King Oak spring horse trials

Back from King Oak, just a quickie before I take off for the Notch for a week. Had a decent go yesterday in the BNH division, 4th with a 33 after dressage, dropped down to 8th after dropping a rail and 3 time penalties in stadium. Had a great. clean run cross country, but 7.6 time penalties dropped us down to 11th! The numbers don't look so good, but I was happy with our performance yesterday.

Clover was feeling a little off this morning, I don't think she drank enough water Friday into Saturday when we started competing. I'm going to pick up some big containers for lugging water from home along the next time we're away overnight.

Recap:
Overall, I was pleased with how Clover performed, though the final standings left me somewhat depressed. We had a good dressage test, 33 and 4th out of 16 or so in the Beginner Novice Horse division. Inexplicably, we were 3 points ahead of Min and her horse, who had a flawless test from what I could tell. We figured the judge, whom none of us had ever heard before, liked drafty type horses. Aside from that, I'm becoming less nervous before tests as we continue to go out, and I'm even starting to think during tests, instead of blank out and ride on autopilot. I rode into corners, to distinguish from the circles at A and C. Woo! Now, what to improve, how can we get our scores even better? Based on the results of our first two tests of the year, the left lead canter (“needs more jump in the canter”) down transitions, and the final halt!

A rail at fence 4 (that's what I get for letting Clover cross canter to a fence on a bending line) and 2 time penalties dropped us to 8th after stadium. Fair enough. It was a pretty straightforward 9 fence course, with a 3 stride combination. Coming down to the trot several times for lead corrections slowed us up, but it seemed like there were a lot of time penalties in the division for that course. Clover was going strong, though she did look at the red white and blue vertical from the combination, but we made the striding just fine. I had a hard time pulling her up after crossing the finish line, which was going downhill, I had to employ a pulley rein to get her back!

We had a clean run x-c and the course rode well, though Clover did look at people on course for the first 3 fences. She did settle in after fence 3, though. Fence 1 was not too far from the start box, and we were out and over it nicely, no sucking back at all. En route to fence 2, there were a couple of people round the bend on my path—I took Clover down to the trot to the fence, not wanting to risk a run out, but my trainer chastised me and said I needed to apply the whip right then and knock the looking at people right out of Clover's system. More trotting—and looking at people (I had to yell “Heads up!” to clear the path)—to fence 3 got me more in the hole time wise. As soon as we got out into the hay fields, the rest of the course rode well. There was no more sucking back, but again, I had to haul Clover back to a trot to legitimately make it safely down a steepish hill to the last fence. It made me feel like I had a cross country machine under me again.

I felt pretty damn good about our first go of the season as we crossed the finish line. But coming in over OT dropped us to 11th overall in the final standings! I have to say, I was disappointed when they announced the final placings, but Min and her horse moved up to 5th, so that was good. It was all good, really, I can't complain. Our jumping has improved, Clover's really got it, and my position is improving—better than last year.

The good news: all problems were rider error, and therefore preventable: the aforementioned cross-cantering to a fence, and riding too conservatively x-c. The bad news: I know we—I could have done better! Oh, well. I really can't complain—the weather was fantastic, no bugs, even!