....Not the most brilliant idea I've ever had...it was excruciating and I really rode like shit. Yankee put up with me well enough, poor guy. I don't know how I did it, but I imagine it was sometime at work last night, I woke up with the sorest back ever...
I should have just not ridden, but with Mill Creek 10 days away I really wanted to squeeze in one or two more stadium schools and a XC session with a few conditioning sessions (conditioning saturday) and dressage practice (one Friday).
It was a titch warm, and it was already 5:30 so I just wanted to do about half hour including warm-up, jumping and cool down.
He warmed up well but refused a baby fence four times. I'm pretty certain that was my bad. Without realizing it I was overcompensating for my sore muscle and pulling to the left as well as blatantly NOT riding the fence. Silly human.
As a result, when he did jump, he jumped badly...I mean, look at those knees...
gag me right?
Can you tell my back hurt? I NEVER crouch like this...
OK he didn't jump SO terrible and I know it feels worse than it looks but I now realize I should have just lunged him today or something. I had no business jumping :(
He tried really hard to jump well, but I was interefering a bit much without trying, so I kept the fences baby.
Not a bad effort, but loose knees...
Wow could I jump ahead more you think??
Yankee trying!
Overall, I was till happy with Yankee, but not myself. I learned that riding extremely sore is no bueno and I def. won't be doing that again!
Best fence by far! Knees could still be tighter, but my position is good and he is jumping round.
Waiting anxiously for finals to begin/be over....FINALLY turned in my two big papers...2 paintings due next Thurs, and my first final Friday, in spanish. I will have to retake, but at least I passed my last exam...at least..le sigh.
After Mill Creek, T-shirts WILL be made people!! I will re-post pics and add pricing, as well as the Dressage Tee I am working on. I think it will say, "Dressage: Extend it", like how I said, "Eventing: Just Jump It". Sound good? Ideas?
ALSO, thanks to our now 35 followers! WOOT, love you guys!
It started really early which was a bummer, but my class was only ten away from the beginning of the show (8 a.m.) so we got up at 5:30 to leave by 6:15 to get there by 8:45a.m.
I was excited so it was easy to get up but dragging the boyfriend (who had worked over 26 hours in the past 2 days) out of bed was probably my biggest challenge of the day!
My goal for the day was to remain CALM, cool, collected, and jump the dang fences. I wanted Yankee to jump WELL, not fast so I could get a ribbon. Ribbons were the last thing on my mind. Far step from my previous ribbon-whoring self 6 years back! (I loved ribbons and was feircely competitive, thus my collection of 357 hunter ring ribbons...I now DESPISE the hunter ring, thus the move to Eventing :D)
We arrived at the farm outside Saint Louis and signed up for my classes and waited....and waited....and waited.. Let me tell you though, this barn was STUNNING. I mean my jaw dropped when I drove up. Think, the most expensive barn you can imagine and thats what I saw. It must have cost over a million bucks to build...dang...can't even describe to you how beautiful. And this show was for CHARITY!! Shows you how rich the family is who owns it, but they were so nice!
Yankee Wonder-ing (get it, his name is Yankee Wonder? haha) what is taking so gosh darn long looking rather smashing :)
I had no idea there would be sooo mnay ponies at this show! Which apparently, they are ALL entered in the first ten classes, making them go uber slow. Each pony/child got two rounds per class and there were like 50 of them I swear! I didn't even saddle up till two...lesson learned for June 4th. Look. How.Freaking. Adorable this pony is!!! Funny thing is, a girl MY size was riding them! WTF!
So we waited some more and more and more...like I said, until about 2p.m. Yep, 5 hours...
Clowning, bored. Oh, I HATE my white show pants btw...look how high they come up! NO ONE can look attractive in those horrid things...gawd.
I was extremely nervous actually...as many of you probably know, last summer was a disaster showjumping wise for us and I all I could think about was that AND I had 6 courses to memorize, keeping them all straight was difficult...
My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking but our warm up was excellent...
....So I tried to shake my nerves and remember my course. I purposely entered the 2'3 division because the jumps were so low I wouldn't have to worry about clearing them, just remembering them and keeping pace.
Our 1st course was OK...I was nervous and forgot to ride...haha. Yankee knocked over a rail on the first jump (a vertical, his worst enemy) but was stellar after that. We didn't make it to the jump off, so no ribbon, but Idin't care about that! I was pissed at myself for not riding to the first fence.
