Huntington Farm horse trials
Last Thursday, I took Clover out on an easy hack, after Wednesday’s x-c school. She was full of energy, and the mosquitos were swarming, so she spent most of the ride kicking at the bugs buzzing underneath her. Ozzy spotted a bunny on the trail and gave chase—I called frantically for him, afraid that he’d head down a rabbit hole and disappear. After a couple of minutes, he popped back out onto the trail, a happy expression on his face, panting with his tongue lolling out.
On Friday, Clover got bathed and clipped. She gave me quite the stink-eye as I was bathing her, she was quite irritated. I tried to make it up to her by letting her graze for a while. I packed nearly everything in my tack trunk, including an equine first aid kit and stud kit, extra bridle and girth, etc., etc. I got a pretty good night’s sleep, and was up for 5:30 am Sat. morning.
We fed and hayed the horses, and I packed a few last minute things (rain gear, grab strap, etc.) Just as I was getting ready to load Clover, I noticed that Abby, the Welsh broodmare, was stretched out flat in her paddock, occasionally picking her head up to look at her belly. I thought she was going into labor, so I alerted my trainer, who called the vet to let him know. After leaving cell phone numbers and last minute instructions to the barn sitters/foal watchers, we packed Clover and headed off to meet Min at Hillside.
We transferred Clover to Min’s rig, and the ride up was uneventful—which is a good thing when shipping horses! We found the barn we’d be stabling at that night, just down the road from the event. What a gorgeous site! On a hill, with a view of all the rolling hills and greenery you hear about. The owners don’t own horses, they just lease out the stalls for vacationers and eventers needing overnight stabling. The barn was immaculate, 10 stalls with 2 tack/feed rooms, a wash stall and a laundry/break room. We settled our horses in, and headed over to Huntington to get our competitor packets and watch some rides, and walk the course.
Min and I walked the course a couple of times, once with our trainer, and a second time by ourselves. Min was in the Novice division with her horse, and they shared some of the same x-c fences as me and Clover. The course looked fairly straightforward and inviting, with a couple of what I considered pretty technical questions for a BN horse. There were a couple of nice gallops along the course, too. We also walked the stadium course, but weren’t sure how much it would change for the BN division, other than lowered height.
I hardly slept at all that night, mostly because my trainer left the TV blaring until I turned it off at 1:30 am. We were up at 4:30, to get to the barn, feed the horses and pack up to be there and get Min and her horse warmed up for their 8-something dressage time. My test wasn’t until 10:24 am.
Clover warmed up wonderfully, she was obedient and following the rein nicely. I was hardly nervous at all. It was as if I were in control of circumstances for once—I’d decided that Clover would be on the aids, and I wouldn’t be nervous.
Well, I was a bit nervous during the test. I kept forcing myself to take deep breaths—mostly through my mouth, so I had the impression that I was gasping like a fish out of water during the test. The test itself flowed fairly smoothly, there were a few errors of accuracy, overshot centerline, first canter circle a bit small, but it was the best Novice A test I’ve ridden so far.
After dressage, I was in 3rd place with a 34.5. I was in a state of pleased disbelief.
I was more nervous for x-c. The BN course was 1905 meters, and optimum time was 5:52 at 325 meters per minute. No problem, I thought. Clover warmed up well—jumping the warm up fences well, no problems, except for me not releasing like I should. At the start box, I ask the starter to count me down from 10, at which point I hit my stopwatch and head out to the first fence. Notes I made on the course map are included free of charge.
Fence 1. Brush Box: edge of rough—bending line Good approach, staying forward while going away from other horses and event activity. Clover starts looking at the fence and shifting around 3 strides out. The potential was there to run out to the right, but I get her over.
