Unorthodixically Overly Ambitious Part 2

Shortly after I "decided" I am going to scratch the rest of my rides for the day, a friend comes up and says.  "Amy you can't scratch!"  uhhhh why?  "because you're in 1st place!"  Are you kidding me?  That seems impossible after how I felt it rode and making an error.  I went to pick up my test and low and behold even after all that I scored a 32.5...lol.  Not our best score but still a completely respectable score even on a good day.  Well that didn't make the decision any easier.  I then decided that I'd take it one ride at a time. If warmup went bad I'd scratch, good then I'll go in and so on. So let the chaos continue.  The next set of ride times were again all close together.

I went to untack and sent LK to tack up for her first dressage test. She gets all ready we head over and no one is around.  Apparently there was a weather delay announcement that we did not hear.  Back to the trailer, untack load horses into the trailer and put one in the our nice neighbors trailer and wait out the storm.  The storm that never showed...haha.  Not complaining but it was anti climactic.  Back on for LK and over to warm up.  The little break actually helped Penny's energy level come down a bit which made LK's job a little easier than normal.  Like mother like daughter right?  She had and error too.  In her defense she had to memorize 2 tests and got them mixed up.  Well and she is 10!  They were perfectly adorable and perfect in my eyes.





Then it was off to quickly tack up and warm up for my ride in 15 minutes.  BE was already on and warming up.  Man it's nice to have independent amazing kids!  Macy would have had my horse tacked up for me but I didn't trust that job to anyone after the morning episode.   I get to the warm up and trot all of about 4 steps and realize I will not make my horse even trot in that mess that was the warm up, let alone actually jump something.  So I guess my warm up was some walking and my dressage test from earlier?  Meh whatever, we'll see how it goes.  My warm ups are typically unorthodox as it is anyway. Why change now?   I go in, trot to the other end(that can be considered part of my warm up too right?) pick up my canter my horse feels lovely and off we go.  He was superb.  He jumped like an old pro up until about fence 5 then he, in typical Steady fashion, started rushing.  He rushed 5, 6 and 7 the worst. With a tight turn to 7 we had to trot a couple steps. 8, 9 10 a and b were a little rushed but he wasn't unmanageable.  People wonder why I put up with some of his issues but have you ever ridden a horse that you never had to question if they would jump for you or knock a rail?  One that you know will do anything you ever ask of them?  If you have you know why this horse has my whole heart.  If you haven't it's hard to explain but there is no ride like it.

And then BE and Lego go in and kill it too.  The day is starting to look up.

I untacked and headed over with LK for her Stadium round.  We are in warm up and she says "MOM you never told me what the course was!" What goes through my head: M(&^$%&F*^&^%^%! You're a f*#*%%$ failure as a mother and coach!  What I say to the kid.  "No worries honey we'll go over it real quick, it's simple. You'll have no problem."  Honestly how do these children survive?  We do go over it she says she gets it..  She watches a couple people go and goes in.  Another thing I didn't mention to her is that those jumps made me nervous with Penny.  They have had too many experiences where she has come off at a competition and I hate it for her.  She is a perfectionist and it always crushes her little heart.  And I thought her jumps looked big.  They went in and stole the show though.

 (A short aside here.  This little one has always struggled with her lower leg and the base of her position.  She has always come off easier than I'd like and could never figure out how to fix it.  She is a tiny thing so that doesn't help but I wish she was more secure.  She took a lesson with a really good local trainer a couple weeks ago and she told her something that I would have never told her to do.  And it literally changed LK's position and security 180 degrees.   Which also gave her confidence like I've never seen in her before.  Night and day! ) She went into her round and was awesome! 

They did have one minor run out but it didn't bother either of us because she went in handled it all with confidence and didn't come off because she is now more secure in her lower leg.  HUGE win for LK and Penpen!

If you noticed LK has 2 ride times at the same time.  They told us to just go to dressage on time and go XC when ever she is ready.  Oh good considering it's a big course, she has never ridden a full XC course and we haven't walked it. 

I thought we'd have a minute to breath but nope with the weird weather delay some how the jump rings were running behind and the dressage rings were running ahead and they are calling MM and LK over the loud speaker to go to their dressage tests.  LK heads over and starts to warm up.  I stayed back to help MM because she was running behind.  By the time I made it over I only caught the tail end of LK's ride but they did really well.  MM went in after and did great.  Again the least experienced and Lily not good at dressaging.  She is the perfect hunter pony in her way of going but we don't do hunters.  The most you can hope for with them is accuracy and good tempo.  She does not get contact, connection or any such things.  Which is all fine.  MM was happy that she didn't get a comment about her circles this time.  So that's a win. They were accurate with good tempo which makes momma happy.

Look at that! So far we have survived 9 rides and only 4 to go. It's all down hill from here right?  Well one can hope!