What an exciting weekend. I'm sooooo glad that we ran Training. I'll say it again... Beth is always right. :) It was tempting to run P/T even, but Chatt Hills didn't offer it. And while we may have been just fine on the prelim course, it was nice to be confident and feeling brave and ready to tackle everything before going out on course. Although the way Fleck felt and was jumping, the extra height and difficulty may not have mattered. :) So... here's the long story...
I worked Wed night and Thurs night and Thurs night kicked my butt!!! It was non-stop patients, complicated cases, and just..... a looooooong night. So by the time Friday morning rolled around, I was beat. Luckily I had done most of the packing on Tuesday and Wednesday so there wasn't too much to do. I managed to get out of here at 1ish despite being blocked in by the the tree people. Then as soon as I was able to get them to move and get the truck and trailer out, I had to stop and move the yard guy out of the driveway while blowing leaves. Then as soon as I did that and got about 10 feet down the driveway the "rooms to go" people came to deliver our new table, thus blocking me in again. Argh!!! Just let me out!!! Finally, fleck and I were on our way. We made good time and got settled in. I quickly realized that somehow I was down at Barn B.... with the Laws! While Beth, Beth, Jamie, and Kristin were up in barn h. Huh?!? Oh well... Nothing I could do about it. So Fleck and I got settled. And by the next day all of the Law's horses were neighing at Fleck. I was laughing and told him he was cool cause he was friends with the poplar horses. ;) So we got settled and went to ride. Oh no!!! Fleck was like jello!! I think Christina adjusted him too well. He was so loose in his hips and pelvis he was practically falling down! hee hee. He kept loosing his hind end out behind him. Of course he had been like this the past two days and worked out of it quickly, but I think it was a little more obvious in this footing and I was paranoid and tired and exhausted mentally, so I panicked. I rode like crap and Beth couldn't get me to cooperate. Finally, she told me that I needed to stop worrying, he was fine, and ride him connected! Sit down and do it. And I did... and lo and behold Fleck actually stopped falling out behind and settled and we had a nice ride. We then hacked around the field to let him stretch some more and he was just being silly. He obviously felt good, despite all his jello moves, as he was dragging me around and trying to GO! Finally Conrad and Nike joined us and he settled down and went back to his normal self. So then it was dinner for the ponies and then finally dinner for us. After Mexican, I went back to check on Fleck, do another walk around, and get him settled. Then it was back to the hotel. I was so exhausted I didn't even clean my tack. I just went to bed. And slept like a ROCK! I think that was the first time I've slept solid through the night without tossing and turning and waking up repeatedly that first night at a horse show. I was just too tired to be too nervous.
Saturday morning wasn't too chilly when we first got up, but the day did get a bit windier. Fleck warmed up nicely and we did some canter work first to get his hips straightened out and then he felt good. We warmed up quite nicely and then it was our turn. It was actually a good test. He jigged through the entire walk, but.... you know, I didn't mind. He felt good. I know it's an issue with us, and he was good for the rest of the test. Beth was really pleased and said that he was SOFT and SUPPLE for most of the test. Which is a first. :) YAY!!! She sat by the judge and said it was basically all 6 and 7's on the trot and canter work. However, my geometry sucked and I lost some points by making my circles too big or too small. Argh. Oh well. We scored a 37.5, which is pretty cruddy. BUT.. it was Kate Hutchinson, who can be fairly tough. And that put us in 5th out of 10. Not bad for us. :)
I got Fleck settled and then Beth and I walked XC. It was an easy course. Mostly! There was one or two tough questions that may cause problems for us. But most of it was fairly small and simple. It was the brush/hanging log thing, to a stone wall, to a hanging log, then through a little valley, then to a log pile upright thingy, then to the swedish oxer, then to a coop (all fairly small and straight forward). Then it got a little tricky. You had to do two mounds with jumps on top. They weren't that big, but it was on a bendy line or an S curve and the second one had a fairly substantial drop. I was a little concerned about that combo. Then it was a left hand turn to a decent sized picnic table, then through the woods, down the lane along the lake, then out through the woods to a faux corner, then to another combo. It was the coffin and was fairly tricky. It was a coop, to the ditch, to a skinny, offset. Tough, but not that bad. Then sharp left turn, straight up the hill, to a skinny between two trees, then diagonally uphill to a slight drop fence, downhill to a cabin, two strides into the water, out of the water, two strides to another cabin, uphill and then down the bank to a cabin or log, and then a long gallop to a tiny little ramp thing, then a right hand turn to another cabin thing. So really a fairly easy course with a lot of gallop room. So finally it was time to get ready. I think my ride time was 3:50 pm!!!! What??! That's crazyness. :) So we got ready and they were running a bit late. But I was already tacked up, so I figured oh well... I'll just hack him around a bit. HA!! Fleck had other plans. We got down to warm up and I tried to just walk him around. He was having none of it. He was ready and wanting to GO!!! I tried to tell him that there was a lot of galloping and he needed to save himself, but nope... so we trotted.. and it was that powerful almost skipping trot... then we cantered... then we bucked, then we cantered sideways, then we power trotted, then we stood for about 15 seconds, and off again. hee heee. He was READY! Finally it was close enough to start jumping. He was off like a rocket and jumping out of his skin! Beth said I needed to make sure to keep my leg on despite him jumping like a mad man and to keep the connection. I told her that there was no way I was dropping him, because if I did... we'd end up in Canada! Seriously... I was glad for those knots in my reins. The beast was rarin' to go. We had some great warm up jumps and then decided we were ready. I just had to ride like that. At this point though... I knew it was going to be a good ride. Fleck was too amped up and feeling good for it to be anything but.
