Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

So I'm going to kinda cheat and combine September and October into one post because mostly for the past two months I have been working on correcting and fine tuning some gaps in our training.

I love going to shows, because not only is it a competition (and let's face it, I'm a little lot competitive), but I feel like it sharpens me - I notice things that I overlook at home and then I can work on them and progress.

So here are the things that I learned this show season:

• I let Otter meander around through transitions at home, and then at shows when I am trying to ask at or between a certain letter and I want a crisp transition, of course I'm not going to get it.  So then asking for it stronger at the next transition won't make it better, just makes him reactive because he's not use to me being so insistent on a sharp transition.
• Since I realized this, I immediately stopped letting him take several strides for upward transitions and as a result, they were much better during at our last few shows, and way better at home.
• I need to ride with my leg on more - like way more.  I got so used to Otter being so forward that I started trying to ride with my leg off and I guess rotating/ pinching on my knees some, so when I try to put leg on, he's not used to it and is overly sensitive to it -again this kinda goes back to why our transitions are so blehy.
• It's a work in progress.  It's definitely work trying to convince my muscles and body to stay that way, but it is getting better.
• Otter is a total cheater and is lazy (despite his bursts of energy at times).  The moment I allow it, he'll get on his forehand and heavy in the bridle.  
• I've really been trying to push for him to move forward and keeping his hindquarters under him and active, while staying light in the bridle.  I have also been using this time of correcting my position to reinforce correct bend with him - it helps me make sure my legs are on if I am asking him to bend around them.  So we have been doing lots of circles and changing of direction asking him to be on the outside rein and bending around the inside leg.
• Relaxation
• For both of us.  I need to relax my upper body (shoulders specifically), and Otter needs to not brace then relax when I half-halt.  It's getting better
• I lean way to forward with my upper body - When I'm not using my legs correctly, I lean forward to compensate for the position, and then Otter takes advantage of it and uses it to lean against me and get heavy, which makes me more forward.  It's a vicious circle.
• Since I am getting better about keeping my legs on, my base of support has gotten better and so my upper body is better stabilized where it should be.  They aren't often yet, but when everything clicks with my position and Otter using his hindquarters and having correct bend, he feels amazing!
• I need to get him forward for stadium.  If I think he is forward, it usually still isn't forward enough.
• Better at home usually, still wasn't great at the last few shows
• Take off distance jumping
• Both Otter and I like the deep distances, and we need to get over that and have more flexibility instead of holding for a deep distance if neither of us sees one.  Some days are better than others on this.  

I think that's about it.  I'm sure there are a million of other little things, but that's for me to figure out next show season.  

Speaking of next show season, it's about to start for us because as of the end of next week, Otter and I will officially be southerners.  Otter got clipped (mostly- still need to finish up his head and fix a couple of lines) this week since he is scheduled to be picked up middle of the week and I am hoping to start the drive right after he leaves.  I'm hoping to go to a local schooling show in December, then start horse trials at the end of January with hopes to qualify and compete at AECs in 2015.

Big changes.  I'm definitely a little nervous, and very sad to be leaving my current barn, but super excited for this next year.

August 2014

I decided to end my 2014 season at the same event that we had our first outing at in 2013 - Rolling Rock mini trials.  In light of not riding frequently leading up to the event due to my back, I decided to compete at beginner novice again.

The morning of the show I was prepared to do the same routine as I did at South Farm, but when I lunged him - he was nice and calm and relaxed, so I opted against getting on, and instead just prepped him for our test.  I did get on him slightly early again, but after a few minutes of warming him up, I mostly stood/walked around until 15 minutes before our test when I started warming him up in earnest.  He was a completely different horse this time.  Not sure if he realized he doesn't get to jump until after dressage is done, or if he was just more comfortable at this venue since he has been there a few times now.  Either way, we put in a very nice test - no tenseness, blow ups, etc.  if anything, I should have asked for him to be more forward as he was slightly behind my leg and the vertical.  We were scored a 37.8, which was actually one of the lower scores of the show, and it put us into first.

I was nervous heading into stadium because I really wanted to keep my placing.  He warmed up fine, but then when we headed into the ring it went to crap.  He was sucking back then deer leaping at every fence, and we just couldn't get a good distance or rhythm going.  His athleticism saved the day and kept us from pulling rails.

