Hey Training!

Justin and I just got back from our first Training level event!! We competed in the MDHT Unrecognized this morning, and I was honestly more nervous than I think I've ever been for a show before. He's been pretty consistently good the past few weeks, but the past couple of days have been a bit trickier. We had a lesson with Katie on Thursday, which was good, but I did feel a bit disappointed with how it went. Justin just felt very rushed and not on my aids at all, but I think the problem was that my ankle was irritating me too much to really be able to put any weight on it, so that led to obvious problems.

Katie said she was pleased with the lesson, though. She says that I'm learning how to use my legs and seat much more efficiently, which I definitely agree with. She's finally begun to let me sit to and between the fences, since I can now sit without pushing him with my seat. My biggest thing now is correcting my hands. I tend to tug on him at the wrong times, especially in front of the jumps, so we're working on almost throwing my reins away and letting Justin find all the distances without me. It's hard, because I instinctively want to "hold, hold, hold," when I really need to be letting go. It's definitely a comfort thing, because I know I ride better and he goes better when I let him do his thing. But we're still improving, and we'll get there eventually. :)

I was so pleased with Justin today. Our dressage was at 8:30 and stadium was at 9:30, which seemed a bit crunched to me, but it all worked out. I gave myself about 40 minutes of warm up, and he was feeling pretty good before we went into the ring. He had been a bit fussier and more distracted than usual though, so I wasn't really sure what would happen in the actual ring. It went about as well as I'd expected it to, no awful moments, a few great moments, but mostly mediocre. I did a much better job of not grabbing his face the way I tend to do when I get nervous in dressage, so that definitely helped. We got a 37.7, which is better than our recent string of 40's. Justin even got an 8 on his gaits (along with an 8 on one of our canters and an 8 on our halt/salute)!

Stadium was set up really nicely, although I was a bit skeptical about how a few of the combinations would ride. Fence 5 was a long one stride A/B, which we rode into really nicely, but I ended up climbing up his neck a bit at the B. He took care of me though, as he always does. Fence 1 rode probably better than any fence we've ever jumped in the show ring. Granted, it was the smallest fence on the course, so I wasn't thinking about it as much as the others, but I was still very pleased. We pulled a rail at fence 3, because he chipped in and popped it, but again, that was me being too heavy in my hands. All in all, it was a very decent round. I even had someone come up to me later to tell me how "lovely" our round was and how "fun" it is to watch us go. (And a girl who was with her also complimented us and then said, "This is why I want a pony!") I'm so lucky to have a horse that makes me look good!

I was actually scared silly about XC, but Katie just kept rolling her eyes and saying, "You'll be fine!" And she was right! 1 through 5 rode perfectly, 6 was a big log into the water with a B complex which was an up bank out of the water, and that gave us a bit of trouble. Justin backed off BIG time, which I'm sure was partially my fault since I was definitely anticipating it. He broke to a walk, I thought we'd have to circle and count as a refusal, but I popped him with the bat just to remind him we had to get over it, and he did! Jumped it from basically a stand-still, cantered right on through the water and out the bank with no problem. Fence 7 was an option of a double chevron or a maxed out brush with a ditch under it. I should have taken the brush, but I had been so nervous about that fence after walking the course yesterday, I just opted to take the chevrons. I definitely took Justin for granted on that one, though. He got a bit wiggly to the base, and ended up doing almost a spider crawl over the jump. I think we may have knocked the flag over... Whoops. The rest of the course went pretty well though. I flatlined a bit on the second to last fence, which I tend to do at the end of XC, and Katie has been on my case about. I pulled myself together for the last fence though, and I finished with a huge smile on my face.

We ended up 5th out of 5 with a score of 41.7, but that was definitely a score I'm very happy about. We still have a lot of work to do, but at least having the confidence in ourselves that we CAN run around at training is a good start. We have Rubicon in a few weeks, which will be our first recognized training, so we have enough on our plate to keep us busy until then. But if Rubicon goes as well as today, I'll be pleased. If it goes even better, that would be really great though!