makes him toss his head. So poor guy is trying so hard to keep his cool but having to tilt his head to keep rain out of his nose as much as possible. That combined with the dressage ring being on the side of a grassy hill (literally the side of. The ground was sloping downward) he did the best he could and we got a 40. Not our best but not our worst. I'm bummed more because he has been going SO well lately that I really wanted to show it off.
But some things ya really just gotta shake off. Including the rain that had by this point soaked me completely through.
Show jumping was fun. There's really nothing like being soaked through all of the clothing you're wearing, being freezing cold and trying to jump. But Apollo was awesome. We did pull one rail at the first fence but for the conditions we were in I really can't blame him/me at all.
Now cross country. While the footing was absolutely perfect on friday evening, by 10 on sat I could tell it was going to be a bit deeper than expected. So we got to pull out the bullets that I haven't had to use since the April Plantation (still get chills thinking about that weekend).
The course actually rode a lot better than I expected. Apollo kept telling me at every obstacle "c'mon mom, I can do this, you can do this, so just relax and let me run!". As a result of the footing I decided to balance up before each fence more than I usually would so we ended with a couple time penalties, but then as I checked the scores I realized that not a single prelim rider made time. Made me feel better.
The best part of the course was definitely #13. It was through the gorge type area in the back where it was a jump over a raised long, a few strides down then out over an up bank down the hill a few strides to a narrow. The whole thing is a shoot made out of these huge rocks and you just can't help but feel epic as you go through.
We finished in 5th and I'm taking anything that went less then perfect, fixing it and getting ready for Maryland this weekend!
(oh yeah and did I mention that it was pouring down rain from 7:30 till we left at 12?)
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