Waiting for the Grand Prix...
I wished that our next class would have been just more Jumper classes instead of the $300 Grand Prix....I ended up screwing that up too...I am an idiot and apparently have a mental block in rembering SIX courses..but who can blame me, six a quite a bit for one day. Still forgetting where my course was cost me 4 seconds and $250! I HAD the guy who won by like 4 seconds until I forgot where jump #7 was, spent like 3 seconds trotting and frantically searching till some lady yelled "orange vertical!" and I was like, DO'H! He jumped exceptionally, but my mistake cost me some money. Sadface, oh well, I wasn't here for prizes or ribbons, but it would have been nice at least! He was turning on a dime and jumping like a pro, so I was SOOOO happy with that! I didn't even know that Grand Prix had a payout until I went to jump the course, haha! Also there was a girl there who was seriously rude, she rode a stallion and thought she was all that and a bag of chips and I really wanted to beat her!
Anyways, on to the Jumper classes. Like I said before, I wanted to just jump well and not get ribbons, but the tiny massive competitive side of me really DID want to win and I knew I could do both! The 3 foot class went really really well too, Yankee jumped fast and clean and with a double clear and a time of 43 secs, off to the jump -off we went. Guess who forgot the Jump-off course? Yep, me. I just laughed, and accepted my 3rd place as it was. Yankee still jumped like a star and all hint of nervous-ness was gone.
The 3'9 class went much better and we had no jump-off, so it was all for time. It was probably the best round all day and I was SO happy with how he went. The second fence was crap but that was my bad. He turned on a dime from 5 to 6 and 6 to 7, but the lady who got first place had the rolbackienst horse I have ever seen, and even though Yankee was faster and jumped better, her horse shaved off the seconds by rollbacking to like every fence. I can live with a double clear and another 2nd place ribbon :D
I was MORE than pleased with my ponyface and didn't even care that I didn't win anything. To me, I HAD won! We successfully jumped 5/6 courses (minus the silly human who forgot her course twice) and we were spot on to everything! I couldn't have asked for a better horse yesterday!
Focus
lead change!
fence 4, 3'9
fence 7, 3'9
fence 6, 3'9
PROUDLY displaying our fourth, third and two seconds!
I was so happy with how yesterday went!
I KNOW our stadium will be good in two weeks, since I jumped higher yesterday than my course will be. I feel extra confident and in a good place mentally for the stadium round for mIll Creek. Now if only I felt that good about finals....
You've all heard my woes a million times but I will say that I had a legit mental breakdown last night and sobbed for approx. 3 hours and went bat-shit crazy. I probably should have been institutionalized.
Oh and Yankee might have wobblers...fml right?
I am just wondering WHAT ELSE can happen to me right now, I am almost laughing now because what else can I do?
Onwards and forthwards!
Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday. And Sunday comes afterwards. We so excited. Thank you Rebecca Black.
But seriously I am stoked.
End of my week(s) from hell, I have a jumper show tomorrow, and ALL of sunday off to do homework...yay?
I am excited for this show but the tiny part of my soul that tells me this is a bad idea because of money keeps cropping up. I tell it to STFU and get outta here. Money grows on trees right?
Yanks got shiny new shoes today, gets braided all pretty tonight and off to Saint Louis for the jumper show :)
Many pictures will be taken and we will NOT crash through fences!
So since I can't upload the vids from EA to my Mac and my PC died, its not looking good...ugh.
Its been busy in my life lately...so much shit to do before may 14th (end of finals week and beginning of Horse Trials)...I feel like I might explode with stress. I have ridden twice in about a week..and lunged twice. My house is a mess. My car is a wreck..I wear the same clothes two days in a row. There is paint on everything. I think I've gained back 5 lbs from eating out....ugh again.
However, I got two great rides in over the weekend. Saturday was Dressage day (pics on that later) and Sunday was Jump/Conditioning day. Saturday dressage was unbelieveable and Sunday was pretty good. e was a bit hyper for my taste but jumped really well. His gallops could use some relaxation but other than that we did 6 laps, 3 each direction. Each lap is about 1/3 mile I think so it was pretty good.
Pictures are out of order, but oh well, lol.