2. Over bridge to the Rails—cut in front [of prelim fence] to 2. Over a sand-covered foot bridge, Clover sucks back and looks at it, but I get her over and towards the fence, which were several split rails stacked on the ground. We bobbled towards it, Clover sucking back and shifting around again—we almost run out. I tell her to knock it off, and we make a wide rollback turn to
3. direction arrow right New Log: Clover jumps this with less sucking back. I praise her and we gallop on to …
dammit, I missed the turn! It takes me 10-12 strides down the road to realize that I missed the right turn to the 4th fence. An arrow that was at the fork in the course yesterday has been removed. I recover, double back and make the turn back towards
4. Tuning Fork: along rough edge This is another log stack, a forked log. We had to make a 90 degree left turn 3 strides out to get over it, the way it was positioned on course. We gallop down the road a bit to
5. Triple Bar: on hill a bit—sit back, lower landing Our first technical question. There was a sort of blind approach to the fence, a square oxer, and the landing side was slightly downhill, which required slipped reins. We seemed to have hit our stride at that point, but I didn’t slip the reins evenly, nor did I recover steering well enough in time to #6, edge of mown grass—#6 off [Clover’s] back to fence
6. Telephone Pole: set back, bigger jump up hill After the triple bar landing, you had to go uphill to this fence. I had to kind of cram Clover over this one, and make a bending line to
7. Dog House: Between the last fence and this one—I’m not sure what happened. We lost our pace, we bobbled what should have been a straightforward coop type fence, and ran out to the left. I heard myself yelling “Nooo!” at Clover while we were running out, and I wheeled her around and re-presented successfully.ride road, [cut] in front of [prelim] bench?
8. Cordwood with Brush: Still off our pace, I could feel Clover sucking back and looking at this fence almost 5 strides out. I once again crammed her over, and we headed (up hill!) to
9. Poplar Logs: inside line if possible—skinnier—b/t training #9 and tree to road Another question, with a semi-obscured approach. The jump had a skinnier side to the left, with a more direct approach to the track leading to the next fence, and a wider side, putting the landing side more up the incline. The sides were divided by a log set upright, perpendicular from the top rail of the fence. I walked the course intending to jump the skinny side, but in light of our current pace and tendency to suck back, I made a quick decision 3 strides out to jump the wider side. We did so with no problem. gallop to
10. Coop: inside line—STEEP—turn—up hill approach—cut angle at 10—jump at angle with open rein I thought this fence was going to be a big impulsion killer coming this late in the course. It was a small coop set on top of a fairly steep three stride up hill. I changed leads through the trot before the base of the incline, and Clover ate it up and hopped over with no problem. I was amazed.
establish rhythm—gallop
11. Slant rails: stay on edge—sit back—hard left—downhill landing like Plunge[on UNH’s course] The next tricky question. After a bit of a gallop, you had to bang a sharp left turn 2 strides out from this fence, which was a bit of a drop. Again, no problems steering, we jumped out of stride, I slipped the reins and recovered to gallop on to
12. Water: down hill—leg on to H20—deeper footing to a 2 stride wade through I thought we were going to have a stop there. Again, Clover sucked back, and started to dance over to the left—another potential run out. I kept my leg on, and got her through. It seemed like she even stopped for a brief second, which seemed like a longer time than it really was.
13. down hill—over bridge—inside line—vertical fence Bang a right back onto the field where the start, finish and warm up areas were. Our last fence was a bright cream colored Beam, similar in design to the faux trakhener at Pipestave. We really attacked this fence out of stride, and as we passed the finish flags, I remembered to stop my watch. I pulled up Clover, and saw that we were 30 seconds over optimum. Damn. I heard that many people in the other divisions had problems making time, too.
We racked up the penalties x-c, with 20 for the run out and 12 for the time faults. I knew I was out of the placing at that point, but was still on a high from the dressage, and relief that we’d just completed our first “real” cross country course without too much problem.
I was wiped out after x-c, and still had a while to go before stadium. Fortunately, I was able to walk the course a couple of more times. Not much of the course was changed—a rolltop was converted to a vertical, heights were dropped from 2’11” to 2’6”-7”. I was relieved to see that there wasn’t much in the way of course decoration, other than a fresh coat of paint on the jumps.
The course was in a mostly flat area, with several bending lines between fences of related distances, several changes of direction, and a 2 stride combination that I felt may ride long or even wind up a chip in or 3 stride, depending on our pace.
Again, Clover warmed up well, despite the both of us being tired. I noticed that Clover was quicker to stop when I asked for down transitions, but she didn’t give me any problems when I asked for up transitions.
We entered the course for our turn, saluted the judge, and we were off. Clover was pretty wobbly to the first fence, and again, I should have really gone to the whip and got her ass in gear. I got her over the first three, but really buried her to the fourth fence, and took a rail with her right fore. I managed to recover, and get her over the rest of the course with no more jump or time penalties. We finished our first stadium in horse trials.
It wasn’t pretty, but we had completed our first real (not schooling) horse trials. I added another 5 points to our score with the rail, and we wound up 12th of 19 with 71.5 penalties. I was disappointed that I hadn’t ridden better over fences, the errors I made but not riding Clover more through her green-horse balkiness cost us a lot of penalties. But I was still elated at having finished so high in the pack after dressage. I thought that our season was off to a good start. I know what I have to work on (accuracy, steering with one hand while “cowboying” Clover over fences with the whip hand, at least until she “gets” it and starts generalizing fences again).
