Sunday, March 21, 2010
So.... I have decided that my goals for 2010 (well, cause 2009 didn't quite work out like I planned!) was to qualify and compete in the T3D!!! For those of you that don't know what a T3D is...well... A regular THREE PHASE horse trial is dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country. A Training Three Day is a training level event run at the long format (or classic format) style. In other words...you run dressage and stadium and cross country, but cross-country contains four phases: two Roads and Tracks, a Steeplechase, and Cross Country. The roads and tracks are an endurace phase and the steeplechase is pure awesome!! Basically it's jumping brush fences at high speeds! (How sweet is that?!?!). In order to make sure your horse is fit and sound there is also with the Ten-Minute Box, in which your horse is examined by a veterinarian and deemed fit to go out to finish with XC. You also have to make a formal presentation of your horse twice: once before dressage, and again before showjumping (argh..that means braiding twice!!). Veterinarians will also evaluate your horse when you arrive at the competition grounds and on cross-country day. In addition, the T3D is an educational activity. You will attend free clinics with top eventers during the competition. So... it's a pinnacle for a lower level rider like me! Sure... we may eventually maybe one day run Prelim and they even have Prelim Three Days, but... this is MY rolex! Of sorts ;)
More info can be found here... www.trainingthreeday.com/home
and here... longformatclub.com/
Anyways.... that is our goal. To qualify one must have 4 NQR scores...basically 4 clean XC runs at training level with no jump penalties. So far... we've got 3!!! We achieved our third NQR this weekend at Full Gallop.
Which brings us to todays blog post.... Full Gallops' Event!!
This weekend was a good weekend. I had a great time with friends and met some great new friends! And....Fleck is BACK!!! WHOOO HOOOOO!!!!! He was a cross country machine this weekend. Although our dressage scores keep getting suckier and suckier. A freakin' 41.4!!!! I thought it was a nice test, but apparently this judge was hard!!! (Or we just really didn't have that nice of a test!). Fleck was lovely but needed about 2 more mm of connection in his back to really be true and she nailed us for it. So I was highly disappointed as to me it felt more like a 36 ish test. But oh well. I suppose that we were in more of a training level frame insteae of a first level frame. So that put me in 8th out of 10. PLUGHHH.... Oh well. The weather was lovely and we had fun hanging out with friends and watching others ride.
We jumped stadium and XC back to back on Sunday. We walked the courses and stadium was fine, but XC was crazy. It was a fairly easy course, but zig zagged like crazy! So anyways, I got on and Fleck was a total butt in warm up. He was FIRED UP!!! So I finally convinced him that my half-halt meant HALF-HALT and we were on better terms then. He jumped great in warm up after trotting the first fence about 8 times to make a point ;) Then he jumped great in stadium, but I got off balance in the bendy line and we pulled a rail. It was all my fault. The pics are much nicer than the last round of stadium, so we're figuring it out. And he got almost all of his changes without me having to really think about them so that made me happy. So 1 rail but not time. Poopy. Then we go warm up for XC and I'm walking the course in my brain and going...7, 8....9... wait....the water fence can't be 9, because it has to be 10 because they pulled fence 11 due to footing issues.... shoot....I had NO IDEA where fence 9 was!!! When I walked the course I just assumed 8 went to 10 cause it made sense..... So I asked another girl warming up and she was like...oh, it's the corner. WHAT CORNER??? WHERE???? So apparently I had to go through the woods! OH!!! So luckily I had ridden that path before and knew where it was roughly, so..... oh well. Nothing I could do about it then as I had 2 minutes til I was in the start box. So I'm telling myself (out loud too).....up banks, chevrons, CORNER CORNER CORNER CORNER....THEN water.... hee hee..So we start off and Fleck was awesome. Jumped everything pulling me to them, even the jumping into space ones, even the big ones... so we're flying around and he finally decides he's remembered I'm up there and starts to listen a little better and things are going fine..... no problem with anything. We got the double up banks, hit the chevron and fly into the woods... I'm like..."hey horse...there's a corner somewhere in here, so.... pay attention!" and then around the curve it pops up. Barely even saw it, but we jumped it fine, and then went a little wide around the path, but it was fine. Then we get the water, no sweat... over the damn, and over this crazy weird thing, up the banks... and I realize....hmmmm...we should probably slow down as we haven't even hit speed fault time yet and I'm almost done! So we continue on our way and then go through the big water and back into the mare pasture and are heading to the tombstone jump and the truck jump (flagged intermediate) is sorta on the path to the left and Fleck just aims for it... (Side bar.... a few weeks or so ago we schooled at Full Gallop and Fleck felt great. We jumped a few prelim fences and I aimed him to this truck fence thinking it was Prelim. He jumps it, awesomely I might add, and we continue on our way. Later the course designer shows up and we're chatting and he mentions that the truck jump I jumped was intermediate! WHAT??!...oops!). So anyways... I'm telling him NO NO NO.. .it's not on our course... and he's like But I've got it Mom... I've got it! I'm like... I KNOW, but... NO!! So I manage to pull him off that and we get the tombstone and the drop and back into the big pasture and now I realize I only have three jumps left and I'm at 4:40, which is Speed faults time, but optimum is 5:52, so.... I pull him back to a canter and manage to canter the last three jumps and cross the flags at 5:33. Not too bad!!!