Look at that trot!! Talk about engaged :D
Practicing my 'galloping position'- Practical Horseman pg 34.
He was waaay tense. The pic. above is about as 'out' as he got. Even full out gallop speed he was still uppity. He would NOT stay on the correct lead. Insisted on switching to the opposite no matter which direction we were going. Weird counter-cantering ponyface.
Galloping=love
Speaking of galloping, if you all haven't read Practical Horseman's "5 XC Rider Positions", I would. Its excellent.
Also there was another article by J. Wofford called "Magnificent Obsession" which was also excellent and inspiring. I love the quote,
"....Dave Barry says there is a fine line between hobby and pbsession; he must have been talking about horse people. Obsession is a persistant disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly; compelling motivation..."
I also love how he says anyone who is a master of their work has to spend at least 10, ooo hours practicing. He says most humans live about 700, 800 hours, 1/70th of your life! It is awesome to think about it this way. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else with my life!
I can't really explain the article well in my must-do-homework mindset but I'd recommend reading it. Very motivating!
Baby trekahner
EW this is SO pixalated....gross. But, this was a drop fence and he handled it well for it being wet outside. My position is getting much stronger. No more leaning forward and MUCH stabler leg. I try to auto release but sometimes I forget.
Like I said, the pics are out of order. We jumped inside first then did some work in the jump field.
Yankee felt really good over fences, but I can still feel myself sucking back before takeoff. Its something I really need to get over and I try so hard but by trying I just do worse. Its a retarded cycle and very frustrating because its ME and not Yankee for once. I am afraid he will run through the fence again like last summer and afraid he will refuse since he started doing that after last summer but I cannot NOT think about it and ALWAYS stutter before the fences..its a pain :(
He was quite hyper and bucked after every fence and squealed and whatnot (in joy, not pain, trust me) but he was very smooth up to and over the fences. We practiced a bounce, two skinnies and a higher oxer.
H brought Pronto out to jump a bit. I think this is his 5th time and he is relaxing more and more. He doesnt like bounces much but he can jump!
Pronto and H. popping over the bounce. Lol, I still think he jumps a little funny.
H jumping Pronto. He is getting more and more relaxed!
The skinny!
2nd element of the bounce, I'm a little crouchy..ooops
BAD ponyface!
The skinnnnny! Which he jumped like a pro!
WEE!
I thought this fence looked wicked cool in a magazine and I wanted to try it. So I set it up :)
We then went outside to do some gallop sets. He was still really uptight so I thought popping over a few fences would help...not really. Overall he was ok though, it was wet out. Oh, he threw a shoe, of course. I should know better not to ride in ANY amount of mud b/c shoes will come off....
Lol, not really jumping the center am I? This was a massive spread btw.
I LOVE this picture!
Gallop sets!
Jumper show this weekend, dressage show maybe the next then our 1st HT of the season!!!
Don't forget all, Eventing/Dressage T-shirts...let me know if you want one! (refer to previous post/comments for design).
We've been painting in class and this is my still life I am working on...
This is hour 4 of the project. The ribbon and the stuffed horse will be the most difficult but I am happy to paint them since it is subject matter I chose and love :D
I hope to hang this up in my house when I am done since it is near to m y heart. I am going to name it "XC" since it has my eventing watch, my grand champion PC ribbon, my water bottle after XC, an orange for me and an apple for Yankee.
Everyday the setup changes since its moved from a shelf to my area, but I just need the gist of what everything look slike to paint it. I will take the best of all the days and mesh it together.
I've ben feeling rather artsy lately but due to my schedule I haven't had much time to draw/paint. I have been sketching in class though.
So I drew this in class in about 10 min....little did I know what it had in store for me!
I turned it into this! I'm thinking T-shirt...
I've had 4 people tell me they would buy one if I made them so...would anyone else like them? I plan on actually turning them into T-shirts. I'm going to fix the "ing" part since its too squished and make it dark blue on medium grey t-shirts. I think it will look ballin'.
I drew this for my friend Matthew as practice for finishing up Klein and Stacey (for those who don't know, I am doing a picture for Stacey of her and Klein going XC, but I don't know if I will finish it in color paint or charcoal. I'm letting her decide). His mare is the same color as Klein, so I was working on dapples. DIFFICULT!
Anyways, getting back to studying...crosses fingers for exam tonight...