We shot out of the box like a rocket and sailed over the first fence. The next two fences were good and the we shot off. As we hit the little gulley/valley in the woods, Fleck sorta spooked. Hee hee.. I almost came off as he hit the brakes rather hard, but then got him momemtum again and off we went. He sailed over everything like it was nothing. Then we hit the mounds... and he was AMAZING!! I closed my leg, rode him up the hill and over and then down and up and over and he was amazing!!! It was beautiful! Only on landing he shot off like a rocket again and we went to the right instead of the left, so we made a big wide turn to probably the biggest jump on the course. He jumped it totally on an angle but it was fine. He cleared it. Then up the path and down along the lake. I let him take a little breather and just canter on the trail along the lake. Partly because there was a freakin' van going down the lane!!!! It was far enough ahead that it didn't look like it was going to interfere with us, but we were gaining ground quick. Luckily we turned off before we caught up to it and then he sailed over the fake corner. I got a little off balance and was a little worried about the coffin because of it. It came up quick and I didn't get the line I wanted. But Fleck locked in on it and pretty much did that by himself, with my hanging off balance the whole way. What a beast!!!! Then he shot off again and some poor girl was in the path. She just stopped and we sailed past her... only again we shot off the wrong way and I realized I wasn't going up the hill. So we turned and went up the hill and he angled the skinny and jumped over that, the rocked over the slight downhill jump. Down to the water and sailed over those two jumps and then up the hill. I made him trot so he could see where we were going but I only managed to get about two trot steps before he cantered and then cantered off the drop. Luckily I kept the connection and was able to ride him forward between my legs (and my slightly long reins) over the log. Then another long gallop and he just about tripped over the little jump, despite me really trying hard to set him up better. Then we turned to the final jump and I'm coming around the corner and realize about 4 strides out I'm looking at the wrong jump. Eeeks. It's to the left! So Fleck angled that one a bit too. Hee hee.. We made time easily despite our two little "detours". I told him what a Rock star he was and hopped off for the walk back. Fleck was dragging me for the whole walk too! I almost got back on his happy butt! :) Our clean run moved us up to 3rd place!!! So... then we rinsed him off, iced his legs, his knees, and his back legs, then poulticed him and wrapped him. Then he got dinner, a walk, and then it was time for dinner for me. Kristin and I ended up finding a Cracker Barrel just down the road from the hotel. YAY!!! It was carb yummyness.
I also slept great Saturday night....and was pretty well rested despite having to get up early that morning. The wind had picked up and it was pretty dang chilly! Fleck's legs looked great though and he was feeling good. We had a little graze and then helped Beth with the last of her 1 star!! She and Phinn were awesome and she finished in second!! Whoo hoo. So after that I went back to walk Fleck again and get him ready to go. Because they were running only the 2 star, 1 star, Intermediate, Prelim and Training stadium on Sunday (BN and Nov were doing XC Sunday as they had stadium jumped yesterday), I was late in the day again. I was in Training Rider B and since it was reverse order of go.. I was the third to last rider of the day. Doh. But it was fine. That morning as I pulled in, I picked up a screw, so I had a flat tire. AGAIN... I swear, this is the fourth flat I've had at Chatt Hills. So at least I had time to change my tire while waiting to ride. I finally got tacked up and Fleck felt good. He warmed up like a fiend again. I swear, he jumped the big oxer from a slightly long spot.... it felt like he over jumped it by about 3 feet.... HOLY SCOPE!!!! So... he felt good. We went in and jumped a good round. I didn't ride as best as I could have, but I also fixed things and rode pretty darn well too. It wasn't our prettiest round, but it was clean (despite a few rubs, we got lucky!) and Fleck listened and I helped him mostly and didn't drop him even when I wanted to! He was looking for the next fence and locking on. So it was awesome!!! The two girls ahead of me rode beautiful rounds and also went clean so we finished third. On our dressage score.
But most importantly... Fleck felt amazing all weekend. He jumped his heart out and was having a blast!!! I couldn't have pulled him off a fence if I tried! He was ready to go and having fun and feeling good. BEST FEELING EVER!!!! I'm just so glad that he came back this well. I really think that the prelim courses would have been just fine for him too. THIS tells me that it wasn't prelim, it wasn't him getting sour, it wasn't bad naughty pony. It was discomfort. And when I get him happy... he's ready to rock and roll!!
I'm so glad we're back and better than ever. The third place was icing on the cake. I'm just so thrilled with how good he felt and how confident he felt and how happy he was to be back out there. He had a blast too!!!