I was pretty disgusted with our jumping in stadium and resolved to get him in front of my leg before we head out to XC.  I took him over to an open area and galloped him a bit then jumped the couple of warm up XC jumps they had.  Went much better.  I'm starting to realize that I really need to get him in front of my leg before we start jumping - and that means taking him for a little gallop/very forward canter.  XC went well, he's jumped most of the jumps there before, so it was a stroll around the park. 

End result:

Unfortunately, my back wasn't quite healed enough to handle Otter's deer jumps in stadium and I ended up re-injuring it.  Other than getting on and doing some walk/little bit of trot work, I gave Otter the rest of the month off because I also decided that I would be moving down to Baton Rouge in November and so would be starting our 2015 show season in December/January and wanted to give him a little bit of a break before we picked up serious work again.

July 2014

So because I was grounded from the arm issue in June, I was only able to ride for a week or two before we went to South Farm HT at the beginning of the month.  Not the most ideal prep for a show.  At the same time, I was also really thrilled that my fiance was able to finally see us compete.  I decided that there was no way that I was going to let Otter's rambunctiousness ruin our dressage test this time, so I planned for lots of warm up time.  I got on Otter early in the AM to get all of his high jinx out, and I am so glad I did - we had about 30 minutes of bucks and leaps when I asked for upward transitions.  I don't ever get this behavior at home because he get so much turn out time that he gets all of his antics out before I ride.  I finally got him to quiet down and then I got off and put him away so that I could get cleaned up and could finish getting him ready.  When we were all set, I got back on him - a bit before I normally would just in case he had more energy to let out.  In the warm up area, I kept doing a lot of transitions, and finally I was actually having to ride with my legs on to keep him moving instead of trying to keep them off.  I still had about 20 minutes before my ride time, so I just tried to keep him attentive until then, by some walk breaks and some transitions every few minutes.

As a result of all of our warm up, I think Otter was slightly past his best point when we finally went in the ring since he was a little grumpy, but he put in one of his calmest tests so far, despite him thinking about ducking out of the ring at one point.  We were scored a 39.5, which I was happy with since we still had some hiccups in the ring.

When I went to warm Otter up for XC, all of the energy he had earlier in the day was gone.  I tried to be pretty conservative in my warm-up, just jumping a couple of times till he woke up and sharpened up.  XC went well (it usually does with him) and I could mostly let him cruise along.  I had to pull him back to a trot on the back half of the course to kill a little time because the speed was so conservative, but asked for a canter again before the next jump.  

The distance wasn't quite as tight as the angle of this picture makes it seem - The professional had a shot from a different angle that looked a lot better.

After the competitor's party that night, I walked Otter for a while and let him graze to stretch his legs out.

The next day I was pretty nervous for stadium.  I was in the placings after XC, but the scores were so tight that if we pulled a rail, we would drop out of them.  Warming up, I could tell that he was still a little tired from the day before so I tried to limit my warm-up again choosing instead to watch the earlier riders go.  A couple horses before our time I took him over some jumps and then headed in. 

All was going well, until we were 2 strides out from an oxer and one of the potted plants in front of it fell over!  Otter was not cool with the fact that the jump was moving, and started to plant on the brakes, and I sat back and said "No way, dude - you are going over this" and he went.

The fence with the horse-eating plant

We finished the course with no other issues, and I was so thrilled because it meant that we kept our placing.  While I waited for the last few competitors to finished up, I said bye to my fiance - he had to catch his plane back home - and hung out with my barn mates.

I love this photo

It turns out that because of our clean stadium round we moved up to 5th.  I also got to participate in my first victory gallop (So much fun, by the way).

A few days after the show I moved wrong at work and pulled something in my back that kept me sidelined from riding for another week, and then I kept myself to light riding for another week to attempt to prevent re-injuring it.  

During my downtime, I started making competition goals for 2015.  I decided that since it was very likely I would be moving to Baton Rouge within the next year, I wanted to go to the 2015 AECs since that would be the last year they would be held in Texas, which would be relatively close.  When I started researching what I would need to do to qualify, I realized that because of being an ammy rider in mixed divisions, I had an ammy placing higher than the show placing which qualified us for the 2014 AECs.  I was thrilled to discover that in our first season, despite him not being quite settled at shows yet, we qualified.  