So yay!... Fleck is back. He was just eating up that course and looking for more. And not even breathing at the end. By the time I walked back to the warm up area and hopped off, he had quit blowing and was 100% normal and still looking for more. Granted it wasn't hot either, but still. I'm so psyched!!!
So.... we moved up to 6th out of 10 even with our rail. And...the rail didn't make a difference. If I had not pulled it I would have still been 6th. So it was all good. XC totally made up for it ;) We're soooo ready to go to FENCE! It was a great weekend. Cold and windy, and wet even, but we had a blast!!! I'm so psyched about FENCE!!!!
More info can be found here... www.trainingthreeday.com/home
and here... longformatclub.com/
Anyways.... that is our goal. To qualify one must have 4 NQR scores...basically 4 clean XC runs at training level with no jump penalties. So far... we've got 3!!! We achieved our third NQR this weekend at Full Gallop.
Which brings us to todays blog post.... Full Gallops' Event!!
This weekend was a good weekend. I had a great time with friends and met some great new friends! And....Fleck is BACK!!! WHOOO HOOOOO!!!!! He was a cross country machine this weekend. Although our dressage scores keep getting suckier and suckier. A freakin' 41.4!!!! I thought it was a nice test, but apparently this judge was hard!!! (Or we just really didn't have that nice of a test!). Fleck was lovely but needed about 2 more mm of connection in his back to really be true and she nailed us for it. So I was highly disappointed as to me it felt more like a 36 ish test. But oh well. I suppose that we were in more of a training level frame insteae of a first level frame. So that put me in 8th out of 10. PLUGHHH.... Oh well. The weather was lovely and we had fun hanging out with friends and watching others ride.
We jumped stadium and XC back to back on Sunday. We walked the courses and stadium was fine, but XC was crazy. It was a fairly easy course, but zig zagged like crazy! So anyways, I got on and Fleck was a total butt in warm up. He was FIRED UP!!! So I finally convinced him that my half-halt meant HALF-HALT and we were on better terms then. He jumped great in warm up after trotting the first fence about 8 times to make a point ;) Then he jumped great in stadium, but I got off balance in the bendy line and we pulled a rail. It was all my fault. The pics are much nicer than the last round of stadium, so we're figuring it out. And he got almost all of his changes without me having to really think about them so that made me happy. So 1 rail but not time. Poopy. Then we go warm up for XC and I'm walking the course in my brain and going...7, 8....9... wait....the water fence can't be 9, because it has to be 10 because they pulled fence 11 due to footing issues.... shoot....I had NO IDEA where fence 9 was!!! When I walked the course I just assumed 8 went to 10 cause it made sense..... So I asked another girl warming up and she was like...oh, it's the corner. WHAT CORNER??? WHERE???? So apparently I had to go through the woods! OH!!! So luckily I had ridden that path before and knew where it was roughly, so..... oh well. Nothing I could do about it then as I had 2 minutes til I was in the start box. So I'm telling myself (out loud too).....up banks, chevrons, CORNER CORNER CORNER CORNER....THEN water.... hee hee..So we start off and Fleck was awesome. Jumped everything pulling me to them, even the jumping into space ones, even the big ones... so we're flying around and he finally decides he's remembered I'm up there and starts to listen a little better and things are going fine..... no problem with anything. We got the double up banks, hit the chevron and fly into the woods... I'm like..."hey horse...there's a corner somewhere in here, so.... pay attention!" and then around the curve it pops up. Barely even saw it, but we jumped it fine, and then went a little wide around the path, but it was fine. Then we get the water, no sweat... over the damn, and over this crazy weird thing, up the banks... and I realize....hmmmm...we should probably slow down as we haven't even hit speed fault time yet and I'm almost done! So we continue on our way and then go through the big water and back into the mare pasture and are heading to the tombstone jump and the truck jump (flagged intermediate) is sorta on the path to the left and Fleck just aims for it... (Side bar.... a few weeks or so ago we schooled at Full Gallop and Fleck felt great. We jumped a few prelim fences and I aimed him to this truck fence thinking it was Prelim. He jumps it, awesomely I might add, and we continue on our way. Later the course designer shows up and we're chatting and he mentions that the truck jump I jumped was intermediate! WHAT??!...oops!). So anyways... I'm telling him NO NO NO.. .it's not on our course... and he's like But I've got it Mom... I've got it! I'm like... I KNOW, but... NO!! So I manage to pull him off that and we get the tombstone and the drop and back into the big pasture and now I realize I only have three jumps left and I'm at 4:40, which is Speed faults time, but optimum is 5:52, so.... I pull him back to a canter and manage to canter the last three jumps and cross the flags at 5:33. Not too bad!!!
So yay!... Fleck is back. He was just eating up that course and looking for more. And not even breathing at the end. By the time I walked back to the warm up area and hopped off, he had quit blowing and was 100% normal and still looking for more. Granted it wasn't hot either, but still. I'm so psyched!!!
So.... we moved up to 6th out of 10 even with our rail. And...the rail didn't make a difference. If I had not pulled it I would have still been 6th. So it was all good. XC totally made up for it ;) We're soooo ready to go to FENCE! It was a great weekend. Cold and windy, and wet even, but we had a blast!!! I'm so psyched about FENCE!!!!
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