A Slice of Humble Pie

Horses in general tend to hand out humble pie like it’s their job. And when you work with horses all day, especially as a working student you realize the humbleness is going to come from every which way and every time of the day.  Which is probably the best thing that will ever happen to you.

As working students, we are at the barn to learn, and through my many weeks of working student life I have grown to not only accept this, but be encouraged by it. I love learning, I really do. I am constantly trying to find out more, and be more aware of the community I am apart of. The first step of learning is to admit that you do not know everything. Here’s your first slice of pie. The second step is to accept what your trainer/ barn manager/ coworker is the truth. MMM, slice two. The final step to realize that most of the time cementing what you have just learned is going to take a lot of repetition, practice, and getting corrected. Slice three really hits the spot, doesn’t it?

But the best part of all this pie is that it will never go to your head. After a few pies you begin to welcome any advice with open arms, and that combined with a desire to make those changes will make you into an unstoppable learning machine; or at least a really awesome student. Either way you are better off.

Teach me your napping wisdom!

Live in the Now

I've been doing yoga for a couple of months now to compliment my riding, and in tonight's class my wonderful yoga instructor Sylvia Vitazkova said something that stuck with me. As we were twisting our bodies into some crazy pretzel shape one of my classmates remarked that she used to be able to do it. Sylvia responded that we need to forget who we used to be and focus on who we are now.

How many times have you heard someone say that they could do the splits, make a slam dunk, or win a boxing match "back in the day"? Or hear someone lamenting about how they used to be able to do blankity-blank, why can't they do that now?

While it's great to be proud of previous accomplishments, you need to remember that everyday your body changes, whether it's gaining or losing weight, muscle or flexibility, it is changing. I found this to be especially important as I am pursuing my riding education. Sure I can sit here all day and tell Allison, Karen, Holly or whoever that I have a perfect position over fences and my eye for distances is impeccable because that's what my trainer told me when I was 12. Well not only does it not matter if I can't show it, but also think of how many things have changed or happened to me in the past eight years. I certainly don't have the same body, I'm not on the same horse, and I'm jumping bigger and more technical questions. While I wish I could pick a level of muscling and hold onto it forever, or wish that height won't matter to me, my eye stays the same, that's just not true.

So next time you are struggling with something that used to be easy, just remember to focus on what you can do now, what you want to be able to do and what you can practice doing to get yourself there. 

And for sake of your sanity, leave your past self where they belong, in the past.

Change is hard to accept, but accept it we must. And reunions are always good ;)

No Rocky montage for me

So guess what happens when you hurt an internal organ? Pain, some hospital time, then a lot of nothing.
Being sentenced to time at home for most people is probably awesome. Get to miss work, catch up on tv shows and just generally lounge around. But when this happens to an athlete, an eventer specifically, it is very close to torture.
This is what I want to be doing:

But due to said internal injury, any kind of physical exercise that utilizes the abdomen or core (aka EVERYTHING) is out of the question.

So what will I be doing? Well getting very much ahead with my homework (why yes, I am still earning my degree through online school), cleaning the house to a point of absurdity, and cooking fattening food for my roommates so I feel better about the death of my muscles.
But basically this is what I'm doing:

Auf Wiedersehen friends!!

Teach Me How, Dougie

For about the past year, I have started encouraging my friends immediately before they do a dressage test, run cross country, or show jump by loudly insisting that they "teach me how to dougie". I don't really know why but I find that song and the dance highly entertaining, especially when I try to teach it to people *cough* David and Karen at the 2011 winter O'Connor camp *cough*. Also I feel that it conveys a better message than the usual "good luck" or "kick butt". It tells the person I feel they are capable of great things that I can only inspire to replicate and that they should do it at the moment, because the moment is theirs. So I have naturally adopted it as my own version of "break a leg". 

This weekend, Millbrook Horse Trials is going on in New York. As I have several friends competing I have been watching the scores, checking Facebook/twitter and reading commentary on Eventing Nation. Now what do I see today, but Doug Payne scored a ohmygoodness15.2  in prelim.

