WOOOHOOOO!!!!!! Green Acres Report!

WOW. I never thought I'd "get the mojo back" so easily. And so RIGHT!!!!!

So I took Buck, Meghan and Luna to the Green Acres Stables Event yesterday. I was entered at elementary. I had toiled all week beforehand because I was worried about his breathing. I decided to keep him in the 3-phase (instead of dropping to the 2-phase), and planned that if I felt that he needed it, I would retire on cross country and ask (beg) to ride stadium.

I warmed up for dressage in the tiny arena (complete with "water jumps"). It wasn't the best warm-up but I really concentrated on getting him forward off my leg. I rode the test and felt that it was pretty good. He's still learning to come off my leg, and he's so anticipating that sometimes his legs seem to go every which way. It was an accurate test though, and his transitions were pretty good. I expected to score around a 35.....So you can imagine my surprise when we earned a 41.6!!!!! EEEEK. Overall though this judge had very high marks. This score put me in 2nd place after dressage, with the 1st place rider having something like a 38....So really, I guess it wasn't *that* bad. She did comment on the right canter that he looked "off". It's weird because sometimes at the canter he doesn't seem to want to "follow through" on the right front....plus THAT is the foot that he gives the farrier trouble with. So I'm definitely going to do some more exploring. (Going to call the chiro on Monday.)

So then I walked cross country and ofcourse I feel like I'm going to die. In the past we have had first fence-itis....and today's first fence? A BIG ASS LOG.....Now, I'm happy it was a log, but seriously, it is flagged for Novice, Beginner Novice AND Elementary???? My "thigh" test puts this fence at 2'6"....and when I had it on the course last time long time buddy Shannon told me NOT to walk too close because it'll only look bigger close up. Ugh!!!!!! The rest of the fences were all ones I had jumped before with the exception of switching out a few logs for different ones, AND THE BIG SMILIE SURPRISE. haha. The "SMILIE SUPRISE" fence is fence #9 on my course....Basically it is a bunch of stumps sticking out of the ground and then cut to look like a smilie mouth :) The middle of the jump is probably about 2'3", but if you don't hit the middle you may jump as big as 3'. In addition, this fence is about 4 strides out of the woods, and angled funny so at the exit you have to turn left hard but NOT in to the Novice/Training "house" jump....The smilie fence also had a rather large puddle on the landing, and I was worried about that.....So I obsessed about fence #1 - BIG ASS LOG and fence #9 - big ass stumps.

I get back on and begin to warm-up. I want to conserve the pony, the warm-up area is little and they only have 2 jumps - a x-rail and a vertical (with an 8' rail)....I opt to canter a bit, and then I pop the x-rail twice. That was my warm-up.

I get in to the box and tap him a few times....and then we leave the box and I tap him a few more times and turn towards the log....and he LOCKS on it. It was SUCH a cool feeling. His head came up, he sat down, lengthened his stride and we flew over it!!!!! YAY FOR BUCK!!!!! We have no issues at all for the rest of the course. He was AWESOME over the stumps. I was so exhilarated coming off of cross country. Not because of getting over the 2 scary fences, but because he was LOOKING for jumps, positive to EVERY fence and just so much fun to ride! I don't think there was a single "ugly" fence that we jumped - as in they all rode beautifully.

So what changed? I pushed him to canter/hand gallop EVERY single fence. I stayed back, I kicked in places. I TOLD him to jump every fence. Instead of praying that he did. I also remembered Denise's ride when she told me that he was almost "thinking of walking before he even jumped the fence". Obviously that's not a good thing, so I RODE hard to make sure he knew that we were going to continue cantering afterwards.

I think I *finally* got it. I trust him that he's not going to stop if I ride him positively towards every fence. I rode agressively but not defensively, if you catch my drift.

Stadium was up next. The course was held in the sand ring, and since we had a ton of rain the night before, it was SWAMPY in spots....I remembered then the lesson where there were puddles right in front of my jumps and how if I didn't ride agressively he'd stop. So I knew what I had to do - ride like I rode xc!

The course was pretty twisty. Fence 1 & 2 were coming towards home, Fence 3 was an oxer (where I asked for a long spot but he chipped in and was right!), Fence 4 was a vertical to a bending line with a red fence with "panels" underneath it. Fence 6 was a rollback from fence 5. Fence 7 was a scary "rock wall" fence. And finally fence 8 was another oxer.

I rode the course exactly how I had planned. I kicked and whipped a little coming to fence 7 - didn't want him looking at the rock wall. He jumped everything well - though he was tired, bless his heart. We were clean.

AND WE WON!!!!! The 1st place rider had a rail (or stop?) in stadium, and we slid in to take the blue ribbon ;)

I was so VERY proud of him. It wasn't all about the ribbon. It was about the FEELING I had after both jumping rounds. It felt like we were a team, it felt like he "got it"...and he liked it!!!

So we got a really purdy ribbon for the collection, and an AMAZING package of horse cookies. Of course they were gone by this AM....Razzy's Oat Swirls or something like that. They smelled delicious!!!! Buck shared a little bit, but for the most part he got the whole bag to himself. And he totally deserved it!!!!

Meghan and Luna also brought home a ribbon! They got 8th in their first ever 3-phase :) YAY Meghan and Luna!!!!