Surf Guitar update -- and good Huey news!
As of our last ultrasound, one of the 2 suspensory lesions is healed. If the other one continues to heal as it's healing now, Huey should be able to resume jumping in September!
And, in news of Surf Guitar...
When I started riding Surf Guitar a month ago, I had already sent in a lot of entries for Huey's spring show season that I hated to lose the chance to go to (and hated to lose the not-so-small entry fees). After our first jumping lesson with our trainer (who also happens to be Surf and Huey's onwer), she felt that we were clicking so well that if we really worked hard and dropped the entries down a level (Huey was moving up to Training - 3'3" division - this spring) that there was no reason that we couldn't plan on going to the BIG SHOW that I wanted to take Huey to...
editorial note: The BIG SHOW is the MCTA Horse Trials at Shawan Downs - a beautiful venue that just happens to be less than 10min down the road from the barn. I drive by it every day and had been looking forward to it all year. There will be another post following this one about the BIG SHOW
So we scrambled around to find a show -- any show -- in the one weekend we had before the BIG SHOW, and settled on a "short course" eventing derby about 1.5hrs away from the farm (an event derby has 2 phases - dressage and a mixed course of cross-country and stadium fences). At first we were going with other folks, but everyone bailed on us, so we made our first totally solo trip away from home. We got to the showgrounds in plenty of time, walked the course, tacked up the horse, and started down to the warmup...
Now Surf is a VERY BIG horse...who has a VERY BIG motor in his rear end...that is VERY SLOW to get going[:)] The best way to get him going is to let him go for a good gallop on a loose rein before asking for any "real work" on the flat. There was very limited space to warm up...and we tried to be polite, but Surf struck terror into the hearts of many small ponies as he went thundering around the edge of the warmup. We put in a very accurate test that I felt pretty good about, but then had to hustle back to the trailer as we only had 20min between dressage and jumping...barely enough time to change our tack, zip up my vest, and put on Surf's boots (we'd done our studs before dressage, as I knew we'd be tight on time...). We headed out to the start box, and had time to pop over each of the warmup fences once before we got our 3 minute call to the box.
Surf was an absolute monkey about getting in the box...seriously, you'd never know this horse has done this HUNDREDS of times. Once we were safely in the box, we got our 10second countdown and we were off on our first cross-country trip. He's a very different horse than Huey...much softer and shyer to his fences...but he's very honest...just likes to get a good look at them first [:)] He shook the rust off over the first 3 fences, then the lightbulb went on and he seemed to remember what cross-country was all about. He took everything on the course in stride -- including the bank that would end up causing a lot of problems for the division.
(as I don't have the prints yet, I've taken pictures of the proofs I ordered )
Up...
and over fence 3
Over the garden gate
]
Heading for home over the last fence
After Surf was cleaned up and put away, I ran up to check our scores. I was amazed to see that we'd gotten the best dressage score of either of our lives -- a 29 (71 in dressage terms) -- and jumped around clean to finish on our dressage score and win our division! It was a great day -- beautiful weather, obedient horse, clean jumping rounds -- and the blue ribbon was just icing on the cake!
We both felt ready for the upcoming BIG show...
After our successful little show outing, we were both feeling pretty confident about the upcoming big show. I had a busy week at work, which meant Surf would get Sunday and Monday off, get ridden Tuesday and Wednesday, get Thursday off, then have one final quick ride friday before Saturday's BIG SHOW. Our trainer was free wednesday, so we scheduled a last-minute stadium jumping tune-up since MCTA was known to have TOUGH stadium courses. We spent the lesson working on fences with spread (wide oxers and triple bars - since I hate them) and tight turns off the rail to lines that lead you to have to alternatingly open and compress Surf's giant stride -- very tough for him. Very tough for me too aparently, as I popped off him and ate dirt twice in the span of 2 minutes, over the same exercise. Not the positive experience I was looking for, heading into our BIG show...
In honor of the dirt-eating session, I decided it was finally time to put some eventing bumper-stickers on my truck
(knock on wood, I still "fall" into the second group
Saturday morning dawned foggy and overcast. Surf was in a cranky mood and was not at all interested in getting in the trailer (another long story). It was raining as we finally got him loaded, and we left much later than anticipated for the show -- at least it was close by and we'd walked our courses the day before. I hustled Surf into his dressage tack, threw in his studs since all 3 phases were on grass, and hastily changed into my dressage duds. Surf was distracted in warmup...and during his test. The judge thought he had a lot of potential, but I need to package him better...and I agree! Overall not too bad for less than a month of working together. The photographer who's posted their pics doesn't have any dressage photos (or stadium) but I'm hoping the other one does!
Now I pause for a moment to give you a link to a slideshow I made of Shawan Downs and the xc course we'd be riding...it's short, and worth seeing what a BEAUTIFUL facility this is...and what kind of jumps we were up against:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v692/tarheelmd07/?action=view¤t=97e3df1d.pbw
We hustled into our showjumping tack and ran down to the warmup. Showjumping proved problematic for a lot of folks...lots of tight turns and lines that required adjustability...just what we'd worked on in our lesson! Surf jumped around like a star and had the fastest round of our division...and left all the rails in the cups!
We had a little break before cross-country, but before I knew it, we were on our way to the box. Surf came out of the box looking for his fences and just cruising along. He jumped everything without batting an eye and came in almost a full minute under time.
