Morven Park Horse Trials

This weekend was our second Prelim, and our third show together. As much as I try to tell myself NOT to let my hopes get too high...well, you just can't really help it sometimes!

Saturday started dim and drizzly, with rain forecasted all day. (It did not escape our notice that every event we've been to so far this year has been RAINED ON.) Colleen and I were both in an ENORMOUS Junior Preliminary Division - 29 people!!! Why the division wasn't split is beyond me.

This event marks a huge accomplishment in Teco's training: he completed two counter-canters without breaking or changing his lead!! Because of his jumper past in which he was schooled flying changes 'til his brain was fried, he has been very quick to change his lead in the counter-canter. But Paul and I worked with him this week, and I have now figured out how to ride another one of my horse's unique quirks. Yay!

Teco was so, so slow in showjumping warm-up. I think his extreme, wild energy that he had at Pine Top back in February was just first-show excitement, because with each event he's been quieter and quieter. Plus with the sloppy footing this weekend, it was VERY difficult for me to kick him forward! We squeaked our way around the showjumping; it was a little ugly, but we made it clean. Ah, I guess I STILL haven't adjusted from Luka's constant forward energy....

Excited and nervous, I headed over to cross-country in the drizzling rain. The course started off nicely - it was a great course, with lots of galloping stretches. We were keeping up a great pace, jumping everything with ease (although he gave a hard look at the water; he jumped very crookedly in, but it was in!). A couple of the low road crossings were flooded, and Teco threw a fit at one near the end of the course, taking me by surprise. Everything kind of went downhill from there.

Near the warm-up area, Teco ran out, twice. He just grabbed the bit and swerved out, with me fighting him and kicking him so hard my legs cramped up. I was very disappointed with this...I knew he had a spook in him, but I didn't think he would just bully me. Another thing to learn, the hard way...

On a side note, my strange asthma problem has not been solved - I went to the doctor this week, who gave me Advair and an inhaler, which I took right before showjumping, but I still came off course with a constricted throat. Perhaps it's related to my stress at Teco's run-outs.

All in all, not such a great weekend for me. Colleen and Connor, on the other hand, were in first after dressage out of 29 competitors! They had a clean cross-country, though with time penalties, and a rail down in showjumping. She still ended up in 3rd, though, which was nice to see after all that riding in the rain!

We're probably going to try to go to Plantation over Easter weekend, to have a back-up event for qualifying for the Virginia CCI*. And on Tuesday I'm headed over to Morven to school over that cross-country course, so wish us luck!

Christie