If You Can't Stand the Heat

Well, summer is here and it's officially time to get out of Texas!

Kind of.

About a billion things have happened in my life since I updated after Greenwood. The biggest thing is that I have graduated and accepted a job in Alexandria, VA near D.C. that will start August 1st. So what does this mean for my riding?

Well first of all, hooray for moving into the heart of Area II. I won't be forced to take a week off for every horse show as I do in Area V, what with all the horse shows in that area. However, I get zero vacation time my first year, so riding is going to go on hiatus for at least six months while I get my bearings.

Normally, this would bum me out. I'm so close to qualifying for the Big Game (which shall not be named and heretofore will always be referred to as the Big Game). Dante and I are so in sync on cross country that I'm in danger of becoming too cocky (my coach keeps my head from swelling too large to fit through doorways though). I think we're about to have a mental breakthrough for both of us for dressage. Area II would also give us a chance to refine our show jumping.

However, Dante has been competing quite steadily since he was five. It's time for a break. It's time for him to have his shoes pulled and allow his poor contracted heels to relax. It's time for him to roll around in the KY bluegrass all day, every day (or night, whichever). It's time for him to be a fat, roly-poly horse.

Dante demonstrates his love for the KY bluegrass as a five year old.

Before that happens, we have one more challenge.

Remember how I said it's time to get out of the oven kitchen Texas? In two days time we will be headed up to Colorado to make our next attempt at a QR in the CCI**. Third time's a charm right? Hard ground thwarted us at Jersey, and pneumonia defeated us at Galway, but here's to hoping our upcoming trip is issue-free. We've got good karma at the CO Horse Park, having run our first successful Training there in 2008 and our first CCI* in 2009, finishing 3rd on our dressage score. I've got a good feeling going, and that's always a confidence builder.

And it won't be as hot in Colorado!

(Seriously, hate the heat with a passion, as does Dante.)

After CO, Dante will get to go live with my old college roommate at Graystone Stable in Georgetown, KY. He'll have his shoes pulled and hopefully will finally defeat his age old foe, thrush. He'll see the farriers at the podiatry center of Rood and Riddle and be subject to the phenomenal eye of Dr. Chris Newton. Hopefully he'll come to VA in mid-winter, after spending some time swimming at Kesmarc to put condition on him before going back to work.

That's the plan anyways.

Unfortunately I'll be headed to San Antonio for a month to stay with my parents to save some money for a month, regroup, recover, and then head to VA the end of July. That means I have to stay in the oven for a month longer, but better me than Dante.

So here's to persistence (and cooler weather)!

Bigger, Faster, Stronger

It's that time of year again; Dante and I have embarked on CCI** fitness sets!

The thing about fitness sets is that they're very boring here in Texas. We have flat, flat, and more flat land.   Since our show is in Colorado, it is on the side of a mountain. Also, the altitude plays in and becomes a factor. So, Dante needs to be very, very fit.

Officially we are now galloping every five days, something I have never really done before. It has always been a schedule of every seven days, to work in with school and work. However, now I have a few weeks break after graduating, so I am taking advantage of that to gallop every five days as recommended by most top riders. We are also doing trot sets as well.

Our schedule reads trot sets, flat, jump, gallop, day off. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Tomorrow we will embark to the track for the first time this season. Although the Texas weather has actually provided us with a bit of rain and moderate temperatures this spring, the ground has migrated to being just hard enough to leave me feeling uncomfortable about galloping on it, particularly for the long sets that I have to do.

To ramp up Dante's fitness, we have gradually increased our sets from 3 x 5 to 3 x 7 sets. Only in the month of May did I start galloping every five days, and we will do one more 3 x 7 sets and two 3 x 8 sets before Colorado. The trot sets have ramped up from 2 x 15 to 2 x 25 and will up to 2 x 30.

Man, trot sets are boring. Pandora Radio helps.

In any case, the hope is that we will arrive in Colorado fit to fight.

Choke

Something I have been working on for a very long time, particularly in dressage, is my mental game. I used to get extremely worked up before dressage, because I just knew it was going to go badly. As a result, it usually did.

