Oliver rocks his division at FenRidge!

We won our division, with a 27.9. That’s including a missed lead. What I’m most thrilled about, though, is how Oliver went stadium and xc. He was a blast to ride and barely looked at a thing, and took everything out of stride.

We got mostly 7s and 8s on our test. We did get a 4 on our canter lead, so if you think about it, I probably would have gotten at least a 7 on our lead, so that would mean that I would have gotten a 24 on our test if I hadn’t screwed up. Unbelievable. The only negative comment the judge made was that she thought the test was a bit rushed, but she did give me lots of “very active” comments, and mentioned that I needed to slow the tempo down so that I could develop more swing. However, after talking it over with Christan (who saw the test as she was warming up and said that the score was well-deserved), she said that if I slowed him down at this point, he would just mince along and then I’d get comments of “not enough push from behind”. So, that’s what we’re working on – getting him to push from behind, and THEN we can slow it down and see if we can maintain it. Still, I’m thrilled, and that just means that I have something to look forward to. The weather was miserable. It was spitting rain and about 45 degrees, even though the forecast said “sunny in the 60s”. I was extremely tempted to go home after dressage, since there was a long wait before xc (dressage was at 8:50, xc was at 12:45, and I had been up at 4am to get there). I didn’t bring any cover and didn’t relish the idea of going xc in the pouring rain, which is what the sky was threatening to do, and plus Oliver didn’t have studs and the xc course was full of clover, so I was worried about him slipping. I stuck around for some perverse reason – I guess I was fearing the wrath of Christan if I didn’t – and I’m glad I did, because even though it didn’t warm up a lot (the wind was really blowing), the sun did start to peek out and it warmed up to about 55 or so. Perfect xc weather. Plus, I had the benefit of riding Oliver, who was a bit fresh but definitely manageable.

Stadium was next – it was a bit hilly. First jump was a birch oxer, which he peeked at, but rode well and then a bending line left to an orange vertical. Then, about a 90 degree turn to a largish pink oxer, very bright, and then downhill and to the left at about 7 o’clock over fence 3, uphill and to the right for a bending line that rode about 3 strides, vertical to oxer, going downhill, and then back around to the right to a domino jump, which was getting a lot of horses. Oliver didn’t care at all – he was in a good, solid rhythm. Back around to another oxer, downhill over the Liverpool, and then back over the Nemo jump. It rode incredibly well, if you balanced them through it. That was his best stadium round ever. I was so excited with his progress. On to xc from stadium.

I swore I wasn’t going to do it, but I peeked at the scores (I had nothing else to do). Since I was sitting in first place, Christan told me to play it safe xc and not take the harder ditch option in the woods. XC was pretty long – 17 jumps, which is on the long side for BN. Right out of the starting box there was a hay bale jump, so you didn’t really have a lot of time to get them in front of your leg. Oliver gawked at it but I took it from the canter and he landed galloping, so that he took a longish spot at the next, which was a steeplechase sort of brush fence side perpendicular to a slope, so that you had to jump it at a slight uphill angle. The footing wasn’t good until after the second fence, which was a long gallop into the woods, downhill to a skinny log, and then, quick left to avoid the spooky ditch and go over the log option to the left. Oliver slid twice in the woods, even though I had him balanced, so I was thinking about studs for sure at Novice. He didn’t seem rattled by it, so we galloped out of the woods, down the woodline, left over a cabin with stuffed scarecrows to either side, and then still along the fenceline, swoop left and over a cutout rampy thing going uphill. Back into the opposite side of the woods for a largish cordwood pile with pine brush in front, which rode beautifully, then back down to the water. He peeked at the water but you can see from the pictures that he had no issue with it. If only he could trot in the dressage like he did in the water! Check out that engagement behind! Out of the water, downhill a ways to a cabin. That rode well – Oliver has gotten to the point of where all I do is sit up, close my entire leg, especially my upper thigh, and he just comes right back to me and balances himself on a soft rein. From the cabin, back uphill over the required ditch. Back uphill and a 180 to a narrow green cabin with orange fall leaves. Then, downhill again and a right turn to the drop – I went over the smaller one just because I wasn’t sure how it was flagged and didn’t want to risk a technical elimination for jumping the wrong side, although Oliver would have had no problem with it – he likes drops, and so do I. About 6 strides to a ramp, then uphill again to a bench, and then a long gallop around to the picture frame jump, bending line to a couple of logs, and back to the start box for the final table. He was a bit tired towards the end, but we only trotted the drop and the ditch, so I felt like we made good time, even though I wasn’t wearing my watch. That was a deliberate choice, since this was really his first BN (I don’t count Foxtrack as they’re so tiny and short).

Then there was a LONG wait for the scores. For some stupid reason, they waited until the ENTIRE BN division was finished before placing anybody. Half of the show was doing BN, so that meant that we waited about 2 hours for scores. I didn’t know if I had any time penalties or not, so I stuck around. When they finally posted them, I had 10 time penalties for going too slow! 2nd place had 8.8, and the rest of the division had higher penalties than I did. That wasn’t right, so Christan went to investigate. Turns out that Patricia had forgotten a section of the course when she wheeled it, so you had to be going Training speed to make the time. She (Christan) actually lost her 1st place on Bella’s sister, Das Belladonna, because the girl who got 1st actually MADE the time. That girl must have been going like a bat out of hell. Everybody else in BN didn’t make the time. However, since Patricia had already given out some ribbons (namely, to the girl who placed above Christan and already took hers and went home), Patricia said that the scores would stay. Grrrr. Still, I consider myself going double-clear as it was obviously a stupid mistake. That meant that Trainor Eventing (myself, Christan, and Marissa) all won our divisions on our horses. All of us scored below a 30,too, which is even more impressive. First place was a very nice ribbon, with a blue bucket filled with a over-the-wall tack hook, a body brush (blue), a sponge (also blue), a leadrope (yup, blue again), and a few gift certificates to a feed store and such.

