Sophie and I had our first full event in over a year at the Virginia Horse Trials schooling show on 8/31/14. Its not the report I was hoping to give but thats how horses go, right!
Saturday the 30th, Sophie had her first massage. I was told she seemed tight in her hips, which I had been feeling when riding. She said it would work itself out easily though because her muscles were very receptive. She also discussed all the new muscles she could feel coming in, which made me super happy! My friend Lucie has massages done on Kitty and always talks about how amazing Kitty is after. So, since Kitty was getting one done Saturday I signed Sophie up for one. My mistake. We learned after the show Sunday that Sophie was one of those horses that needs a day or two to recuperate from a massage like that. Lesson learned.
Sunday, show day! Sophie had a bad day from the moment we arrived at the show. She was put in her stall and had several hours to hang out before our ride. I wouldnt be exaggerating by much, if at all, saying that she paced and neighed the whole first 2 hours. Poor thing! She warmed up BEAUTIFULLY for Dressage! Her canter felt....odd, but not lame. Her trot work was amazing and her transitions were very lovely. I felt confident. And then it was our turn....I walked to the ring and I shouldve taken the time to do a lap or two around instead of going straight in. Usually Sophie is so calm so I just went in. Well, the ring was on the edge of a steep hill looking down onto the warm up and jump rings. Sophie was SO stiff passing by that side! Our whole test was stiff and she wouldnt bend to save my life. And then she finished by cantering some of the center line. I was mortified. It was about the equivalent of our first couple dressage tests ever. Like years ago. Before a trainer, before all of our hard training, before be ready to show SECOND LEVEL. Yea, cant even score well on a BN test. I was just so disappointed in us, mainly her. She has been doing so nicely and just didnt show it in that test. We got a 32.5, which put us around 7th place I believe. I was so bummed. Our last combined test we did in April gave her a score of 26 and we have trained hard since then!! So yea, I was a little upset at the ride.
Saturday the 30th, Sophie had her first massage. I was told she seemed tight in her hips, which I had been feeling when riding. She said it would work itself out easily though because her muscles were very receptive. She also discussed all the new muscles she could feel coming in, which made me super happy! My friend Lucie has massages done on Kitty and always talks about how amazing Kitty is after. So, since Kitty was getting one done Saturday I signed Sophie up for one. My mistake. We learned after the show Sunday that Sophie was one of those horses that needs a day or two to recuperate from a massage like that. Lesson learned.
Sunday, show day! Sophie had a bad day from the moment we arrived at the show. She was put in her stall and had several hours to hang out before our ride. I wouldnt be exaggerating by much, if at all, saying that she paced and neighed the whole first 2 hours. Poor thing! She warmed up BEAUTIFULLY for Dressage! Her canter felt....odd, but not lame. Her trot work was amazing and her transitions were very lovely. I felt confident. And then it was our turn....I walked to the ring and I shouldve taken the time to do a lap or two around instead of going straight in. Usually Sophie is so calm so I just went in. Well, the ring was on the edge of a steep hill looking down onto the warm up and jump rings. Sophie was SO stiff passing by that side! Our whole test was stiff and she wouldnt bend to save my life. And then she finished by cantering some of the center line. I was mortified. It was about the equivalent of our first couple dressage tests ever. Like years ago. Before a trainer, before all of our hard training, before be ready to show SECOND LEVEL. Yea, cant even score well on a BN test. I was just so disappointed in us, mainly her. She has been doing so nicely and just didnt show it in that test. We got a 32.5, which put us around 7th place I believe. I was so bummed. Our last combined test we did in April gave her a score of 26 and we have trained hard since then!! So yea, I was a little upset at the ride.
Show Jumping showed a lot of improvement but also some of our holes were still there. She approached the jumps and went overly beautifully. There wasnt a single superman jump haha. After the jumps however she was rushing. Im ok with that, it happens, my issue was her unwillingness to come back to me. It was taking easily 10+ strides to come back to a trot to switch leads at times. Thankfully she landed on the proper lead over most of the jumps so all I had to do was attempt to rate her canter. We had one rail, which was 100% my fault for messing up a turn. However, almost every rider had multiple rails on that sj course (I didnt think it was that hard actually. hmm.) which then bumped us up to 3rd place.
Cross Country. Seriously, I was ready to screen a long list of profanities when I got done with that course! I was so angry and annoyed I couldnt even look at Sophie. She was very wiggly to the first fence, which was fine. They were all max BN and she hasnt seen an xc course for quite some time. However, after the 2nd fence I had no control. It took everything I had just to steer her towards the proper next fence on course. Forget brakes, rating, any sort of set up. I was screaming at her on course, even did a one rein stop to try and get her back to me. She was a bat out of hell and she wasnt looking back!!! Every time I managed to get her to a trot, to try and calm her down, she would immediately break back into a gallop. Thats unusual for her. Shes strong, dont get me wrong, but shes not disobedient. On the bright side, she went over everything without a second glance and there were some scary fences this round! Like the trakehner at the end.
After a brief angry moment I started to really reflect on the things I had felt during the tests that whole day. Sophie warmed up beautifully but went down hill with every phase after that. Her canter felt odd to start with and then she plowed through it the rest of the day. Between sj and xc I had a feeling that she wasnt feeling her best and maybe was 100% sound. I chalked it up to me looking for a reason to be nervous about going xc. Now I feel that her hip was irritated enough that she didnt want to rock back and carry herself and therefore plowed ahead. Before we made it back to the barn I was over all of it and gave her lots of cuddles and apologies. I gave her a few days off and then hacked her out in the field to work on coming back from the gallop. Its not the same as at the show, but I have to practice something. Well, the moment I picked up the canter I felt a difference! She was so LIFTED and EXPRESSIVE in it. She felt wonderful and came back with ease. We even did some collected canter (for her) and were doing simple changes with barely a whole trot step between. It was much improved. The massage clearly worked, it just took a couple days. Now I know.
Since the show I have taken a lesson with Jason Berry. He wasnt thrilled with Sophie (I would have fainted if he had been haha) but he wasnt really harsh either. He gave me some tips for her canter, which was quite lazy that day, and even though she wasnt showing him her usual way of going I think these tips will still help improve her. I also worked on some higher jumps one day doing a skinny 3' two stride to a 3'6. Sophie felt great and jumped it nicely no matter what the approach. She felt like she took it easily so maybe next year we will up our sj height to 3'3 for some jumpers show. Maybe even try Training CT!!! We are not ready for that height xc yet haha. I was planning on going N for the first time in October but after that lack of control for BN I want to test her again at that height. Its an easy height for her, thats certainly not the problem, I just cant raise the height of solid fences with her plowing like that. Theres Elysian Hills in mid October and Penmerryl moved to November so maybe Ill run N there. Time will tell :)
Leo. Just a tid bit. After quite a bit of time off he got started back under saddle and was a saint and was ridden some by Lucie. Lucie really enjoyed him and couldnt get over his easy mindset. What extremely green 4yo do you know that can have a month off and go straight to work without a fuss? And, and and and.....I just randomly walked him up to the trailer and he stepped right on with his front legs! So proud of him. Maybe ill be able to work on getting him loade