Shockingly, this past weekend at Greenwood, my mental game finally came through for dressage. We entered the ring calm and collected after having a wonderful warm up. Our trot work was really lovely, and even the walk was decent. Unfortunately, he then lost his mind a bit in the canter, swapping across the first diagonal and refusing to pick up the correct lead, then swapping on the final canter down center line, then refusing to trot to the final halt. It was relatively atrocious. I can sum that test up with the statement that it was both the best and worst test I have ever done. Still, I was so thrilled with his trot work, that I forgave him for his canter work. He's still playing with his lead changes like they are a new toy. Now I am trying to take that toy away from him, so he forgets about it a little. It's going well at home and in warmup, but apparently not so much in the actual test. We'll work on that. In the end, we were tied for first shockingly, but on our usual low 40s score. I'm positive we would have broken into the 30s if he hadn't melted down in the canter, so hopefully we can pull that together before Colorado.

Cross country, as usual, he was amazing. We were forward and bold to all of the fences, and very much in sync. At first, he was quite on the muscle, and I found myself with rather long distances to the first four fences, as if he were attempting to make the fences larger. He soon settled, and we went along to a comfortable pace.  I wasn't planning on trying for time, so I was pleasantly surprised when our leisurely gallop (at least it felt rather leisurely to me, I never once pushed him) turned out to be the fastest of the division, putting us into first by almost 10 points.

So going into show jumping, I was feeling rather good about have two rails in hand. Unfortunately, my mental game failed me, and I sucked. Again. Just like at Poplar. We had two rails relatively early when I got him a touch deep to a couple of verticals, and then I just bombed going into the triple combination. Almost fell off while Dante climbed through all three fences. It was just all kinds of bad. Then I missed badly going to the final fence as well, so I ended up with six rails. Not exactly a confidence building ride, having two of these awful, non-qualifying rounds before my two star....

My game plan is very much to work on my mental game. Mike is going to set up some jumps in the field for me, so I can feel the difference of jumping in a large space, rather than his very small arena. I thought about attending a schooling jumper show, but unfortunately the only jumper shows around here in the month of May are 'A' rated, and would cost me $300 or more to even get there. I'm not sure I'm ready to shell out that much for a couple of schooling rounds. I've also got a couple of sports psychology books, and I'm going to do some digging in those.

Once again, back to square one.

Mixed Bag

Sometimes, you get a mixed bag of results. This weekend was like that.

We made the trek out to Poplar Place last weekend in Georgia to run their Advanced. I knew it would be a tough second Advanced, and I was right. Walking the course on Thursday definitely made my eyes pop out a bit, especially for the modified Weldon's, which was a skinny brush set on an angle with a ditch. Poplar takes their brush fence seriously, with the lowest side of the brush cut at about four and a half feet. The tall side on the left must have been up to about six and a half feet, as you can see in the following photo.

(I'm 5'3'', for reference.)

There were some combinations that I knew would be tough. The first combination was a hanging log, a sharp turn left five strides to a huge left handed corner, and then a sharp turn right five strides to a skinny house. I was a bit nervous about the Weldon's. The cannon combo came up the hill, jump two cannons on a left-handed angle with one stride in between, then downhill with three LONG strides to a left handed corner. It was set perpendicular to a prelim combination that also ended with a corner. (Remember that, it's important later.) We also had a hanging log, one stride to a bank with a huge drop on a steep downhill, to a ditch, then one stride to a wedge. Next up was the infamous Indian Burial Mound, which had been modified to be a true Irish Bank, one stride to a log on top. The final combination that concerned me was a big/long bounce into the main water. There were a few other combinations on course, but these were the ones that looked tough to me.

So basically, most of the course looked tough to me.

I was really excited to get to it, but first we had to get through dressage. I tried yet another warmup technique this time, going for a long trot and canter set in the am of my dressage test, hoping to wear him out. Then I got on about ten minutes before my ride. It didn't really work. Dante started off with trot work that was a bit duller than that of Rocking Horse. He built steam throughout the test, until our final canter work was barely controllable, which was an improvement over Rocking Horse when our canter work at the end was UNcontrollable. So we're back to square one again. The good news is that it doesn't seem to be the environment or the ring that affects him, but rather performing the actual test that works him up. I think that perhaps by running through test after test after test (starting with Novice), I might actually get him used to that and prevent the mental build.

