putting it into words

This season so far has surpassed my wildest dreams. I am incredibly grateful for the support system I have; The blogging community (I know I have more lurkers than commenters but I know you are all there!), my friends, barn mates, family, trainers...the list goes on. I wish I was better at putting it into words how thankful I am to have people in my corner that believe in me and Tillie, even when I waiver. This sport isn't one that can be done without support...as Dom Schramm has said, "It takes team work to make the dream work"

Last year course walking with friends

With that said, I am using this post to sort of relish in just how far we have come since winter and count my blessings. I know how fickle confidence can be and how easy it is for one split second your horse can go from being fine to not fine. You could say this Saturday was a bit of a moment of reflection when there was a moment of thinking we may be out the rest of the season. 

moments like this were quite frequent in our rides for the first few years

Oddly enough, in that moment, I felt positive despite potentially being done for the season. I felt incredibly happy with what Tillie has done, how hard shes tried for me and counted my blessings that I even have a horse capable (the whole cellulitis thing a few years ago still lives in the back of my brain). 

Yep or this...

I almost want someone to pinch me to make sure this is real life. I think back to the first 3 years of owning her...and it was hard. REALLY HARD. 

Not that we dont have hard moments now, we do. But thats just it, they are moments now, no longer entire rides or outings. They have slowly dissipated into a horse that knows her job know and gets excited without the leaping and twisting in the air. 

soooo much of this....

 Its funny how change like this happens. It isnt over night so you dont even realize its happening...every day thats shes been good I have been eternally grateful -

As are my limbs which my left ankle still isnt quite right from two winters ago from this:

I have a hard time really enjoying success because I want everyone around me to be feeling happy where they are too...but such is life and we dont live in a perfect world. I also have gotten so used to feeling good, and then the rug being pulled out and either Tillie would get injured and be back on stall rest or something under saddle felt like a set back. So Ive been extremely cautious to allow myself to fully let my guard down for fear the universe is waiting to throw something terrible my way.

You know like this, or the stitches...

My posts lately, including this one, are trying to be more positive thinking and trying to allow myself to enjoy our progress. I nit pick everything little thing in our rides, every video. I am my own harshest critique which is why most of my posts on social media have the hash tag #progressnotperfection because while I know we are improving, I KNOW we are never ever going to be perfect (despite what Tillie may think). 

Starting to jump like a normal, quiet horse

I have had a lot of really cool things happen to me this year...making doing all the things and the lessons so much more accessible. My truck and trailer purchase was one that initially I had a slight twinge of buyers remorse thinking of the price tag, but now do not regret it at all.

Hello gorgeous

This purchase allowed me to take way more P lessons to get our jumping under control and just something not soooo exciting for Tillie:

It has also meant way more dressage lessons with C, which have gotten my poor downhill-built mare able to carry herself more uphill:

It has meant more clinics and xc schooling...making going places also not such a huge deal, and XC not jumps that are so incredibly exciting for Tillie we have to go warp speed at them:

and of course all the shows we have been to this year:

Tillie continues to surprise me, both good and bad. I am realizing the more and more we progress, the more and more neither of us know. Kind of like the blind leading the blind. I am relying heavily on my trainers to coach us through and really excited at the long laundry list of them that I have that they all are saying similar things or at least not contradicting each others training methods. 

Would NEVER have schooled like this at home before

I know we will always have a ton of work to do. It will never end. Right now, its inspiring when before I used to feel defeated at that thought. I think because I have realistic goals where as last year I was wayyyyy too ahead of myself. Stepping back and working on baby steps has helped us progress way faster this year than before!

So why now reflect on alllll this and get all mushy on everyone? Well, her close call last weekend put some things into perspective, but we also have another move up coming this weekend. I signed up to do a derby at FH at training level which includes stadium and XC only. It isnt timed and basically a fundraising event so mostly a schooling situation....but perfect to test us because these two phases are the ones that really will tell us if we are ready for a full event or not.

Think we can manage this in the dressage training level test?!

I have been really agonizing over whether its the right thing, if I am setting the bar too high too soon again. Novice has been feeling realllllly good. The past few events have been a breeze for Tillie and shes only been getting more confident, but still I dont want to risk pushing too fast too soon. I sightly panicked for a last minute additional jump lesson with Dan in addition to Dom this week letting him know why and I was instantly put at ease by his oddly pep-talk like response: "You'll be fine"

While that may not seem like a great pep talk or confidence instilling...from Dan it is. In the past he would bluntly tell me to wait to go show if he felt we werent ready so the fact he is ok'ing it and saying we will be fine, really makes me believe we will be fine. 

So we are officially on the road to Training level!! We will see how the derby goes this weekend...we also have another starter novice at FH July 2 and one more recognized Novice at Loch moy July 10. If those both go as swimmingly, we are aiming for a move up at our old stomping grounds OF for their recognized trials which I am told their Training is a nice softer one. 

