Musings on how to make my goal happen ...

Decided that for my current goal, show wise, I want to ride in a Horse Trial at the Chattahoochee Hills Eventing facility October 29-31st. Spent Sunday at the Area III eventing championships, and was just SO excited at the thought of galloping around the beautiful farm. I saw lots of beautiful horses, nice turnout, riders that really praised their horses, and a SUPER FUN looking course! Of course ... the BN stuff looked HUGE, and definitely asked some tough questions. I'm sure the table jumps were max height, wide, and very solid. The latter half of the course had a big, wide table jump to a combination of a log rolltop to a ditch; then a gallop to a cabin; then another rolltop log jumping RIGHT towards the water complex. It was only about 4 strides into the water, then another big table jump coming out. There were a few random freestanding jumps, then a drop off a bank, and a gallop up a ramp, down a ramp, and out over ANOTHER of one of those huge table jumps, lol. I'm telling y'all, so long as my horse jumped without hesitation, it would ride SO FUN! So, there it is. My next goal:)

Thursday, I walked hills bareback. Today, continued where we left off the other day, and I worked on committing to LET GO of his face. He did NOT feel stiff, trot felt really nice. Canter transitions were great, just once we got there he wants to lose a little impulsion and lean a bit. Had my same jumps set on the center diagonal; a 2'9 vertical and a 2'6 vertical with a blue barrel under it. Turned my low bounce cavs into my 3' stack jump, and warmed up by trotting into the barrel jump. I've decided to work on asking him to trust me and be BRAVE to the jump, so I'm going to try not to show him too much for now. He didn't even give it a bat of an eye, just hopped right over. Did that again, then cantered around the 3 jumps SEVERAL times, getting a flying change when needed, and trying to half halt and get him straight without hanging on him. As we continuted jumping, I could feel him getting flat to the jumps and speeding up. SAT down, half halted, and it felt better. Let him catch his breath, then decided to trot the 3 jumps to finish because one of the pieces of advice I've gotten to get him jumping xc jumps well is to TROT in. Uh, it may only be 2'7 max, but those suckers look HUGE! So, trotted the barrel (perfect), then the 2'9 (perfect), then (gulp) the cav oxer. He was GREAT over it:) I could feel how much more round he was over it; certainly took care of our 'too flat' problem. I feel some more trot jumps in our future:)

Leaving FRIDAY for our annual cruise! We get back the 29th, then it's a benefit trail ride at the amazing Foxhall Farms on June 5. The next weekend, it's the JEFF COOK clinic, yee haw! Can't wait:) Hoping to squeeze another visit to Calimar Farm in there at some point to play in the xc field again:D