I'm just saying, this brings a whole new relevancy and meaning to my, much more implemented, phrase.

A Game of Catch Up

Wow, can’t believe I haven’t written in a year. Well let me try to catch up with everything:

            -in September I went to Georgia to compete in the American Eventing Championships in the Preliminary Amateur division, after a not so hot dressage test we jumped clear to finish in 6^th and win a variety of fun prizes

            -We then drove straight up to Middleburg, Va to get settled in at the O’Connors

            -After two months of priceless training, in October Karen fell at Morven Park on Veronica. While Karen is thankfully fine now, she was sidelined for quite some time. I had to make the tough decision to move on to a new system completely because of the fact that I knew I was not at a point in my career that I could be training myself and succeeding. This fact was what caused me to stop attending college full time in the first place. So with help from some irreplaceable friends I contacted Allison Springer about working for her, and luckily she needed a working student at the same time.

            -After the fall Virginia Horse Trials I followed Allison back home to the beautiful Beverly Equestrian where ASE is based out of.

            -So far it has been nine months of amazing training and experiences. I am so lucky and blessed that the stars aligned and connected me with such a talented trainer and instructor.

            -Apollo and I were all set to represent Area 2 at the North American Junior Young Rider Championships in Lexington, KY at the 2* level, but due to a injury were unable to go

            We will make our come back in the fall!

I will try to keep up with the blog more, so stay tuned!

What Does It Take?

After a few jumper shows and some weekly dressage boot camps Apollo and I headed off to Fair Hill this past weekend. Sadly neither Eliza or Holly could come because the morning that we were supposed to leave a few horses decided to break their pasture fences and got pretty torn up.
After being there a while Will Coleman pulled in and had a block of stalls directly behind me. The last time I saw Will (in person) was at Bromont when he was one of several riders just shooting for Europe and hoping to end up in London. Thinking about this it then occurred to me that Will, along with Tiana and Boyd were now Olympians. Regardless of how well they did, placed or what troubles may have happened during those 4 days, a selection committee picked them based on previous performance and sent them on with big hopes. They went and tried their hardest and can now add "Olympics 2012" to their resume. That is an accomplishment in its own.
So why do some people upon discussion of these athletes and team then feel the need to add "well yeah but they didn't medal..."? Why is there a constant degradation of athletes that put their all into their sport just because they aren't always the absolute best in the world? There can only be one "best" and while that individual is amazing in their own right, that doesn't mean that everyone below them is dreadful or unworthy.
You may see this at local horse trials, someone finishes the event coming in 7th or dead last even and that numerical placing is all they can think about. What about that amazing canter transition you got in the dressage ring? Or the awesome show jumping course when you horse got every spot and just toed a rail or two and it fell? While it's necessary to be realistic and go home to improve on the parts that didn't go so well, it's just as important to realize what was good. The horse doesn't know the difference between 7th and 27th, so why should you focus on it so much.
So circling back to my initial thought (sorry, i know its kinda rambley but stay with me) i think its time that we give people more respect for their efforts. Will Coleman, Tiana Coudray and Boyd Martin are Olympians now, and while they are bling-less for the moment it doesn't mean they deserve any less respect, but instead should be given time to learn from mistakes, work on problem areas and come back in the future because Karen and Phillip weren't perfect at every single event before they got their medals and yet they are now regarded as eventing gods, and rightfully so.

when i'm given internet access...

...i do weird things like friend the men's olympic gymnastics team, to stalk them  to show my american support and google myself. I happened upon this video of myself from this winter from my first intermediate that i had no idea existed. oh the things you can find on the internet.

Max Corcoran is a super hero

Motivation to do anything once I get home is hard. Most days even making dinner is the result of sitting in the kitchen staring at food for 15min while I convince myself that the effort is worth it. So starting an entry is incredibly difficult. I am finally starting my post today because I ran out of internet usage before the month was up, called verizon to discover this and got lectured by the lady that watching videos uses up a lot of data so I am now using up as much data as possible in retaliation against her. So I hope you are reading this random verizon lady.

