Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Moving Up Or...?
I haven't been able to post lately because I've been soooo busy! After River Glen, we decided to start looking towards running Novice at Poplar in September. We've schooled cross country & worked on a tons of dressage work since. Last time we went schooling, the weather wasn't in our favor & Dargenzio was a little sticky to everything. Thats not good at all. So, we will be going cross country schooling again this week! If everything goes well, we will stay at Novice. If not, we'll run Beginner Novice & have a good, confidence building round for Genzo. Soooo, hopefully he will be good! We have decided that we will be breeding Savannah to my trainer's stallion, San City, next season! She is having a Repro exam sometime this year (in the next few weeks, haven't scheduled it yet) & then will hopefully be bred in March or April, next year! I'm very excited for this baby in 2015!
Monday, August 5, 2013
Ride Like You Want To Win...
"Ride the horse you have underneath you, not the one you wish you had underneath you or the one you had five minutes ago. Ride the horse that is underneath you, in that moment, and you will succeed."
Arriving at River Glen on Wednesday had its perks. I met a few very nice, knowledgeable competitors that really helped me out. One of these very wise people told me this when I mentioned that this was Dargenzio's first Horse Trial. Needless to say, I lived by this quote all weekend. Thursday morning was an interesting ride but I kept remembering that quote in my head. This horse was not the horse I left Florida with, this horse was an unfocused nutjob. I rode that horse. By the end of the ride, he was phenomenal. He still wasn't the same horse I left Florida with, but he was being great. Thursday night, I had a completely different horse. This horse was made. This horse sat on his butt, focused only on me, & tried his heart out. This was the horse I knew. At midnight on Friday, my phone lit up while I was asleep. I was (impatiently) waiting for my trainer to arrive & she had left earlier on Thursday, but was having truck problems. I woke up to see that it was my trainer calling & texting me, because she had broke down. My Dad left to get them & they arrived around 8 am, the next morning. We had a great ride on Friday, & that horse was the horse I wanted to ride down centerline on Saturday. That horse was forward, collected, & balanced. Did I ride that horse down centerline? Of course not. The horse I rode down centerline was lazy, not responding to my leg & was off balance. But I still rode the horse I had underneath me. We had an okay test with very few marks above 7 so I came out with a "happy with that test, just because we finished" attitude. I told my trainer that I didn't come for a ribbon so I was pretty happy with that test. That is when she told me that I should ride like I want to win, because then I will always ride better... That really came to mind when show jumping came around & I rode like I wanted to win. He was awesome in show jumping & went over everything like a champ. Our show jumping course was pretty tough but we took it with ease. We were sitting in first place on our dressage score of a 36.7, that I was happy with. We had a 6 point lead, going into cross country. We went clean on cross country but had some time faults (that we shouldn't have had), & finished in fourth place. I was a little upset because my watch was correct & there was no way I went 30 seconds too slow. Dargenzio's stride is massive & we galloped the whole course. My watch read us at 5:15 (which was really 5:10 since I started my watch at 5 seconds, in the start box) & the optimum time was 5:04. But, the jump judge's watch read differently. I think whatever went wrong, time wise, was in the start box since the girl in front of me was having a hard time getting over jumps 1 & 2, & finally was eliminated at 2. All I can say is, oh well. I wanted that blue ribbon but I obviously didn't get it. Dargenzio took our fourth place ribbon & threw it to the other side of his stall, so he wasn't very pleased with it either. On the bright side, we had a GREAT run on cross country & we will be running Novice at the September Horse Trial at Poplar! I am ordering photos from River Glen so hopefully I can post those soon :D
Arriving at River Glen on Wednesday had its perks. I met a few very nice, knowledgeable competitors that really helped me out. One of these very wise people told me this when I mentioned that this was Dargenzio's first Horse Trial. Needless to say, I lived by this quote all weekend. Thursday morning was an interesting ride but I kept remembering that quote in my head. This horse was not the horse I left Florida with, this horse was an unfocused nutjob. I rode that horse. By the end of the ride, he was phenomenal. He still wasn't the same horse I left Florida with, but he was being great. Thursday night, I had a completely different horse. This horse was made. This horse sat on his butt, focused only on me, & tried his heart out. This was the horse I knew. At midnight on Friday, my phone lit up while I was asleep. I was (impatiently) waiting for my trainer to arrive & she had left earlier on Thursday, but was having truck problems. I woke up to see that it was my trainer calling & texting me, because she had broke down. My Dad left to get them & they arrived around 8 am, the next morning. We had a great ride on Friday, & that horse was the horse I wanted to ride down centerline on Saturday. That horse was forward, collected, & balanced. Did I ride that horse down centerline? Of course not. The horse I rode down centerline was lazy, not responding to my leg & was off balance. But I still rode the horse I had underneath me. We had an okay test with very few marks above 7 so I came out with a "happy with that test, just because we finished" attitude. I told my trainer that I didn't come for a ribbon so I was pretty happy with that test. That is when she told me that I should ride like I want to win, because then I will always ride better... That really came to mind when show jumping came around & I rode like I wanted to win. He was awesome in show jumping & went over everything like a champ. Our show jumping course was pretty tough but we took it with ease. We were sitting in first place on our dressage score of a 36.7, that I was happy with. We had a 6 point lead, going into cross country. We went clean on cross country but had some time faults (that we shouldn't have had), & finished in fourth place. I was a little upset because my watch was correct & there was no way I went 30 seconds too slow. Dargenzio's stride is massive & we galloped the whole course. My watch read us at 5:15 (which was really 5:10 since I started my watch at 5 seconds, in the start box) & the optimum time was 5:04. But, the jump judge's watch read differently. I think whatever went wrong, time wise, was in the start box since the girl in front of me was having a hard time getting over jumps 1 & 2, & finally was eliminated at 2. All I can say is, oh well. I wanted that blue ribbon but I obviously didn't get it. Dargenzio took our fourth place ribbon & threw it to the other side of his stall, so he wasn't very pleased with it either. On the bright side, we had a GREAT run on cross country & we will be running Novice at the September Horse Trial at Poplar! I am ordering photos from River Glen so hopefully I can post those soon :D
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)