Harden Horse Trials

Well, I'm utterly rooted. But triumphant! The weekend proved really great experience for us both, and has given me confidence that we just need to keep working on the same big issues before things will get to where I want them.

I was drawn to do my dressage at 12:50pm-ish so I actually managed to get there around 11:45am, which, considering I was leaving behind two little kids, a husband, two dogs, two horses and seven chickens, wasn't bad. A bit later than I would have liked, not knowing how Tux was going to react to the whole thing, but not bad. I plaited up before I left so I really didn't have to do anything to him except brush the mud off him (didn't have the time, weather or facilities to wash him!), saddle up and squeeze into my jacket. My poor old jacket....I've had it since I was 18 and it's seen me through two post-pregnancy/breastfeeding periods, and not very well! I really struggle to do the buttons up these days - might have to invest in one that can cope with big boobs!!

Anyhoo....dressage was remarkably un-bad. Considering he just would not trot only a couple of months ago (possibly weeks ago, now I think about it), he pulled out some very nice trot-work indeed. The judge was not a fan, however, and simply gave us 4, 5 or 6 for every movement, very few comments and simply wrote, 'tension throughout test', at the end. Not what I'd call a helpful, encouraging or even polite dressage judge. And of course she printed her name illegibly so I don't know who she is. I'm so glad I get to experience these judges so I can do a far better job of judging myself. The sad thing is, she's probably quite experienced. At being discouraging.

So, equal 30th was our placing after dressage (out of 34 - there were actually a couple of poor souls who scored worse than we did), but our spirits were high after a fantastic night sleep. I had such an aching back after walking the XC course twice and traipsing around fetching and carrying, not to mention riding, that I popped a couple of panadeine and chugged a stubbie of good ole Tooheys New, and promptly fell asleep before 6pm. Fully clothed. And stood my mate Tricia and her son Jett up for dinner. Not good ju-ju. Sorry Tricia! Luckily, the motel did a pretty decent chicken minion room service and I got a late dinner when I finally woke up a couple of hours later!

The showjump course was absolutely perfect for green horses and riders - a basic figure of 8 with a lovely two stride double at the end. Tux was a complete tool in the warm up and just kept bolting every practice jump, especially once he got to the other side. I was a bit nervous about how that would play out in the ring, but he actually pulled his shit together and jumped pretty nicely. Considering. We had a rail at the first element of the double because he only noticed the second element as he was taking off over the first and dropped his back legs on the pole. No biggie.

XC was an absolute blast. It was truly mountain goaty and had some great variety for the little grades. Usually every jump is a log of some kind when you're doing baby grades, but this one had ditches and little houses, even a little log to jump into the water (open-flagged so you could just trot into the water if you weren't up to the log - we did the log). Really awesome. And Tux ate it up, though we did have a couple of arguments about how we were going to do things. I won. But the arguing did put us almost 40 seconds over time. Also no biggie for our first one, and lots of things to work on.

His hooves seem to have seriously become high performance. The ground was very forgiving across the country, except for a bloody great steep gravel road that Tux simply cantered down. Quite balanced and controlled, no ouchy moments, no stone bruises. The horse is a machine. We did have one big slip at the end of the course as he was getting very tired and was just starting to quit listening. I had to haul him around to get over the last and his whole back end went out from under him. I don't blame a lack of studs, quite the contrary, shoes and studs would have been pretty useless in the soft going and gravel. We had the advantage for sure!

Very happy we stayed together and I didn't get a dunking in the freezing water on quite a chilly day. It was a great weekend and I'm quite looking forward to more stuff with him. We've got a local dressage comp this Sunday and I'm interested to see if he will be a bit more settled. Next weekend is a XC clinic with Sam Lyle and the following weekend is Wagga Wagga Horse Trials and we step up to Intro. I'll keep you posted!