So keep us in your thoughts because all the good vibes are working!! :) 

countdown to our first recognized is on...

...and I reallllly am hoping we dont make a fool of ourselves. Tillie schooling yesterday in our smaller dressage-ish sized ring was much better, so today I am planning to try schooling her out in the grass to test if we learned anything from the smaller ring.

I bought all the stuff for braiding - fair warning - I may cry like a proud mother does when sending her kids off to the first day of school.

allll the yarn

The plan is simple, treat it just like any other show. I am not worried about time, just going around clear like all the other starter trials we have done. Im really excited to return to Plantation since last year we were just starting out and it was interesting to say the least. I am fairly confident going in we will keep a lid on things (jumping im totally confident) dressage is still give or take the situation.

Got my ride times!

So wish us luck!!!

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!

Novice #2 = Success

This past Sunday, Tillie and I loaded up and headed over to Loch Moy for our second Novice event of the season. If you guys remember, last year this event was a bit of a shit show. (Read about the XC fails here and dressage fails here). So I headed back in the hopes we could redeem ourselves and have some dignity this time around.

For the sake of keeping these posts from turning into novels, I am going to once again break down each phase in separate posts. But this one will be a sneak preview ;)

All prepped and ready

With our jump lesson thursday feeling really rough/forward I was a bit less confident going in to this weekend. I had a dressage lesson Friday that felt ok, but we also were schooling some newer things and working on upping the game so things just felt different. Tillie tends to get a bit defensive when changing the game on her so its a bit of a fine line trying to coax her into the new stuff...and with what horse is that NOT like? Lol... So my last schooling ride the day before the show was ok and left little to be desired since she still just seemed to not want to let go of some tension and really relax like she has been in recent rides.

What happens when black polish gets mistaken for regular hoof polish - lots of scrubbing

I went home Saturday night feeling a bit in my head and less confident, BUT I did find comfort in our training and found some solace in knowing even with things feeling ok, we still could do it, it just meant me needing to be more on my A game.

We pulled into Loch Moy and I mentally prepared for our dressage knowing this venue is pretty darn crowded so fully expected Tillie to have a harder time. We got there so early to give me time to get her to settle in and I chose to walk the XC course first (which in hindsight I am soooo glad we did). It was humid and muggy so relaxing and cooling off at the trailer was a better move than trying to walk the course between dressage and stadium.

I hopped on for dressage and Tillie walked on a loose rein quite well and would only get slightly jumpy if someone came too close or ran up behind us. She recovered in a matter of moments though and was content. This made me hopeful for our test...until I picked her up and started asking for her to work. The walk was decent enough, but then going into trot she woke up. It was either bracing and racing or low and slow...no in between. It also didnt help I came in ready to ride novice A and actually had to do novice B - Luckily I have been riding both lately so could adapt but it was a bit of a last minute "oh crap" thing... Despite this we put in an ok test and got a 31.8.

oh so tense Tillie...and me trying realllly hard to be soft

Stadium felt amazing and was by far the smoothest phase of the day. All the mistakes made were piloting errors and non faults of Tillies (Like burying her to fence #2 which she luckily got over with no rails).

Part of the outside line to two stride line

XC was also pretty good with the exception of a few things which Ill go over in my posts...but we did all the harder options and it was pretty darn smooth!

We need to work on cantering into water...but she was forward!

We ended on our dressage score and ended up in 5th place!! All in all it was a successful day and I think prepares us a bit more for June 11th!

Loch moy looming

Not sure why all of a sudden my nerves and anxiety is kicking in for this weekend's event at Loch Moy. The more I think about it, the more I think its more or less excitement than fear.

Don't get me wrong, every time I compete, there is a healthy dose of fear...its not about messing up in the sense we knock a rail or have a run out XC, but more or less the safety aspect because lets face it, my mare hasnt always been the safest thing to ride.

Who me?!

I feel pretty confident about the work we have done and our preparation...She is going more uphill, we havent had a ton of sass, dolphining or bucking or taking off issues but all the same this event means a lot. 

While we went out and rocked our first Novice and I do honestly feel pretty darn good going into this one this weekend...this event is like the one that will determine if Novice really feels good. It will be the event that will hopefully tell us if we are solid here or if we have holes we need to fill in. 

Lets feel this good about jumping this weekend ok Tills?!

Either way, thats part of horses right? I am realllllyyy trying hard to go in confident, but also with the ability to adapt with what Tillie throws my way IF there are some holes that pop up. I am happy to be able to say Tillie feels the best shes ever felt so I at least have that in the back of my mind assuaging some of my doubt about either of our abilities. 

Like being able to jump this kind of stuff without hesitating

I just need to focus on what we know, what we have been working on and have faith in the training. 

I am hopeful that our XC schooling today at Windurra (Yes at Boyd Martin's place!) with Dom Schramm (Ok that sentence with all the name dropping is a bit overboard-groupie) will just solidify how good things are feeling. 

Yay for feeling good! (Lets hope we can keep it!)