We'll see.

In any case, my trot work didn't score as well, but my canter work scored better, and I ended up with a 43.1, one point improvement over Rocking Horse. We won't have another stab at the Advanced test for a while, but I'm satisfied with the result.

Next up, cross country! It had rained quite a bit on Friday, but since the ground before was so hard, the footing ended up being absolutely perfect. We put in big studs to make sure we didn't slip, but the turf was spongy and non-concussive. We set off across the country and Dante jumped the first four fences great, especially number four, a big hanging table that was probably the largest fence on course. We came to number five, the first corner combination, which had been causing lots of problems already. I really concentrated on turning to the corner before thinking about the final element, and Dante jumped through great. We continued on, jumping the bounce bank in the woods with no problem, before coming to the Weldon's. 

At the Weldon's, Dante decided in the very last stride that the right side of the fence was scary and it would be better to jump the left side instead. The six and a half foot side. Oh yes, there was a large shrub on the landing side on the left too. I have a memory of going up, and up, and up. Dante did brush at least some of it, but he must have cleared at least five and a half feet. Considering that the largest I have ever jumped was four and a half feet, I was a bit in shock. In mid-air, he saw that the shrub interfered with our first stride after landing. His front feet struck the ground, and he twisted hard to the right to avoid the shrub. I grabbed mane and barely stayed atop as he navigated around the shrub and continued gamely on. I love my horse.

(I hate him a little too, though. Seriously, horse?)

For the record, I did end up trekking back out to that fence later to see if I could find his hoof prints, and sure enough, there they were; two deep solid circles (from his pads) at least two feet to the left of everyone else's tracks, and solidly placed in front of the shrub. 

In any case, we continued on. Unfortunately, we ran into trouble at the cannons. Dante jumped the cannons extremely straight, but immediately after sighted the Prelim corner to the right and headed for it. I corrected his path, but it was too late. There was no way, with the hard wiggle, to make the three long strides to our corner. We got there on three and a half and Dante simply couldn't jump. Circling around, Dante jumped it like a champ on the next approach, but the damage was done. Leslie Law later told my trainer that he thought the two corner combinations were extremely difficult, so that made me feel better at least. I know for sure that Dante could have done the combination on the first try, so in the future, I will make note of other fences he might lock onto instead of our own, and ride accordingly. A photo of the combination in question can be found here.

Next up was the bank/ditch combo, which Dante jumped well. Then we tackled the Indian Burial Mound, which he jumped extremely well. The final bounce into the water, we rode perfectly, although we ended a touch off the canoe on the out and Dante clobbered it a little. I was extremely proud of his bravery jumping into the water. It has taken four years, but he finally has zero hesitation upon entering water. Go Dante!

Dante was a little tired from the hills by the end, but recovered quickly and well. He was back to his annoying self within thirty minutes. The next morning he practically bounced out of his stall, and he felt extremely up during warm up. I knew that as long as I met the fences well, he would jump clear. 

Unfortunately, I did not even remotely hold up my end of the bargain. 

I missed badly at the first fence and that ended up setting the tone for the rest of the course. I rarely get to ride in such a large arena, and I had a bit too much pace. Last year, I never had enough pace, and I've gone a bit the other direction. I also think that Dante is well trained enough now that he is too responsive to the bit, and I'm afraid subconsciously to take a hold and put him between my leg and hand because he'll drop back too much. Instead, I had all leg going out the front and none coming into my hand. Not Dante's fault at all, completely mine. In any case, my round was pretty embarrassing. I missed badly to four jumps, causing him to basically punch through them in varying degrees. I missed a little to a final fence, getting him a bit too deep to a vertical, and he wasn't inclined to help me out anymore, so I had a fifth rail.

So, a mixed bag of results at Poplar. I am extremely proud of him for the way he handled the XC course. We're going to go home and work on accuracy (for the Weldon's), and listening (to make sure he locks onto the right jump). I foresee jumping lots of upright barrels in our future. For show jumping, we'll play with some different bits and jumping out in the field. I have no plans to do a CIC3* until next year, so the fact that we didn't get a QR this weekend is really ok. Right now, I have every intention of simply gaining experience at the Advanced level, and we accomplished that this weekend. 