Any way, so I’ve been a busy bee since I last posted. Recap:

-didn’t go to jersey because I tore my ACL

-did the CIC2* at Virginia and had two refusals xc because I was silly and didn’t prepare for the event properly

-came to the O’Connors

-did some intense jump lessons with Karen and even got one with Marilyn

-went to Bromont for the CCI1*

-sucky dressage but was one of 8 people to finish on my dressage score so my jumping pony is back in the game!

-Pablo (also known as Apollo or Illusion of You if you want to be fancy) is now enjoying 1 week of vacation in his luxuriously huge stall and field in the Plains

-Monday we will be traveling to North Carolina to spend a month working on training and developing our dressage and jumping with Holly Hudspeth so come fall we can be kicking butts and taking names

And I don’t know how much you keep up with eventing news but the canadian and british team lists came out and the american (‘MERICA, YEAH!) short list came out and Karen along with other people are going to England! (yaaaayyy, happy dance for Cave!)

1st random tangent)
Title explanation:
On our way to Canada we blew a trailer tire about 40 min from the border. Luckily Max was in front of us. 10 seconds after we pulled over Max was hauling a very heavy tire changing kit that David gave them over to our rig. From the time we called her to the time she got back in her truck was only 20 min. Also Max was grooming 3 horses this weekend and every single one of them looked absolutely perfect. Mandiba and Mr. Medicott even placed first in their divisions and R.F. Amber Eyes was 5th in the 2*. So kudos to Super Max and her lucky sunglasses and good luck to her and Karen in jolly ole England!

2nd random tangent)

I left the start box around 2:53pm ish for my 7 min course. This post was written at 3:30pm and if John had hurried he would have made it back to the media tent from the back coffin complex in about 8-15min. This means that this gentleman landed on the course just after I finished. crazy. 

3rd random tangent)

I got a new dressage/sj coat, pre tied stock tie and custom fly bonnet (early b-day present from my dad) while I was at Bromont from the awesome Blueberry Hill tack shop. The jacket is amazing: super light, if it gets wet it just has to be hung to dry, plus it has sparkly threads woven into the fabric so it shines all over! And the fly bonnet is in my colors (also BH’s colors) of blue and black and has two rows of crystals! Apollo definitely felt like a star when we wore it in the show jumping ring!! And BH has a website so you can order from anywhere and they'll ship stuff too you!

I Wanna Be Just Like You

So the big competition didn't go quite the way I had planned. Dressage warm-up, Apollo was looking beautiful, he was going exactly the way I wanted him to. But unfortunately we could hold onto the energy in the ring, probably due to too long of a warm up, got a 72, which was a bummer but still in the IQR range. Cross country looked fair enough (hehe, fair enough course at fair hill, hehe, ok I'll stop). But there was a big bank up, one stride to a long, then 2 or 3 strides down the steep side to a wedge. Normally Apollo wouldn't have and issue with any of those components so I tried not to over think it.
In warm up Apollo seemed really fired up and ready to go. He was jumping a little bit big but I thought once I got him on course he would settle into his own. We head out on course and his head is immediately up in the air. I was a little concerned because I thought we'd gotten over that but I didn't think it was anything that would cause problems. He went over the first 8 jumps pretty well, he seemed to be listening to me except he wasn't being as sensitive as he was before. As we come up to 9, the bank combination I tried to set him up but he pulled up too much so I had to kick him on in the last few strides. Made it up the bank, over the log, but then he wouldn't listen to me coming down, was too much on the forehand and just plain rain past the wedge despite my efforts. I immediately pulled him around, got as far away from the wedge as I could and re-approached it but he was not having it at all and jumped to the side again, I lost my balance and just rolled of his side. Luckily and unluckily I was right in front of the vet box and spectators. Apollo was fine but my pride was definitely bruised. The rest of the day and the ride home all I could do was try to analyze what happened that caused my normally totally honest horse to run past a jump he's done before.
Here is what I came up with:
1)He was too on the forehand coming down the hill.
      -BUT he's jumped bigger in worse positions
2)because I switched bits for SJ and had only practiced jumping in the new bit, and conditioning in the xc bit he wasn't used to it
     -BUT the bit I was using was the same one he has been in for a year now. plus its stronger than the new bit so he should have respected it more
3) because he hadn't gone xc in awhile he was unsure of himself
    -BUT i jump school not only in a ring but also over jumps that are set up in a field on the side of a hill
4) fake grass is Apollo's mortal enemy and he wasn't ready for a battle that day
    -BUT its fake grass...we've won the battle with it before

