loch moy stadium & XC break down

I am very happy to say that this phase was the best out of all three! Don't get me wrong, we have some cleaning up to do...but considering where we were last year with stadium and XC I have a happy, adjustable horse. The cleaning up stuff is piloting error that I need to work on.

A still from the most beautiful part of our course

Warming up she was over jumping like a machine but was totally quiet and giving my both leads. The left lead still is always harder, but I realize its my lack of getting her straight and my own crooked issues causing this difficulty. I didnt jump her too much because she was being soooo good.

We marched right on down went in to do our round:

Fence #2 was my error...I buried her a bit to it, but she recovered well and we made up for it over the outside line. Tillie was forward but not bracing and came right back off my seat. 

Fence #7 after that line rode nicely, but I couldnt get the left lead...no biggie the bending line wasnt too difficult to warrant fretting...she landed cross cantering (that darn left lead) but stayed in a nice rhythm and finished with the outside line in a nice even stride. 

All in all it was sooo nice and smooth I cant complain about the lead stuff...that will come. Weve only just started working on those so I am hopeful it will come together. 

Cross Country

We suited up and headed over to XC. Tillie was cool as a cucumber and I chose to pop over a big coop to let her know what was coming. She didnt it wonderfully and we walked up to the start box.

Out of the gate, She was a bit slow (say what?!) I think she thought we were off for a leisurely stroll...lol. The first jump was friendly enough but we had a down hill approach to fence #2 which I failed to wake her up enough at. Luckily the mare saved my booty big time and I did that silly get ahead with my shoulders thing. But she handled it and we got some better steam after this one.

Haha whoops!

She started to build quite well and we got some momentum by the time we got to jump 4 and 5. 

Jump 6 was a maxed out novice fence which apparently gave a few others in my division an issue...it was angled oddly in a treeline and there was a chance for the horse to lock on to a training level fence a few strides beyond it. 

I knew I would need to encourage a bit here because of the shading issues but Tillie did it just fine!

Then onto the trickier part of the course which was a bit like a combination. We had a relatively friendly jump with a bending line to a bank up option which we could opt to do the larger one, or the BN smaller one with a log that required to go around longer. 

I opted to do the harder of the two...and it was a bit narrow to get up on the bank, but with a small tap on the shoulder she took it in stride and cantered off to do our brush jump.

I let her back off to trot for water since the approach to it was slightly hard to see if you canter it until the last second...but she came in nicely forward and was able to pick up a canter to the jump right after, which also required a hard left to a pheasant feeder. We had a bit of a gallop to the next jump which landed downhill. I dont like downhill..but it rode well and we had more galloping towards the trakehner:

You can see my shorten up at first since she started getting a bit stronger and heavier here so I had to remind her to think up with her shoulders and not get too low. She cantered up to the trakehner confidently and did sorta look at it the last stride not realizing it had a ditch under it. But a little leg and she kept going just fine.

We had three jumps to home all three which we took a bit more forward.

Once again any issues were piloting issues and minor things we will work out schooling. I am hopeful this means a positive outing at Plantation on the 11th of June!