The Best Laid Plans

I have now been back in Texas for two weeks, and I think that it is safe to say that I have officially missed winter this year. It has been in the 60s and 70s the entire time I have been back, and I haven't worn more than a hoodie to keep warm. Most days I even shed the long sleeve shirts. The wildflowers are beginning to pop out on the roadside, and the trees are beginning to bloom.

(A tree in the park where I run daily.)

The emergence of flowers usually signals the end of winter for Texas. Sometimes the flowers don't come out until April; that's when we know it might snow in March. But this winter was quite mild even before we left for Florida. In Florida, it was almost hot, and I had to buy some emergency tank-tops before I roasted. Then I come back and it's spring. (I love winter and snow, so completely missing any semblance of winter is throwing me for a loop.)

However, it's truly lovely to go and ride every day. Dante is feeling extremely good. In fact, so good that he feel the urge to spook at every leaf and squirrel. I finally gave in and cut his feed a little, which seems to have calmed him a bit. He's still getting plenty of beet pulp, so he should be able to maintain his weight.

The show schedule keeps changing. Southern Pines is out of the picture, and Poplar is back in. I'll be running Advanced there. As a result, I didn't want to trailer twice to the east coast in three weeks; therefore, the Fork was out as well. Then it seemed my barn had several headed to Ocala CCI** (which we've never gone to), so I started to plan for that. However, that seems to be a non-starter now. 

I had planned to be done by mid-April, as I have to make a four day trip to West Grove, PA for my senior design project the weekend of Rolex, I have a bridal shower to attend the weekend of Holly Hill, and a four day long wedding/my birthday in Austin the weekend of Feather Creek/Chatt Hills in May. I'll be quite busy. I'm also moving back to SA to live with my parents for a few months starting in June before moving up to NJ to start my new career. Now, somewhere in there, I have a feeling I'll be trying to fit in Greenwood and the CO Horse Park CCI**, which is in early June. I think it'll work okay, but I need to talk to Mike and my parents before I get the okay for that.

My life is getting ready for some big changes. This season, almost every show has been up in the air....I think I'm getting some good practice at dealing with uncertainty!

Visual Aids

So the video of Dante and I at Rocking Horse II has now been posted.

Watching it back, I'm absolutely still thrilled with his trot work. The judge generally agreed, giving me largely 6's and 7's, with her main comment being that he needs to be more uphill. She's right, he does. That is still an Intermediate frame and I need to get him to push more from behind and lift his withers more to obtain the Advanced frame. It's mainly a matter of building strength at this point.

The canter work wasn't nearly as bad as it felt. Obviously we picked up the incorrect lead, but I think in all likelihood I only gave him vague cues, and so he just picked a lead. I need to be certain to stick my left leg far back and leave my right firmly at the girth, something I can sometimes be lazy about. And then obviously, I got the flying change instead of walking again and picking up the correct lead. My bad, now I know. (Secretly, I just wanted to show off how awesome Dante's changes are. It was a preview, if you will.)

Obviously, he definitely lost his composure a bit after the medium canter. It didn't look as much as if he were running from me, but he was definitely a touch out of control. I felt as if we were careening around the short side. I think much of it had to do with the fact that I'd barely practiced any medium canter at all the previous two weeks, thinking that he was so confirmed in it that it didn't matter. Mental note to self: must practice medium canters so as to keep Dante bored with them!

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the test. I think we can knock five points off his score by a) pushing him more uphill and b) keeping composure in the trot work!

The stadium speaks for itself. It was awesome.

The cross country video is interesting as I didn't feel it was nearly as smooth as it looked. When running, I felt as if I were chipping in time after time to the galloping fences. In the video, it merely looks as if we are getting right to the base, without it being short. I'm gratified to know my eye wasn't nearly as off as I thought. Apparently I'm just picky about the definition of a perfect spot now!