June 2014

We got back from Waradaca, and I had to get a blood draw done for work (happens twice a year).  Normally it's pretty routine, although the nurse that does it is a little iffy on the draws.  Well, this time she screw up pretty good, and of course it's on me who doesn't do well with blood draws anyways.  (I promise this will relate back to horses eventually).  So the blood draw is on a Tuesday and afterwards I have a bit of a bump there and a little bit of bruising.  Well the little bit of bruising turns into a lot of bruising

The pictures don't even do it justice.  It almost wraps around my whole arm

So back to the Otter.  After his antics at Waradaca, I decided that we needed some more time in the sandbox at shows, so the weekend after the screwed up blood draw, I jumped aboard on a trip to a local CT.  He was pretty good.  Warm up went fantastic - soft and supple, time in the ring was decent, he was a bit looky though.  Stadium also went well, and this was our first time showing in the new bit - and we finally had a round without rails!  Heading home though, my arm felt horrible - was pretty painful and I swear the bruise got way darker during the day.  

Work convinced me to go back to the doctor and get it check out again mid week, so I did.  Because of them passing me around from one doc to the next, we still aren't quite sure what the nurse did wrong, but after I was told not to use it at all for a week, the bruising/bleeding stopped getting worse and slowly started getting better.  

Because of the whole arm thing, I didn't really ride again till almost the end of June, and I had another show 4th of July weekend.  

Also sometime during the month, my fiance got a job offer and moved to Baton Rouge, LA.

May 2014

*Side note before I begin - my goal is to be caught up by the end of the month, cause then the really exciting stuff happens!


So, May....

We went to Winona HT in May.  The weather was looking great all the way up to the afternoon we left for the event, then crappy weather rolled in and it was a soggy mess all weekend.  There was enough of a break in the rain to get a quick schooling in when we got to the grounds and Otter was pretty good, if extremely sensitive to aids.  No taking off during canter departures this time - yay!  On Saturday we did dressage and stadium.

Dressage went ok.  I really wasn't impressed by it, and thought I would have a higher score than I did at Loch Moy, but my barn-mate who was watching thought that the test looked good.  Guess I was being overly critical of us, because we got a 34.2.

Stadium was a nightmare - they had last minute scheduling changes which pushed back ride times and then stadium got backed up, except nobody knew about it till they got down to stadium warm-up, so there were about 50 riders in there.  They technically had two warm-ups - one over in the middle of the cross country field where you were suppose to start, and one right by the stadium ring where you were suppose to do your final warm -up.  Only problem was that nobody knew about the first warm-up area.  So everyone was tearing up the grass footing by the final jump, and by the time that I got to it, it was a mess. So we jumped the warm up jump, then I half-halted and attempted to make the sharp turn (it was either that or run into the pond)  and next thing I know, both Otter and I were on the ground.  The footing was so torn up that he wasn't able to keep his feet underneath of him.  I believe we were the only ones to actually fall, but there were several others that were pretty close to it.

I got back on and trotted him around to make sure he was okay (he was).  I was pretty sure that the whole incident would have rattled him some - he is pretty good about taking care of his riders and keeping them on his back - to date, I have not fallen from him other than this time.  I had them lower the jump down to a cross rail and jumped it - halting straight afterwards.  He was definitively a little wiggy about it. I repeated this a couple more times, then it was my turn to head into the ring.  It was probably my worst stadium round to date.  He was deer leaping everything.  Best thing I can say about it was that we make it through the round only pulling one rail.  

The best of the worst stadium photos. He's tight, I'm tight and holding him back - it's a miracle we made it through.

Sunday morning, we jogged out and lunged Otter to make sure he was still feeling okay after the fall - He looked great, thankfully.  XC was on Sunday, and after walking the course, I decided that I was going to be prepared for the soggy/potentially torn up footing this time and I put studs in. Apparently Otter really likes the traction they give him, because in warm-up he was jumping like he had wings. Completely different horse than I had in stadium.   On course he was great.   We ended up placing 7th at our first recognized HT. 

After Winona, I started putting studs in anytime I was doing a serious jump school and it really seemed to help Otter - he felt more balance and secure.

At the end of May, we went to Waradaca HT, and I was pretty sure that I had gotten things figured out so that we would have a chance of placing really well.  Boy was I wrong!