On Friday, Clover got bathed and clipped. She gave me quite the stink-eye as I was bathing her, she was quite irritated. I tried to make it up to her by letting her graze for a while. I packed nearly everything in my tack trunk, including an equine first aid kit and stud kit, extra bridle and girth, etc., etc. I got a pretty good night’s sleep, and was up for 5:30 am Sat. morning.
We fed and hayed the horses, and I packed a few last minute things (rain gear, grab strap, etc.) Just as I was getting ready to load Clover, I noticed that Abby, the Welsh broodmare, was stretched out flat in her paddock, occasionally picking her head up to look at her belly. I thought she was going into labor, so I alerted my trainer, who called the vet to let him know. After leaving cell phone numbers and last minute instructions to the barn sitters/foal watchers, we packed Clover and headed off to meet Min at Hillside.
We transferred Clover to Min’s rig, and the ride up was uneventful—which is a good thing when shipping horses! We found the barn we’d be stabling at that night, just down the road from the event. What a gorgeous site! On a hill, with a view of all the rolling hills and greenery you hear about. The owners don’t own horses, they just lease out the stalls for vacationers and eventers needing overnight stabling. The barn was immaculate, 10 stalls with 2 tack/feed rooms, a wash stall and a laundry/break room. We settled our horses in, and headed over to Huntington to get our competitor packets and watch some rides, and walk the course.
Min and I walked the course a couple of times, once with our trainer, and a second time by ourselves. Min was in the Novice division with her horse, and they shared some of the same x-c fences as me and Clover. The course looked fairly straightforward and inviting, with a couple of what I considered pretty technical questions for a BN horse. There were a couple of nice gallops along the course, too. We also walked the stadium course, but weren’t sure how much it would change for the BN division, other than lowered height.
I hardly slept at all that night, mostly because my trainer left the TV blaring until I turned it off at 1:30 am. We were up at 4:30, to get to the barn, feed the horses and pack up to be there and get Min and her horse warmed up for their 8-something dressage time. My test wasn’t until 10:24 am.
Clover warmed up wonderfully, she was obedient and following the rein nicely. I was hardly nervous at all. It was as if I were in control of circumstances for once—I’d decided that Clover would be on the aids, and I wouldn’t be nervous.
Well, I was a bit nervous during the test. I kept forcing myself to take deep breaths—mostly through my mouth, so I had the impression that I was gasping like a fish out of water during the test. The test itself flowed fairly smoothly, there were a few errors of accuracy, overshot centerline, first canter circle a bit small, but it was the best Novice A test I’ve ridden so far.
After dressage, I was in 3rd place with a 34.5. I was in a state of pleased disbelief.
I was more nervous for x-c. The BN course was 1905 meters, and optimum time was 5:52 at 325 meters per minute. No problem, I thought. Clover warmed up well—jumping the warm up fences well, no problems, except for me not releasing like I should. At the start box, I ask the starter to count me down from 10, at which point I hit my stopwatch and head out to the first fence. Notes I made on the course map are included free of charge.
Fence 1. Brush Box: edge of rough—bending line Good approach, staying forward while going away from other horses and event activity. Clover starts looking at the fence and shifting around 3 strides out. The potential was there to run out to the right, but I get her over.
2. Over bridge to the Rails—cut in front [of prelim fence] to 2. Over a sand-covered foot bridge, Clover sucks back and looks at it, but I get her over and towards the fence, which were several split rails stacked on the ground. We bobbled towards it, Clover sucking back and shifting around again—we almost run out. I tell her to knock it off, and we make a wide rollback turn to
3. direction arrow right New Log: Clover jumps this with less sucking back. I praise her and we gallop on to …
dammit, I missed the turn! It takes me 10-12 strides down the road to realize that I missed the right turn to the 4th fence. An arrow that was at the fork in the course yesterday has been removed. I recover, double back and make the turn back towards
4. Tuning Fork: along rough edge This is another log stack, a forked log. We had to make a 90 degree left turn 3 strides out to get over it, the way it was positioned on course. We gallop down the road a bit to
5. Triple Bar: on hill a bit—sit back, lower landing Our first technical question. There was a sort of blind approach to the fence, a square oxer, and the landing side was slightly downhill, which required slipped reins. We seemed to have hit our stride at that point, but I didn’t slip the reins evenly, nor did I recover steering well enough in time to #6, edge of mown grass—#6 off [Clover’s] back to fence
6. Telephone Pole: set back, bigger jump up hill After the triple bar landing, you had to go uphill to this fence. I had to kind of cram Clover over this one, and make a bending line to
7. Dog House: Between the last fence and this one—I’m not sure what happened. We lost our pace, we bobbled what should have been a straightforward coop type fence, and ran out to the left. I heard myself yelling “Nooo!” at Clover while we were running out, and I wheeled her around and re-presented successfully.ride road, [cut] in front of [prelim] bench?
