Virginia CCI*

We just returned home from a long, successful weekend down in Lexington! Teco and I placed 7th in the Junior/Young Rider division at Virginia, out of 12 competitors.

Friday was dressage day...I rode at 4:30 in the afternoon, and it was pretty hot. I was wearing my top hat and fancy shadbelly jacket for dressage (attire that you can wear only at a CCI) for the first time; unfortunately, my hat decided not to cooperate. It kept falling off during warm-up, making for a very disjointed preparation for my test. So, my concentration was broken a little bit, and I made two errors in my test. Teco was not at his best, but he still scored well - however, 4 or 5 points had to be added to our score due to our error. Therefore, we were in 11th after dressage, when we would have been in 3rd, without my errors. Our final penalty score was 62.9.

I was kicking myself, but all I really needed was a clean cross country on Saturday. It was a tough course, but I rode hard, and we had a clean round! We had 3.2 time penalties, which I was fine with, because I wanted to ride a little slow in order to get a clean round. Which we did! He recovered well, proving that he was well-conditioned for the hilly cross country course.

Teco was very sound on Sunday morning for the jog, passing the vet's inspection easily.  We were 7th going into showjumping that afternoon; we had one rail, but he was otherwise great, and he didn't seem very tired at all from the strenuous cross country the day before. 

We ended up in 7th! I am so happy that Teco and I seem to be really getting it together. We are now qualified for the Young Riders team, so we'll see if we make it! We'll be doing one or two more events before the Young Riders camp this summer, so I'll be sure to update then.

Til then -

 Christie

Maryland Short Course and other Bits and Pieces

A few weeks ago, I took Lady (my mom's horse, Hall of Mirrors, the paint mare) to Loch Moy Farm in Maryland. They held a "Short Course," which is similar to a regular event, but with a slightly modified cross country.

Lady and I were entered at Beginner Novice. She is an excellent jumper and has no problem with height in the showjumping ring; however, she is a little spooky out on cross country, which is why we were going Beginner Novice. Unfortunately, the cross country course was a little too tough for her - the water jumps were more of a Novice or Training difficulty, which she was very unprepared for. She has a tough time with going in water without a jump, much less having to jump a spooky log in! 

I am a little concerned about her loss of confidence on cross country. When we did an extra showjumping round set at Novice height, though, she jumped around beautifully! So, I am taking her Horse 1 (2'9'' to 3'3'') at Show Jumping Rally on the last weekend in May, as well as competing her at Beginner Novice at Rubicon Horse Trials in Lucketts the first weekend in June.

Now, on to Teco's updates!

Last weekend, we went down to Charlottesville for a Young Rider Training Camp with David and Lauren O'Brien, the Young Rider coaches. It went well!

His dressage improves daily, and at our last jumping lesson, we were perfectly in sync. Hopefully, all will go well at Virginia CCI* this weekend, and we will jump clean on cross country!

I'll update again when we return from Virginia. Wish us luck!

Christie

Difficult Run Horse Trials

Another show in the rain...how thrilling.

Even better, construction at Frying Pan Park forced the organizers (i.e. my mom, since the horse trials are organized by our club) to rearrange everything. So, dressage took place on grass (and on a downhill, which was very difficult) - needless to say, it wasn't our best test, but Teco still did well all things considered.

We jumped clean in the indoor arena; Teco was wonderful. Of course, the real issue was the cross country: we needed a clear round, with no refusals, to qualify for the Virginia CCI* (which we need to compete at to qualify for Young Riders).

As we stepped into the startbox, the rain started to drizzle down. But we charged on, and had a little issue at a somewhat sharp turn to a jump going into the woods - we came a little fast and I didn't set him up early enough for the turn, so we overshot a little bit and jumped the Training stone wall, rather than the Preliminary one. So we stopped, turned around, trotted out of the woods and cantered over the right one! But that was the only mishap; otherwise, Teco was a superstar!

So, next stop: Lexington, Virginia for the CCI*!

Christie