weekend recap

I must apologize in advance because I, sadly, dont have a ton of media from this weekend...Such a bummer because I would have loved footage of Tillie's first Training outing.

Sure it wasnt a full training event, but it was a great test! I must admit too, I need to be better like Emma at Fraidy Cat eventing and take pictures of each jump...**sigh** I just dont think that ahead.

All loaded up and ready to go!

The morning of the derby, I had some time to kill so decided to tackle a mini project I was considering and putting interlocking rubber/foam mats in my dressing room of my trailer to make things neater than the grungy old carpet.

I got the mats at Costco for $30 and only needed one pack of them and still have some scraps left over to touch it up when I get another spare moment. But it came out pretty nicely and it only took roughly an hour!

Before....................................after

Once that was done I loaded up and hit the road. I met up with a fellow barn mate I met through being a working student of Dans and we walked the course together. It was nice to have her there since shes been competing her mare at training level for a few years now. Her relaxed attitude about the day helped me stay relaxed, especially because the jumps were pretty giant (I dont freak out about size typically). 

Stadium sized jumps dont because I know we can just knock em down...cross country was definitely a big step up for us and while I mentally noted how large they were, felt really confident Tillie would do just fine. I did have a pep talk with her though and also made a note to maybe purchase some sticky spray for the future. 

All done and grumpy about the bugs

She warmed up quite nicely despite the fences set up not to training level height so I was a bit worried about going into stadium but quickly told myself it was no big deal even if we did take a rail, this was just practice and trying to see how we would do off farm. 

Off we went into our 8-jump stadium...sure enough fence 1 she rubbed with her front legs which ALWAYS is something she does if she doesnt realize fences go up. She slipped a bit around the the turn to Fence 2 and she still hadnt caught on and dropped the rail with her hind end. After that she woke up and REALLY started jumping. Oh. My. God.

Jump #3 was part of a combination with fence 2 and she realllllly over jumped it. The turn to #4 was a roll back turn to a three stride to #5 bending line and boy was she really jumping out of her skin. #5 She literally jumped me out of the tack so hard that I apologized on landing to her (thank god for thinline). She didnt miss a beat though and made the turn to #6 to one more 4 stride line #7 and 8. 

Treats for me!?

They ran the event that upon landing you kept cantering right into XC so off we went! Jump #1 was a GIANT red house. It was wide too but Tillie soared over it. Jump 2 was about 5 strides after and was a smaller wooden roll top looking thing but Tillie over jumped it so hard I lost my right stirrup. 

Thank god I didnt lose my balance or feel shaken in the tack because she was movin and groovin...I got my stirrup back really quickly though and we cantered into water, up the bank to a two stride to a pretty large table. 

Once again, Tillie didnt disappoint...she got a bit long to the bank which isnt ideal, but she made up ground and moved up to the distance well. She landed after the table quite excited with a playful head shake but regained focus reallllly nicely. 

I said TREATS please!!!!

Next was a bit of a coffin complex with a large blue train jump, ditch to a roll top. It was by far the largest ditch we have ever jumped and Tillie jumped it like super man lol head between the knees but did it without hesitation. 

We had a good gallop up the hill to an even larger roll top with grass and we took that out of a gallop which was really fun! On landing though I did have to use my pelham and for a good couple strides to tell Tillie to calm down lol she was trucking to the last two jumps. 

She did come back after a few HARD half halts but still jumped forward over the second to last jump and I really asked her to wait for the last one with it being quite a large trakahener knowing she kinda looked at one the last time. 

She jumped it well, but I over thought it a bit and landed kind of in a heap almost lost my left stirrup ahaha, but Tillie had her ears pricked and was ready for more...She did come back nicely to a trot and boy was she huffing. 

Soooo tired

It was only 10 xc jumps, but she was drenched and breathing pretty good...it was more mental than anything else, but I definitely need to step up our conditioning before our first Training event. 

All in all it felt good, it felt confident. I learned that road studs arent enough at this height and we probably need to try slightly larger ones when the ground is this hard. She got a nice poultice to help with that and a massage the next day :)

Meanwhile, I am in works with Dom to start working on me keeping up with her and not getting jumped out the tack. Stay tuned for our XC lesson we will have this week addressing those! 

So here is to hoping things go as smoothly later this month!