There's a very good chance it was all of the above or something else entirely. Nothing appears to be physically wrong so at least we can count that out.
Hopefully after a xc school and some chicken soup for the soul we'll have a better run at the cic2* at jersey.

oh and the title is in reference to the fact that when Apollo's back left leg needed to be injected I sprained my left ankle at the same time. Then after Fair Hill he got a scrap on his front right knee then that week I fell playing football and hurt my right knee. Then he got a scrap on his neck under his chin and I burned myself with a curling iron. Obviously I want to be just like Apollo. We are THAT close.

Been Where the Wild Thing Are

Real quick summary:
-competed at Rocking Horse 2, had a rough show jumping landing us in 8th place (ehh but yay)
-spent a week training with Karen in Ocala, learned so incredibly much (yayy)
-competed at Pine Top, after 3 attempted warm ups in the rain had an okay test but was fast and clean landing me in 6th (ehh then yayy)
-Apollo started acting really funny before and at Full Gallop, so i put in a circle in sj eliminating me but gave him a better round (horses are more important than scores)
-Came back and took him to Southern Pines Equine where the amazing Dr. Tom injected his hocks
-Apollo is actually moving underneath himself now (yay!)
-Switched Apollo to a nave bit (basically just plastic, very soft and flexible) for show jumping and dressage after the french link bits kept giving him cuts in the corners of his mouth (sad)
-Apollo now reaches into the bridle (yay!)

Now we're gearing up for Fair Hill in less than 2 weeks where we're gonna do the CIC2* and then seeing how that goes either do the CCI2* at Jersey in May or the CIC2*.
I'll actually keep everything up-to-date during/after Fair Hill, cause I know you all missed me terribly.

Arrivederci!

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.

narp!

5:54. AM. November 19th, 2011. 28 degrees.

These settings would normally, when combined, create a very unhappy Marina. Yet when you divide them by the fact that it was for a Holly Hudspeth clinic, suddenly I am able to be quite enthusiastic about the whole deal. Well maybe just about the clinic.

7 o'clock sharp Apollo and I were out there cracking through the frozen surface of footing, okay so Apollo was cracking, I was sitting there feeling bad enough for him to give him extra walking time but not bad enough to get off and help.

The lesson with Holly went really well, Apollo has been having problems actually going straight. Which I guess is kinda important, especially since we're moving up to intermediate in the spring (yayyy) which has fancy movements like shoulder and haunches in.  Anyway, so we worked a lot on a tight circle getting him to stretch deeply into each bend and stepping through both sides equally, then leg yielding out while maintaining the contact.

We then worked on canter-walk transitions, stressing on the contact. By the end of it I'd say we looked pretty good.

After getting some much needed Starbucks, and a quick nap on back of our truck Apollo and I headed down for a show jumping lesson.

Holly had us working on just staying really consistent in the canter so that the distances would come without much adjusting, but if I had to adjust it would be easy. 

Basically more of what we've been working on all year. We are getting better but I'm gonna go ahead and make a prediction that I'm gonna be working on this for a really long time. It's one of those things you don't escape. 

I would have ridden Sunday morning too, and I should have a fun seafood boil to recall but unfortunately I got what felt like the flu Saturday afternoon and couldn't ride.

Apollo is staying in NC until december for training and I get to experience some time as a NARP (non-athletic regular person) it's what some of my varsity friends call themselves when their season is over for the year.