The video also illustrated just how hard Dante looked at the bank bounce out of water. I definitely felt him suck back but at the time, no one watching seemed to notice and said they didn't see it. However, I can see a definite pause in Dante's demeanor exactly two strides through the water, and it caused us to be pretty far off the bank. I definitely need to keep that in mind, and ride harder through the water if the element out might give Dante pause.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a photo comparison of Dante as a Beginner Novice horse and as an Advanced horse.

(Dante at May-Daze in 2007, where he won his first BN on a score of 26.4)

(Dante at Rocking Horse II in 2012, where he finished fourth at his first Advanced on a score of 44.1)

What Lies Within Us

In late 2006, I made a big decision in my life. After years of riding lesson and sales horses, I finally decided I was in a position to be able to purchase a first horse. I had been riding for ten years at that point, and the concept of having my own horse was almost foreign. My competition career had been limited to Novice or below due to a variety of horses like draft crosses, ponies, and saddlebreds who were physically limited to Novice, and OTTBs who generally were sold before we made it that far. As happy as I was to help develop these horses, I was itching to do more.

I started my horse search in September of 2006, and on January 2, 2007 I wrote a check for a 2002 chestnut thoroughbred gelding named Aiken Pike, hoping he would take me through Preliminary.

Boy, was I wrong.

Dante and I have officially competed from BN through Advanced together as of Saturday.  He has never been competed by another rider. I have never ridden above Novice on another horse.

He jumped so over the shoulder at the Training level that the move up to Prelim was a leap of faith that he needed bigger fences to be impressed.

He did.

Then I thought he would top out at Prelim, thanks to his habit of always tap-tapping the biggest tables on the cross country course. At our first Intermediate, I missed to the third fence, a huge table, and he took off long and just soared over it without a sweat. Dante only ever jumped as big as he needed; he always jumped as big as he needed.

I stopped worrying about scope.

When the horse absolutely ate up the course at Jersey Fresh, my coach and I knew he could run around the Advanced. We waited until winter to move up so we could try to get my CCI** qualifier in the fall, but were thwarted when Dante spiked a 104 fever the day before XC at Galway and were forced to withdraw.

This weekend was one of the best of my life. I had never dreamed that Dante would take me to Advanced, and to be honest, no one else did either. He was the horse no one thought would even do Prelim. Now he just finished on his dressage score at his (and my) first Advanced. What an incredible journey.

Dressage was one of the better tests in recent memory. His trot work really felt lovely, and the judge generally agreed with me, scoring it with 6's and 7's and positive comments. I need to bring his frame up a bit more for Advanced, but otherwise his trot work was fantastic. Unfortunately he became quite wound up in the copious amounts of walk, and we picked up the wrong lead to canter. I made the mistake of fixing it through a lead change instead of walking and cantering again. Our half passes were decent except for the right canter half pass which was haunches trailing a bit. One change was quite good, the other a bit crooked. The medium canter came at the very end, and I basically lost control through it. He ran through my requests to slow down, ran around the short end of the arena, swapped leads before our ten meter circle onto the centerline, swapped back, then swapped again right before the halt.

Obviously, relaxation is still an issue.

However, it was a much better test than it could have been, and I was extremely pleased with his trot work. I did breathe a sigh of relief to see my score was a 44.10, as scores were a bit high at first and I was worried about getting a qualifying thanks to Dante's undesired additions to the test. Luckily, the trot work saved the test.

After our 9 am dressage test, I then had to wait until almost 4 pm to ride stadium. This gave me a chance to watch the Intermediate and Preliminary show jumping, who both had similar courses. The design of the course was quite good, with lots of tight turns with options to go outside or inside certain fences. I got on early enough to watch the first few riders in my division jump, and saw that unless you took at least two inside turns, you would have time penalties. There were three main options for inside turns, only one of which I definitely planned on. I decided to go ahead and do my second choice as well so long as the jump before wasn't a flier.

During warm up, Dante felt absolutely amazing. I moved up to a good distance to a big oxer, and he jumped me out of the saddle. I only jumped about five jumps total before I headed over for my turn. In the ring, it seemed that the chatter died down as I cantered to the start. There had not yet been any clear rounds, although my stable mate Sidney had gotten an extremely cheap rail at the final oxer when her horse barely breathed on it. As I made the turn to the first fence, I took a deep breath and briefly closed my eyes. Opening them, I saw my spot and rode to it.