At Waradaca, we did all three phases in one day.  I got him ready for dressage and we started warming up.  If I recall correctly, he was ok in warm-up - not great, but not crazy.  When we walked over to head to the competition rings, something set him off - not sure if it was the bushes, or another horse or what.  Suddenly he was jumping through his skin and spooking at everything.  He was horrible in our test - our trot circles were more like canter circles and we were just barely keeping it together.   Halfway through our test, I just started grinning, because what else can you do in that situation other than smile and ride?  We got a 53.2

He was so wound up in dressage, I was seriously considering scratching because I wasn't sure if he had enough brains left in his head to make it through stadium and XC.  My trainer convinced me to at least warm up for stadium and if I still felt like it wasn't a good idea, I could scratch then.  Well, all the crazy we had in dressage turned into just plain forward for jumping.  He was being bold, but was listening.  Unfortunately he got a bit distracted and looky in stadium and we had 2 rails.

So off we went to XC.  Warming up he was fantastic - locking on to the jump and just taking me there.  We even jumped the novice rolltop warm up fence (because I didn't realize how big it was till we were in the air, and it was taking a lot longer than normal).  I decided not to push my luck and head out after than jump.   On course, he looked at/chipped in to the first couple of jumps while we got our rhythm figured out.  I was so proud of him on course, he may have taken the short distance a couple of times, but he never thought about stopping at all (coming from my last horse who would always throw stops at you, I am so grateful for how honest Otter is on XC)  No pictures, but I did get the video of our trip.

 http://youtu.be/6uEAKDZLlB8

Our abysmal dressage score put us out of the ribbons, but I left the show feeling extremely proud of how we handled the XC course.

I had originally planned to move up to Novice after Waradaca, but after the show, I decided to stay at Beginner Novice for the rest of the season so that we could get a show where we had 3 good phases, instead of 1 or 2.

After some reflection after the show, I also decided to change the bit I was using for stadium.  I had been riding both SJ and XC in the 3 ring bubble bit because he needed the leverage help at times to balance, but I felt like it was becoming too strong of a bit for him in the ring and wasn't letting me push him towards a jump if I needed to( like the rails we got at Waradaca), so I switched Otter to a full cheek Dr. Bristol, which seems to be working very well.

April 2014

So while I'm waiting for my moving pod to arrive for my big move down to Louisiana (to move in with the fiance), I figured I'd write down another chapter in the story of this year,

April started off cold and wet.  Not very helpful for riding outside or doing much hill/fitness work.  In fact, I was even on the fence about clipping again before our first show at Loch Moy, just because it had been so cold.

I was able to jump outside for the first time about a week before we left for LM.  Otter hadn't forgotten a thing since the fall - he was bold and attacking the fences.  

LM weekend arrived and I was so glad that I did reclip Otter -it was HOT (~80 degrees, but when you've been used to 40 and 50s...).  Schooling the day before went well.  We got to play around in their schooling water complex some and schooled the bank in to the bank out which he did awesome on.

I also learned that night, that I can never bed Otter down on straw, because he will eat it.  Like all of it if allowed.  So after a bit of a delay because Otter had a bit of a bellyache (that went away with some walking and time away from the straw) we switched him over to shavings and went out to dinner.

The morning of the mini trials rolled around and my ride times weren't until the afternoon so I just hung out and watched my trainer's rides and just enjoyed the warmer weather and being back at a show again.  

Finally it was our ride times so I got ready and headed down to warm up for dressage.  Suddenly I had a fire-breathing dragon on my hands!  After a warm up that involved lots of sudden explosions when I put my leg on, and lots of cantering around trying to take the edge off, we headed into the ring.  We managed to mostly keep our act together for the test, lots of comments of resistance and tension.  We ended up with a 42.5

Stadium went fairly well, although we did pull down a rail.\

XC went decently - because of the weather, we hadn't been able to do too much conditioning work leading up to the show, and because of his antics in dressage, he was starting to get a little tired.  There was also a huge hill at the beginning of the course.  I am super proud of him though - even when he was unsure of the fences, I put my leg on and he went.

This was the only fence that he really thought about stopping at.  Super small brush fence.  But he went, so he got lots of praise after it.  

In the end, I knew I needed to work on dressage some more, but I was really proud of the way that he handled stadium and an XC course that he had never seen before.

At the end of the month, I took him to a small local dressage show, just to get him (and me) some more experience in the dressage ring.  He did really well - got in the high 60's for all 4 tests that we did.  

During the month, I started thinking more about how I was riding him in my dressage saddle.  While it fits him well, it doesn't fit me quite as much (twist is wider that I prefer), so it is hard for me to be in an effective position  in it.  I did some saddle shopping, but we had the problem of they either fit me or him, but not both of us.  I decided to keep my saddle since it fits him, and work on my position more.