Here he is over fence 8
Over the big roll-top at 11
And up the bank
He ended up finishing 8th out of his division of 18 -- not too bad for our first recognized show! We're going to do another Novice HT the end of May, then hopefully move up to Training in June
And, in news of Surf Guitar...
When I started riding Surf Guitar a month ago, I had already sent in a lot of entries for Huey's spring show season that I hated to lose the chance to go to (and hated to lose the not-so-small entry fees). After our first jumping lesson with our trainer (who also happens to be Surf and Huey's onwer), she felt that we were clicking so well that if we really worked hard and dropped the entries down a level (Huey was moving up to Training - 3'3" division - this spring) that there was no reason that we couldn't plan on going to the BIG SHOW that I wanted to take Huey to...
editorial note: The BIG SHOW is the MCTA Horse Trials at Shawan Downs - a beautiful venue that just happens to be less than 10min down the road from the barn. I drive by it every day and had been looking forward to it all year. There will be another post following this one about the BIG SHOW
So we scrambled around to find a show -- any show -- in the one weekend we had before the BIG SHOW, and settled on a "short course" eventing derby about 1.5hrs away from the farm (an event derby has 2 phases - dressage and a mixed course of cross-country and stadium fences). At first we were going with other folks, but everyone bailed on us, so we made our first totally solo trip away from home. We got to the showgrounds in plenty of time, walked the course, tacked up the horse, and started down to the warmup...
Now Surf is a VERY BIG horse...who has a VERY BIG motor in his rear end...that is VERY SLOW to get going[:)] The best way to get him going is to let him go for a good gallop on a loose rein before asking for any "real work" on the flat. There was very limited space to warm up...and we tried to be polite, but Surf struck terror into the hearts of many small ponies as he went thundering around the edge of the warmup. We put in a very accurate test that I felt pretty good about, but then had to hustle back to the trailer as we only had 20min between dressage and jumping...barely enough time to change our tack, zip up my vest, and put on Surf's boots (we'd done our studs before dressage, as I knew we'd be tight on time...). We headed out to the start box, and had time to pop over each of the warmup fences once before we got our 3 minute call to the box.
Surf was an absolute monkey about getting in the box...seriously, you'd never know this horse has done this HUNDREDS of times. Once we were safely in the box, we got our 10second countdown and we were off on our first cross-country trip. He's a very different horse than Huey...much softer and shyer to his fences...but he's very honest...just likes to get a good look at them first [:)] He shook the rust off over the first 3 fences, then the lightbulb went on and he seemed to remember what cross-country was all about. He took everything on the course in stride -- including the bank that would end up causing a lot of problems for the division.
(as I don't have the prints yet, I've taken pictures of the proofs I ordered )
Up...
and over fence 3
Over the garden gate
]
Heading for home over the last fence
After Surf was cleaned up and put away, I ran up to check our scores. I was amazed to see that we'd gotten the best dressage score of either of our lives -- a 29 (71 in dressage terms) -- and jumped around clean to finish on our dressage score and win our division! It was a great day -- beautiful weather, obedient horse, clean jumping rounds -- and the blue ribbon was just icing on the cake!
We both felt ready for the upcoming BIG show...
After our successful little show outing, we were both feeling pretty confident about the upcoming big show. I had a busy week at work, which meant Surf would get Sunday and Monday off, get ridden Tuesday and Wednesday, get Thursday off, then have one final quick ride friday before Saturday's BIG SHOW. Our trainer was free wednesday, so we scheduled a last-minute stadium jumping tune-up since MCTA was known to have TOUGH stadium courses. We spent the lesson working on fences with spread (wide oxers and triple bars - since I hate them) and tight turns off the rail to lines that lead you to have to alternatingly open and compress Surf's giant stride -- very tough for him. Very tough for me too aparently, as I popped off him and ate dirt twice in the span of 2 minutes, over the same exercise. Not the positive experience I was looking for, heading into our BIG show...
In honor of the dirt-eating session, I decided it was finally time to put some eventing bumper-stickers on my truck
(knock on wood, I still "fall" into the second group
Saturday morning dawned foggy and overcast. Surf was in a cranky mood and was not at all interested in getting in the trailer (another long story). It was raining as we finally got him loaded, and we left much later than anticipated for the show -- at least it was close by and we'd walked our courses the day before. I hustled Surf into his dressage tack, threw in his studs since all 3 phases were on grass, and hastily changed into my dressage duds. Surf was distracted in warmup...and during his test. The judge thought he had a lot of potential, but I need to package him better...and I agree! Overall not too bad for less than a month of working together. The photographer who's posted their pics doesn't have any dressage photos (or stadium) but I'm hoping the other one does!
Now I pause for a moment to give you a link to a slideshow I made of Shawan Downs and the xc course we'd be riding...it's short, and worth seeing what a BEAUTIFUL facility this is...and what kind of jumps we were up against:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v692/tarheelmd07/?action=view¤t=97e3df1d.pbw
We hustled into our showjumping tack and ran down to the warmup. Showjumping proved problematic for a lot of folks...lots of tight turns and lines that required adjustability...just what we'd worked on in our lesson! Surf jumped around like a star and had the fastest round of our division...and left all the rails in the cups!
We had a little break before cross-country, but before I knew it, we were on our way to the box. Surf came out of the box looking for his fences and just cruising along. He jumped everything without batting an eye and came in almost a full minute under time.
Here he is over fence 8
Over the big roll-top at 11
And up the bank
He ended up finishing 8th out of his division of 18 -- not too bad for our first recognized show! We're going to do another Novice HT the end of May, then hopefully move up to Training in June