So a- NARPing i will go until winter break

I work out!

Last show of the year, so it's gotta be good.
Let's take a quick look back at my first show this year:
It was the starter trials at the VHC.
It snowed.
Do you see where I'm gonna be going with this?
Started the year in the snow at VHC, and finished in the same way. What can I say, I like patterns.
Now that I live in Lexington and the walk to my car takes longer than my drive to the horse center (yeah, it really stinks at 630am when it's snowing) I have found that this is become my favorite show of the year, even MORE so. I get to sleep in my own bed, and...yeah i really just like the whole "my own bed" part.
So the show stuff started for me on Thursday. Headed out to the center to buy some shavings and throw them in my stall. As I was walking down one of the aisles I spot an adorable Chestnut. Let the squealing and screaming like a little girl begin.

I love me some Freddie

You're probably asking yourself who this chestnut could be, well if you remember back, (or just read my old posts) you might remember a 4 year old gelding I fell in love with in North Carolina. That's right, it was FREDDIE!!!!! I love that boy so much and I'm really not even sure why. But after realizing it was Freddie and squealing my lungs out expressing my excitement I realized that Holly's newest working student Kelly was standing there wondering what the heck she should do in this situation (sorry Kelly!). Explained really fast then went running to go find my favorite people. Saw Holly riding Stewie while Maxine held Hailey (aka cutest baby ever), more squealing, this time more controlled and at a lower octave.
Eventually got out to Oak Hill to walk my course. There's another back story I should tell you:
four years ago when I first competed at VHC I was running BN and decided that I was going to one day get to a level high enough, that I could compete on the other side of the road. It's been my short/long time goal ever since (yes i also dream of rolex and olympics but baby steps here!)
So I'm standing at the top of the hill in the brisk fall air realizing that I did it. I'm here.
Getting back to the show now,
Dressage warm up warm up was really good, he was moving really fluidly. Came back and got the news that because of the impending snow I, OP and PCH were going to be running cross country that afternoon. So much for going to calc class.
Dressage warm up was good until 10 mins before I go in, it starts to sprinkle. Not enough for anyone else to be bothered but my wimp sensitive horse noticed and was not going to not react.
We actually got through the dressage test fairly well, and it would have been awesome if he hadn't been twitching throughout it, but c'est la vie.
Now on to the fun parts. Preparation for a show involves listening to music while braiding for dressage and getting one stuck in my head so I have a rhythm for the day. This weekend was no different. So before cross country I listened to "I'm sexy and I know it (I work out)" by LMFAO on repeat. Well pumping up for cross country also involves dancing around. So I'm sorry people down the aisle from me that were subjected to my crazy dancing, but let's face it: i'm sexy and I know it ;)
Cross country warm up was fun with a big narrow table like ones I had on course included so that got my confidence up.
Walking around the start box Apollo starts jogging, he knows this is gonna be an exciting course. We take off, and of course right as I'm going over the first fence I hear that the rider in front of me has had a refusal at 6. Crap. Quickly shake that out of my mind and focus on what's in front of me.
Apollo was amazing the entire course. He ran when I let him and came up when I asked. By jump 8 I realized that he didn't need as much preparation time as I thought and I could save some time by preparing a stride or two later. And he did so perfectly. We get to the last combination, a coffin, and coming off the last fence of it I check my watch, 25 seconds left. So we book it. I fly up the hill over the last fence with 3 seconds to spare. God I love my ex-racehorse.

That would be me checking my watch as I'm over a fence. Yay multi-tasking

It was probably the best cross country ride I have ever had.
He got Saturday off because it just didn't seem fair to tack him up just to walk around in the slushy snow.
Saturday afternoon is when the pressure hit me. I finally looked at the scoreboard (I was over by Wiley to watch my friend and teammate Jennifer Friberg do dressage and show jumping, and she was AWESOME).

