watermelon part 2

I believe I mentioned yesterday that OOTT has me figured out? This morning she gave me the option to not go out at my time and just go straight to schooling. Upon thought, it made more sense to just school, knowing there was no way I was going to come out of it badly, when things might go badly otherwise.

Schooling was good. We had two refusals, both jumps we've been over before, because I freaking looked at them. That is the problem. I look. If I stop looking down she'll go over the darn jump. You would think it would be an easy thing to fix, alas, as all of you that ride know, it's not so easy sometimes. We schooled the water and I did it a bunch more times than I needed to, but it was so fun and Naners was being fabulous and we finished off cantering through it.

All in all, a good weekend. Disappointed I finished with a letter, not a number, but Naners was so fabulous other than that. She's also almost shed out and as you can see from the following pictures, she's really freaking shiny. She's got good shiny genetics, but this is what you get when you've taken a master's level nutrition course :D

I think she looks like an akhal teke here (and no, her ribs aren't really that visible. Something about the pose)

Watermelon... another letter finish

Getting OOTT (out of town trainer) to help me this weekend was probably the smartest decision I've made in a long while. One of the reasons I'd been hesitant is she can be extremely demanding and I just can't take that sometimes. Fortunately, turns out she is one of those people that can change her coaching technique depending on who she's coaching. So, for me it's a lot of, "take a breath, pat your horse, take a breath, slow down half a mile an hour, take a breath..." you get the picture. I was pleasantly surprised that she had me figured out and treated me just how I needed to be. As a result Naners and I were able to get straightened out before our stadium schooling round on Friday and it was an absolutely lovely round. We were slowish, I'd half halt ten strides out, again at fourish and then she was quiet enough I could let her do her job. OOTT has us figured out.

We had a nice dressage session Friday afternoon where we got us put back together and it translated into a lovely dressage test Sat afternoon. It was calm. No rockets. Not our best test at a 38.2, which put us in 2nd, but I was very pleased.

By the time stadium came around it was Hot out. 85. It snowed at our house just a week ago. Fortunately, jackets were waived. Not a ton of warming up, because we didn't need to. She jumped everything in warm-up like she had the day before. We get into the arena and she jumped big over fence #1, fence #2 went nice, fence #3... stop. It was a scary bumblebee lattice. Stop. Stop. We're out. They let us try it again, no go, so we trotted an x-rail on our way out. Then of course I cried a bit. OOTT asked me what I did wrong and I knew I was totally looking down. She reminded me it wasn't the end of the world and I went to ask about going out on XC and they said yes, though the TD was a bit concerned, but I'm not. Arenas aren't something we're in a lot. An XC course is just a fast trail ride and we've schooled most of the jumps, even if they have moved them around. If it does not go well OOTT is going to school us before we head back home.