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!