Jennifer before dressage, while I give Jasper a pep talk

I check the scoreboard and I'm in fourth, with Sharon White leading the class, and I'm one pole away from 3rd and 2nd, and 2 poles and some time away from first. If I go double clear. Let the hyperventilating begin.
Sunday morning while eating breakfast I watched the intermediate show jump. Let me just say that it wasn't the easiest course and a lot of rails were pulled. More panic.
Braid, tack up, attempt to tie stock tie, fail, run a pin through it any way and hope no one notices.
I trot on into the warm up because it's so cold. Take maybe 4 or 5 jumps with Apollo feeling super and then hear them calling that they NEED someone from OP to go.
Heck, why not. It's not like he's going to get any cleaner over theses fences.
Trot straight into the coliseum pick up my canter and go. And let me tell you, we went.
I was so determined to go double clear that I think Apollo picked up on it and he understood that he was not to even THINK about touching any of those poles. We had an amazing double clear round, and I don't think I have ever been prouder of him.
So how did we do? let's just say we were TWO cool for fourth. That's right: 2ND BABY!!!

Happy Dance

BTW I attribute all of my success this past weekend to Sarah Berhalter and her amazing sugary baked goods.

They Keep On Coming!

The past two weekends contained two very fun and very different competitions, let the comparisons begin:

Morven Park Horse Trials

-it was cold from the minute we pulled in

-it starts to rain the minute I reach the warm up ring, and doesn't stop...ever

-dressage was in the grass with rain coming in sideways

-Apollo tried his best despite the incredibly inconvenient rain

-show jumping was cold, and wet and cold

-SJ course was rather challenging, definitely not a sit-back-and-enjoy type of cours

-I realized my fingers were completely numb and I had no feeling in them somewhere between jump 7 and 8

-Apollo saved my butt when aforementioned fingers would not work

-cross country was wet, and cold and muddy and long

-cross country was felt long, but was really fun (maybe it's just because I thrive on challenges)

-Apollo was a beast and made me remember why I bought him

D: 40.00

SJ: 4

XC: 13.60

Total: 57.60--->5th place

Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy

-slightly chilly on saturday morning but I'm sweating by 2pm

-absolutely sunny and warm all weekend

-dressage is on the dragged, watered, all-weather footing dressage pad

-Apollo, while not perfect, showed how much we've improved since the beginning of the season

-show jumping had a fun new warm up ring above the competition ring

-SJ rode really well and smoothly despite the tight turns that looked otherwise

-Apollo demonstrated his fun new trick of touching a pole enough that it makes a sound but not enought to make it drop resulting in a flash freak out from his rider

-cross country had amazing footing for the weather that area has had lately

-cross country felt very easy, especially after last weekend and was a good confidence boost for Virginia

-Apollo showed great improvements by actually listening to me when I asked him to rebalance for fences

-Apollo reminds me again why I bought him

D: 38.6
SJ: 0
XC: 0
Total: 38.6--->3rd place

So both weekends were very much worth it, very different, but very much worth it

When It Rains, We Event

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?)

What's that? oh, right. Rust.

So. I had my first jumping lesson with Gammon this past Tuesday. Guess what I realized. We hadn't jumped in 5 weeks. Not good. The last time we jumped was at Fair Hill actually. I guess if you count:
 2 weeks spent in dressage bootcamp
+  1 week when he broke my jump bridle the week he came back so that day we didn't jump,  then Irene hit so I was at the horse center (aka, no jumps available to me)
+ 1 week while I was running around like crazy trying to get myself packed for college
+ 1 week when i was first at college and it was raining like crazy so i couldn't pull any jumps out.
___
5 weeks
So there I was, Tuesday afternoon cantering around a ring looking for distances and spots and MAN was i rusty. I'm talking not thinking about balance or rhythm or maintaining a good canter AT ALL. Not really the best intro to a new instructor but what was I to do about it.
Apollo was good as always though, although we did have to have some conversations about getting too excited about the jumps and popping 3-4 feet in the air when it's a 2'6" vertical.
Friday I took him out to the fields to work on his conditioning a bit and to give him a break from the sandbox. I think he's forgotten what real hills were like though because by the time we reached the top of the galloping hill he was definitely panting a bit. And that wasn't even one of the Hills of Death. That'll be next week's surprise.

