What do you mean it's 2012???

Intermediate. The big I. Red numbers and big fences.

I can officially call myself an intermediate rider now... AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!
I competed and finished my first intermediate horse trials at the Rocking Horse HT this past weekend and am still floating on air about it all. To think that 2 years ago I didn't have Apollo, I had never competed above Novice at any event and had only done 2, MAYBE 3 recognized horse trials.
Then in April I bought Apollo, by June we had finished our first HT at novice with a 3rd place ribbon. By August I moved up to training, In May of 2011 I moved up to Preliminary and in October I took home a 2nd place ribbon in Open Prelim. And now in January I've made it to intermediate level. It's all going so fast, and had it been any horse other than Apollo then I never would have moved up so quickly and I certainly would not say that others should move at this pace.
Almost every trainer I have ever ridden Apollo in front of asks to see his dressage first. And they are never impressed. Most of the time I hear a lot about how his dressage is not at the level that I claim I am competing at and they start forming doubts about my judgement. And then they see him jump.
All of a sudden I start hearing repeated comments about how our jumping is way beyond our dressage ability. And all I can do is smile.
I have never thought, claimed, suggested that Apollo cleans up in the dressage ring. Because he doesn't. He does try his hardest however and really that's all I can ask of him. Because at the end of the day I'd rather have a 4 in dressage then a fall on cross country.
Basically my horse is 14 this year, and he's not getting younger. So I'm moving up rather quickly because he is the most honest jumper I have ever ridden and I would rather move up to the more dangerous level quickly on a horse I know will save me if needed and also learn how to jump confidently around an intermediate course on him while he still has the ability to then be concerned about how well we can ride a pattern in the ring.
And I have also received the best instruction in the world in the past 2 years from Susan Harris, Holly Hudspeth, Boyd Martin and of course the O'Connor's. That didn't hurt one bit.

okay this post is way more serious than I intended it to be...here is something to lighten this back up

John Wall, Bernie and Cat-daddy walk into a bar...

Fantas-aweso-amaz-fabu-unforgett…

No single word can express my past two weeks in Ocala. Even though I already recapped last week, I’ll start from the beginning again.

Arrive in the sunny, beautifully colorful Ocala to barns filled with friends, new eager faces and lots of horses with potential bursting out the yin-yang. Run through a week with the best instruction you can imagine, going both ways too. Not only did the campers learn a ton from Karen and David, but they also learned a lot from the campers. If you don’t believe me just ask Karen and David to Cat-Daddy or Bernie it out at the next competitors party-- you will be impressed.

The next week was kicked off with 8 of us left over from the camp spending two hilarious hours at the bowling alley discovering all the different ways we can almost get kicked out of a bowling alley. Not that we were destructive, at least not purposefully. I’m sure those gutter bumpers will make a full comeback.

that would be miss rowdie adams on the right who is not touching the ground while swinging a bowling ball

Over the week I had two lessons with Karen, one flat and one dressage. (yes I’m beginning to notice just how many 2’s are in this post). The flat lesson was mostly about getting him stretching into the contact and really moving forward, something I’ve been working on for almost two years now and we finally have progress! In the jumping lesson she had me focus on really getting the right canter and not accepting any antics with his head.

Finally the show came around:

Something you should be briefed on first is that the zippers on tall boots completely and totally hate me. I don’t know what I did to deserve such detest but there it is. Before FL my schooling boot zippers finally gave out. No big deal, I got some winter boots and it’s kinda cold. Well one of those zippers went after cross country on the penultimate day (ooo fancy word with more than two syllables! Maybe college is making me smarter). Well that was unfortunate but I still have my dress boots, we’ll pull through. As I’m about to go to my jump lesson with Karen I pull those boots on and the tab of the zipper breaks. I vet wrap it onto my leg and we take it up to be fixed. Long story (I know this has already been a terribly long tangent but bare with me) the zipper breaks again, we get it fixed, then we realize that it’s Friday and maybe I should go buy a new pair of boots, just in case. The zipper breaks AGAIN right before dressage. Throw on the new boots and ride on over to warm up. By the time I get there my feet are losing circulation because the boots haven’t been broken in and are still too tight. Well after jumping off, unzipping then jumping back on I trot on into the ring, barely any warm up, not able to feel my toesies.

And yet somehow I got my lowest dressage score at prelim ever!

For show jumping I electrical taped my broken boot onto my leg, worked great.

David came over just as I went into the ring and I knew that if after 6 camps and 2 private lessons with Karen, if I screwed up then I would never hear the end of it. So I worked really hard on getting to “that spot”, you know the one, the Goldie Locks of spots, not too long, not too short. Except for a rush at the triple bar everything went really well with 0 poles, but a few time.

Cross country was fun. Apollo is really becoming very adjustable out on course and cleared every fence like it was baby green. With a double clear xc we finished in 4^th, and I am so very proud of him.

Our next event is Rocking Horse, and while I’m superstitious about saying this I’m also really excited to say that we’re entered in Intermediate there.

So until next time just remember:

When in doubt, Bernie it out!!

http://youtu.be/8OgPma_6bd0

Ooooo-cala where the wind comes drifting through the palms....

I'm in a bit of a singing mood right, hence the title. Time for a quick recap:

8 people on the bull-SUCCESS

After 2 1/2 weeks of not riding at all (trust me, I was going insane) I came home and threw myself into riding for the next week and a half by riding not only my new and improved Apollo, fresh from dressage bootcamp part 2, but also my other horse Cordoba who needed a bit of a bootcamp himself. Let's just say that I never realized how much the sitting trot can hurt when you don't do it for a while.
The day after Christmas my mom and I packed the truck and trailer and headed out on our 2 day trip down to Ocala in the land of Glory-da. When we pulled into the O'Connor's I immediately felt like I'd come back home. With the gorgeous rolling green fields contrasting with the blue skies with palm trees being rustled by a soft breeze Meredyth South truly looks like an eventer's dream.
The week of camp went by unbelievably quickly with most of us being repeats to the camp and knowing the lectures like the back's of our hands  being familiar with the lessons we were able to get into more advanced lessons much faster.
I'll only make one reference to the first night dance party where we scared David with our Bernie-ing abilities or the Wednesday night karaoke dinner. Hey, what happens at O'Connor Eventing Camp stays at O'Connor Eventing Camp...unless photographic evidence gets posted on Eventing Nation of course.
(http://eventingnation.com/home/2010/07/good-times-at-camp-ocet.html)
The camp is really my favorite week of the year. It's just about 100 hours of good people, great times, and amazing instruction.

how to get 8 people off a bull very quickly

I now get to look forward to one more week of enjoying the Florida sunshine before I head back up to the Virginia mountains for another semester of college after starting my 2012 season at Ocala I HT at prelim this coming weekend. Knowing the people that I'll be hanging out with this week, it will certainly not be a boring week. But I guess it's just another day in the life.