The rest of the course flowed like water. Every turn I rode according to plan, every line I made the right decision. Every spot simply came to me. I didn't try to push Dante into any frame, and let him be between the fences. He rewarded me with fabulous jumps at every fence. Halfway through the course, I noticed how hushed the audience had become. It seemed that I could hear every whisper of Dante's hooves through the air.

Over the final fence, I could hear Dante ever so slightly brush the rail. As I landed, I held my breath, listening for the rail to fall. There was a moment of silence, and then there was a great cheer from the crowd as Dante and I delivered the first clear round of the day. It was the kind of round that brought tears to my eyes because it was so perfect. As I exited the ring, the first thing I see is my coach with a huge grin on his face and his hand up to give me a high five. I exclaimed, "That was freaking awesome!" and gave him the high five. I knew without asking there was nothing about that round that could have made it better.

I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

So many people came up to me to tell me how lovely my round was that I lost count. I was so unbelievably proud of my horse, but I was also incredibly proud of myself, which is a rare occurrence. I usually think of something that could have been better, or know there was one fence where he saved my ass. That show jumping round was the culmination of a five year partnership, where we each delivered perfectly. On that round, we moved from 20th to 8th.

I was so happy about that round, that I almost forgot to be nervous for cross country the next day. I was much less worried about the XC, simply because that is Dante's forte. He is so dominant in that phase, and to be honest, I expected nothing less than a clear round.

Of course Dante delivered.

The course was quite technical, but extremely fair, with nice striding everywhere. He was a little surprised at the Weldon's Wall appearing at the third fence, but jumped it with encouragement. At the double corners, which came sixth, he was quite green, wiggling heavily through the middle. I knew he would jump it though, and guided him accordingly. At the angles and the coffin he was fantastic. The turning tables were a mistake on my part. I uncharacteristically forgot that his stride lengthens quite a lot outside the ring, and rode the turning tables on the inside track, getting there on three and three quarters of a stride. Dante packed a tight one in to make the four and I apologized to him for my doubt. He jumped the trakehner great, and then we headed to the first water which was a hanging log, six strides to a log drop in, four across to a bank out and bounce to a large brush.

Knowing Dante's habit of backing off to water and taking an extra peek, I rode him solidly forward after the log, determined to make the six and not allow him to chip in for the seven. Apparently he no longer looks at water, as we did it in a forward five, landing closer to the bank than I thought we would. Halfway through the water, I felt him hesitate upon seeing the bounce, which ended up putting us off the bank a bit. Dante knew what to do though, and took off while I basically grabbed mane, jumping the bounce like it was nothing.

(Dante leaps over the log to the first water.)

The next big question was the sunken road, a bounce down to a one stride, up and then two strides to a wedge slightly offset. I basically aimed Dante at the wedge from the beginning and then held on as he navigated the question. I was pretty much exactly on my minute markers, and I could feel him tiring slightly at the fifth. He jumped through the second water well, but I could feel his jump form lacking as we jumped the out. Luckily there were only two more easy fences, so we cruised to the finish. I checked my watch and was happy to find it reading 5:52, which was optimum time. I knew I had started it slightly late, so thought I came in one or two seconds over time.

The humidity was pretty oppressive, and Dante didn't really start to recover until I began hosing him off. Luckily, he recovered quite quickly after that, which is his typical reaction to humidity. I began icing him, and checking the results.

When I later discovered I had finished fourth, I was ecstatic. I was a little surprised to see that they calculated my time as 5:05 though. I knew there was no way I was that close. The TD later ended up coming to my coach to ask about the time, but he knew I hadn't been anywhere near that. The TD discovered a math mistake and found that my time was actually 5:53, exactly what I had guessed. Still, I had to continuously fend off comments about my incorrect time, including doing some damage control on Eventing Nation and the Chronicle Forums.

At the end of the weekend, I felt that this show could not have better highlighted the incredible partnership that Dante and I have. We've been together for five years and we've taken every first step together. I can't wait to see what the next ten years brings.