I went up to Sharon White's on Saturday. I was able to get a dressage lesson with Tess on Sunday and Tuesday, we worked on making her very forward, obediant and relaxed. Clif and Tess both went for a hop around XC on Monday and a last little gallop..they were wild! Tess was fabulous, she has this totally new attitude, she is finding the jumps whether you are or not....soooo you had better hold on tight! Clif was great, I learned a bit more how to ride him, he needs such a different ride than Tess it can be very hard for me to switch between the two with all three of us being so green. He was really quite good and seemed to gain some confidence throughout his school, which he most definitely needed. Clif had a flat lesson on Tuesday and was really lovely; he's a little dressage horse these days. Both horses had a lighter jump school on Wednesday working on shortening their strides and angling fences. Clif was really great, he lovessssssssssss to add strides (he hates to leave them out!). Tess was super, she was jumping me way out of the tack. Thursday morning we left for Virginia Horse Center.
Tess playing around during her less with Sharon!
Thursday was a good day for the horses. They arrived at the park early, had light flat schools and Tess did her in-barn check for the CCI* (Note to self: send passport in 3 months in advance!). I also walked the courses Thursday night, and holyyyyyyyyyy moly was I needed some direction! But on a happy...ish side note, while walking the course all you can smell is the honeysuckle that is everywhere. It smells so good!
(Clif jumping with the big kids!)
Friday was dressage for Tess and dressage and show jumping for Clif. Clif did his dressage first and poor guy only had about a 20 minute warm-up. He seemed to enjoy that though, he was absolutely super in the ring; there is still lots to improve, mostly his roundness through the transitions, but he was great and got a 28, putting him in first out about 13! Good Clif! Tess then did her dressage, she was as good as she could possibly be for this stage of her life, she just lacks the strengh and muscle to really come round and through. However, I was really really pleased with her, she got a 55 (which is basically mid 30's in horse trial scores). It was probably one of her best tests to date, she was quite pleased with herself...but she usually is, your opinion does not count with Tess. Clif also show jumped in the afternoon. The show jumping looked quite good, but was riding absolutely horrifically for some people, rails were flying! I know Clif does just about everything in his power to jump clean so you really have to try to just let him do his best and stay the heck out of the way. He tried so so soooooooo hard and was absolutely perfect until I ran him into a vertical...brilliant of me, I know. He was very good, he just had the one rail, but since everyone else was having serious rails he stayed in 1st :)...lucky guy!
(Tess looking happy after her dressage test!)
Saturday was the big XC day! I walked my courses and knew what I had to do....LOTS!!!! Tess was first out. She was awesome, perfect, super, great..you pick any or all of those words. Her ears never went anywhere besides forward and her legs never stopped moving. She had never made time at a horse trial, so I had some serious doubts about her ability to make the time, especially on a nearly 8 minute course with massive mountains to gallop around on! I told her to go a bit early on, and boy did she go. I really just let her bounce around the whole time, I was more or less just along for the ride, she never blinked around the course I don't think. She was on a mission, that's for sure! She flew around the course perfectly nearly 25 seconds under the time! She was super and recovered really well which was exciting. Clif went out around lunch, he was foot perfect around the first few fences. The 6th fence was a big brush fence to a corner, sharp turn to a triple brush skinny; he ducked out at the corner, which was very naughty of him!, but jumped the corner great on the 2nd try....little brat, we then went to the skinny, where Clif was just still so rattled from his runout that he ran right into the skinny, not understanding what was going on.. BLAH!!!! He came right back around and jumped it fine. The rest of the course went really well, he was very on and enjoyed himself, I think. We did have ANOTHER run out (AH!) at two very steep angled canoes, but I asked for one stride and should have known he would do two strides, he slammed right into the 2nd canoe....dumb rider! He actually is on one of the Eventing Nation Videos (http://www.eventingnation.com) --just find the VA HT intermediate XC video, we are near the end doing about 5 fences, including the very scary water!
(Tess enjoyed her attention time!!!)Tess was the only one to do anything on Sunday. She had her jog at 8 a.m.. She was wild for her jog, and super sound and fresh. She then jumped at about noon. She was great! She tried soooo hard to leave the rails up; she was kicking up so high behind I nearly pulled out her braids trying to hang on! She had a double clear round, I think everyone was very proud of her! She was in 15th place after dressage, after her double clear XC she moved into 9th place, and after her double clean show jumping round she moved into 6th place!!! And, most importantly, I finally got a neck ribbon! HA! She was soooo good, if had told me she would do this last week, I would have laughed at you. I know she is a super horse, but you never know how great they are until they start rising to the occasion, and she did more than just rise to it. She is now getting some well deserved down time (which will probably lead to me being bucked off!).
Everyone take care and hang on! (I will be riding the babies this week, hang on is my motto!)
Hillary
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