8. Cordwood with Brush: Still off our pace, I could feel Clover sucking back and looking at this fence almost 5 strides out. I once again crammed her over, and we headed (up hill!) to
9. Poplar Logs: inside line if possible—skinnier—b/t training #9 and tree to road Another question, with a semi-obscured approach. The jump had a skinnier side to the left, with a more direct approach to the track leading to the next fence, and a wider side, putting the landing side more up the incline. The sides were divided by a log set upright, perpendicular from the top rail of the fence. I walked the course intending to jump the skinny side, but in light of our current pace and tendency to suck back, I made a quick decision 3 strides out to jump the wider side. We did so with no problem. gallop to
10. Coop: inside line—STEEP—turn—up hill approach—cut angle at 10—jump at angle with open rein I thought this fence was going to be a big impulsion killer coming this late in the course. It was a small coop set on top of a fairly steep three stride up hill. I changed leads through the trot before the base of the incline, and Clover ate it up and hopped over with no problem. I was amazed.
establish rhythm—gallop
11. Slant rails: stay on edge—sit back—hard left—downhill landing like Plunge[on UNH’s course] The next tricky question. After a bit of a gallop, you had to bang a sharp left turn 2 strides out from this fence, which was a bit of a drop. Again, no problems steering, we jumped out of stride, I slipped the reins and recovered to gallop on to
12. Water: down hill—leg on to H20—deeper footing to a 2 stride wade through I thought we were going to have a stop there. Again, Clover sucked back, and started to dance over to the left—another potential run out. I kept my leg on, and got her through. It seemed like she even stopped for a brief second, which seemed like a longer time than it really was.
13. down hill—over bridge—inside line—vertical fence Bang a right back onto the field where the start, finish and warm up areas were. Our last fence was a bright cream colored Beam, similar in design to the faux trakhener at Pipestave. We really attacked this fence out of stride, and as we passed the finish flags, I remembered to stop my watch. I pulled up Clover, and saw that we were 30 seconds over optimum. Damn. I heard that many people in the other divisions had problems making time, too.
We racked up the penalties x-c, with 20 for the run out and 12 for the time faults. I knew I was out of the placing at that point, but was still on a high from the dressage, and relief that we’d just completed our first “real” cross country course without too much problem.
I was wiped out after x-c, and still had a while to go before stadium. Fortunately, I was able to walk the course a couple of more times. Not much of the course was changed—a rolltop was converted to a vertical, heights were dropped from 2’11” to 2’6”-7”. I was relieved to see that there wasn’t much in the way of course decoration, other than a fresh coat of paint on the jumps.
The course was in a mostly flat area, with several bending lines between fences of related distances, several changes of direction, and a 2 stride combination that I felt may ride long or even wind up a chip in or 3 stride, depending on our pace.
Again, Clover warmed up well, despite the both of us being tired. I noticed that Clover was quicker to stop when I asked for down transitions, but she didn’t give me any problems when I asked for up transitions.
We entered the course for our turn, saluted the judge, and we were off. Clover was pretty wobbly to the first fence, and again, I should have really gone to the whip and got her ass in gear. I got her over the first three, but really buried her to the fourth fence, and took a rail with her right fore. I managed to recover, and get her over the rest of the course with no more jump or time penalties. We finished our first stadium in horse trials.
It wasn’t pretty, but we had completed our first real (not schooling) horse trials. I added another 5 points to our score with the rail, and we wound up 12th of 19 with 71.5 penalties. I was disappointed that I hadn’t ridden better over fences, the errors I made but not riding Clover more through her green-horse balkiness cost us a lot of penalties. But I was still elated at having finished so high in the pack after dressage. I thought that our season was off to a good start. I know what I have to work on (accuracy, steering with one hand while “cowboying” Clover over fences with the whip hand, at least until she “gets” it and starts generalizing fences again).
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