Far side of the hay field looking toward the top of 

the galloping hill and House Mt.

Walking is fun...

not. Unfortunately, with me being a freshman at college the parking lot is not close. Not at all. So to get to my car to get to the barn I have to walk down 8 flights of stairs, walk a 1/4 of a mile, walk down 3 flights of stairs, walk a 1/4 of a mile across a bridge, then walk up 4 flights of stairs then walk another 1/4 of a mile to my car. Then after riding I have to do all that in reverse to get back. This usually makes me feel justified in eating as much chocolate as I want.

View from the bridge on my walk

Any way, getting back to the horse; I was only able to ride twice before I got to ride with Lynn Symansky! As I have found out, Lynn went to W&L:

"After graduating high school, Lynn was certain she wanted horses to remain in her life, but also valued the importance of an education. She went to Washington & Lee University, one of the country’s best liberal arts universities, and graduated Cum Laude in 2005 with a Bachelors of Science in Business. While at school, she managed to find time to compete her long time partner, “No It Tissant” at the advanced level all four years while also bringing along another young project. She successfully balanced school and her competitive career, and in 2003 was named to the High Performance Winter Training list for the United States Equestrian Team (USET). She and “No It Tissant” attended training sessions with Captain Mark Phillips, Sandy Phillips, and George Morris. That summer, the pair was named to the short list for the 2003 Pan American Games CCI***, and rode as an individual alternate where they finished 10th with a double clear cross country round."

The lesson would have been fantastic had the pollen not been intense and mosquitos all over the place, causing Apollo to be incredibly uncomfortable and he was throwing his head violently whenever we did anything other than walk or slowly trot. 

So hopefully the next time Lynn swings by we'll be able to really show her what we can do, but until then Apollo will be doing lots of moving forward and I will be doing a lot of walking and stair climbing,

Here's to muscular calves!!

There is no Irene in Lexington

As many people in the world know, there was a hurricane this past weekend (and if you didn't know then I'd like to welcome you to the internet, because surely this must be your first time). Since I live almost directly on the ocean, my mom and thought it would be a grand idea to run away to the mountains.
After loading up all three horses we booked it right on out of Virginia Beach. Unfortunately so did the rest of the city and we all met up for what was essentially a tailgating party on I-264. We then commenced the tour of Tidewater so that Apollo could see all of the area before he left...or we had to go all the way around to find a way out, same difference.

This was just the out skirting clouds of the Thunderstorm

Finally, 5 hours and a nasty state-wide thunderstorm later we had made it to Richmond (normally a 2 hour trip btw) then 2 more hours and we were finally pulling into the Virginia Horse Center, where we were greeted by the strangest stall decor I have ever seen.

(The mulch and the curtains were all so that their trophy boxes had a nice backdrop)

Turns out the North American Arabian World Championships (yeah I know, doesn't make sense to me either) was happening at the same time. Besides the fact that this group rented out the entire horse park when they were only using 25% of it is beyond me, but the folks at the Horse Center were as hospitable as ever. They let us come in at 10:30, security came around and turned the lights on, in the morning they watered and dragged both the lower ring and the indoor ring so that we and the rest of the evacuees had a place to ride and were very helpful all 4 times we went over to buy more bedding and hay because we are very bad at math.
The next day I had a very nice ride with the ever fantastic Rachel Lawson (if you don't know her yet, you will very soon because she is an amazing rider) then on Sunday we moved Apollo over to Sunrise Stables where he will be living while I go do this "college" thing.

Apollo and I doing flatwork at Sunrise Stables

Overall the weekend was lovely, weather was cool (highest was around 83 degrees) with nice breezes blowing through.

My mom's dog Typhoon grazing with the horses (literally grazing...he's species confused)

Oh yeah, and that whole hurricane thing? I think we got 27 whole drops of rain and a partially overcast sky. Simply unbearable.