The one thing I regretted during the show was wearing those damn Sit Tight breeches with my long johns – I felt like I was sliding in my own skin. I haven’t felt that insecure going xc in a long, long time. You’d think that with the rubber seat on the Sit Tights, I’d be stuck like glue, but I slid INSIDE the breeches – I didn’t even know that was possible! I’m tempted to burn the damn thing, since I hate them.

So, the show photographer must have loved Oliver (everybody else did – I got compliments on how adorable he was from just about everybody, and not just little girls), because she took a TON of pictures of him, especially his face. There are only a few other riders who got as many shots as I did. There is one from dressage where his mane is flying everywhere and he’s got this LOOK on his face which makes me laugh – I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but it’s not too positive from his expression. I guess he feels the same way about dressage that I do. Anyway, I had to buy that one because it makes me laugh every time. I actually bought 4 of them, since they were only $8 a piece. That’s the best deal for pictures I’ve ever seen since I was riding Tanner.

So that's what it means to ride with leg!

I started off by getting him really forward and marching up into the contact, because for some reason, today he wanted to mince alone and just arch his neck. I did a lot of shortening the stride and lengthening it within the gait, and each time I lengthened, I asked for a little more, really concentrating on wrapping my legs around him and riding every step up into my hands. Once he settled into the contact – he would get pissy and start to bob his head around, so I kicked him forward every time he did that – he started to have some nice lengthening. I also had to concentrate on riding the outside shoulder. Something that Bruce Mandeville had me do with Miles clicked with me today – you press your outside leg right behind the girth (instead of back, where the belly sort of swells out, which is where I keep my legs wrapped most of the time), and press the shoulder over around a turn, using very little hand. Of course, they’ll want to fall in, which is where you keep your inside leg back (where the belly swells out) softly and ride them between your inside and outside leg, to keep the bend. Once they get to the point of where they’re practically going around the turn with no hand at all, except to support, it’s pretty easy to ride them straight into both reins. Oliver has a bad habit of popping his shoulder to the outside around a turn, or the open part of a circle, tempting me to pull him through the turn with my reins. It also creates a kink in his body which prevents him from truly stepping through. Anyway, after getting some good trot work, I started on the canter by walking a turn on the haunches by pressing my outside leg right at the girth (well, it’s really slightly behind, but I imagine that it’s at the girth) and getting him to step cross over in front with very little rein. Once he was responding to that, I would allow him to take a few steps of walk and then immediately canter from there, keeping the outside rein, and just sliding my outside leg back to ask for the canter. If I truly have him on my outside aids, he’ll pick up the canter smoothly and without hollowing, and I’ll get the most lofty canter strides I’ve ever ridden from him, with very little effort. I also make sure that I really ride him forward into the canter to keep the inside hind jumping through, and instead of keeping my outside leg back, I’ll bring it back to neutral position so I can press his shoulder back in if it pops to the outside. By this time, he’s really understanding my outside leg forward, so when I walk him, I head down the long side, slide my inside leg back from the hip to think “push his butt down the rail”, and then press my outside leg at the girth to keep the shoulders off the trail. It worked like a charm. He eased his way down the long side in a wonderful, correct shoulder-in, and it seemed effortless.

I’m finding that I don’t ride with leg, like I thought I did. I read in the latest issue of Horse Journal that dressage judges are seeing an alarming tendency for people to ride without leg, and it’s why the halt is crooked and sprawly in so many tests. They had a picture of a person riding from behind, and the lower leg wasn’t really wrapped around the horse. It wasn’t sticking out away from the horse, like I had imagined, but from the mid point of the calf down, it wasn’t really touching the horse’s side. So, that got me thinking. Today, when I slid my legs back to where I could really feel his belly under my calf, he squirted forward. That told me that I wasn’t really, truly riding with my leg, since he really isn’t a very touchy horse. I immediately started to keep my leg there, and when he tried to canter forward, I would just keep my hands still (and NOT pull down, which is very, very tempting!) and keep my leg on and just wait for him to accept it. He started to pull and yank away, which annoyed me as well as had the effect of pulling me forward in the saddle, so instead of pulling back, I lifted my hands and put more leg on, and that made him sit back on his butt more, and when he did that, I immediately softened and put my hands back where they belonged. So, he started to accept that at the trot, and then I started riding trot/walk and walk/halt transitions with my legs back there. He hated that – wanted to pull and root and yank, and every time he did, I would boot him forward into the bridle (making him work harder) and then ask again. It got to the point of where I could just sit back, put my leg on, close my hand slightly, and BAM – he’d give me a beautiful, uphill down transition, and even a square halt. At the canter, he protested just as much, so much so that I think I may have gotten some Grand Prix collected canter work (he would rather canter in place than do a correct trot transition???), but in the end, his canter would get lofty and then he’d slide into his trot transition and have a beautiful trot with self carriage right off the bat.