I have always loved horses and will never give them up. They are my life and one of my greatest enjoyments. Here's my journey through my first show season back in the hunter ring.
Well, since I'm on a roll with posting, might as well get it all out! I am happy to say that Ronin so far is doing great in the season standings :)
He is currently in 2nd place in the AA hunters (there currently are 20 horses on the list, but these are the top 5). We are also currently in 3rd place for the medal where they bring back the top 20 for the final (currently 36 on the list).
Well, not flowers perhaps, but a bunch of new followers! I was very excited to see that my best friend from college shared my blog on hers. She has a bunch of followers and gets to do the things that I wish I could do. The barn I ride at doesn't have trails and since he is more of a show horse, I don't always get to do all the fun things she gets to do. I would love to go gallop in an open field and really see how big he can run. Although, with my luck, Ronin would rip off a shoe in all of the excitement.
I just wanted to say hi to everyone and welcome you to my blog. Ronin and I have a bit of a break from showing and our next show will be in the middle of June. May was quite busy for both of us and we could both use a break.
After showing in the TOC, I will be working on doing work off tests for fun just to keep both of our skills up. On Monday, I hacked Ronin in the outdoor ring and practiced doing some lateral work. Some of the tests at TOC that pretty much no one completed well were doing simple changes of lead down a rail and a turn on the haunch. So, I practiced those! Ronin was great. We did three simple changes of lead through the walk down the straight line and he nailed every one. When you do three simple changes, you end on the counter canter, so I held them though the turn, did a half turn in reverse (where you come off the rail and roll back into it) and did three more simple changes down the long side. Happy to say that he was great, did every change clean and held the counter canter like a pro. Then did some turn on the haunches and I made sure that they were at a walk and he did not go backward and kept his hind feet moving.
I was also inspired from watching the Rolex Three day (a number of weeks ago) and was very keen on the turn on the haunch they were doing and how critical it was to keep the horse's hind end engaged. The commentators were great and gave a ton of critique and praise on what was well done and what needed work.
I will attempt to keep posting about what we are working on and the prep we will be going through to keep Ronin in showing shape. Yesterday, when I went to the barn to ride, Ronin had decided that he wanted to be a palomino instead of a grey. His whole body was yellow from rolling in the sand!
Sunday morning, it was up at 5am to drive to Centenary College and the IHSA Alumni Tournament of Champions. Any current IHSA alumni can enter and who wouldn't want the chance to ride at Centenary College. Centenary has a ton of amazing horses who are donated to the college, which has a huge equine studies program. The program can give the appropriate care to extend the useful life of a horse who cannot compete in the regular show world, either due to quirks or soundness issues. They carefully maintain the horses and give them all the correct treatment they need so they are happy and healthy. My first IHSA trainer from college works there now and she is an amazing horseman, with so much knowledge and love and care for the horses.
Centenary has a beautiful indoor ring and an amazing facility.
So, I was showing in the second class, 2'6" Over Fences, and there were 25 entered! Yowza. The first class, 2'3" Over Fences, only had 7, so that was going to go quicker. Then, I was showing the the Alumni Cup class (17 entered), which was also 2'6" and has a flat phase. So three fences classes to start, then lunch break, then three flat classes (Basic, Advanced, and Cup). There were 2 heats of each and a final. We started the day with drawing the jumping classes and I drew 7 for the 2'6" class and Jimmy (a very nice hunter type horse). We then drew for the Cup and I drew 14, Nick, another very nice hunter type who was a bit larger and longer than Jimmy. I saw both horses warm up and they were lovely. Soft, forward, consistent; everything you could want in a horse you have never ridden before.
So the first course started with a single, then a bending line, a rollback, another rollback, then a single. A great course that really tests your ability to ride as there are choices to make and you can change your track depending on the horse you have and their stride. Jimmy was wonderful. He had a very soft mouth and the horse holder (who had schooled him) told me to get him in front of the leg and have soft hands. He did everything I wanted. Here is the video:
I had a good round, just a little deep to the birch vertical, but I was very happy with it. I went 7th in the order, so I had quite some time to wait. Plus, my friend was going 12th, so I went to help her mount and didn't get to really see anyone go. Towards the end of the class, I stayed by the ring to see if there was going to be a call back. With the last 3 riders to go, they gave a call back and my number was on it! They said it was in no particular order, but after everyone went, they did the call back in reverse order of preference, and I was sitting in 1st! So it was back on Jimmy and back to the ring. Well, I haven't done a workoff in a very long time and it showed :( Jump 1 was good, but I messed up to the second fence and was dropped to 4th. Still! A good showing out of 25. I was very happy with my first round and after the show, I was able to look at the judges card. Every fence was written down as nice with a simple "ᴖ", which means a normal distance. She scored me as an '81' which is a good score, especially for going so early.
Then, it was to the Cup class. The cup course was similar to the 2'6" one in that it was a single to the same bending line, then to a different bending line across the ring, halt, trot a fence, then a roll back, but the roll back that was in the first class (which almost everyone went on the inside track), this one you had to hand gallop the last fence, so pretty much everyone went around in order to show the hand gallop. I pulled Nick and was told that he was more of a hunter but had been a dressage horse so he could come back and be very ride-able if asked. All told, he was great! He had a HUGE stride, so the lines rode very easy even with bending them out. The rider told me he gets anxious to the trot jump so to hold my body. I also do not like trot jumps and was very conscience of it. The only thing I did not like about my course was that I was deep to the last fence. I got his stride too big and didn't reset his stride before heading to the last fence so he was at the end of his step and the 'big' one wasn't there, so I settled for the deeper take off. Still happy and I scored a 76, which was a very respectable and fair score and at the end of the class, I was in 4th!
Again, a lot of IHSA is luck of the draw and how you are able to adapt to who you have. I got very lucky with my fences draws in that they were my type of ride and they were big. I am 5'10" and have a harder time riding smaller horses simply because of my height (my balance is more easily thrown off on a small horse because there is not much there). Both horses were great and very fun to ride. Jimmy was super and light; Nick landed off the fences a little harder (he jumped a little bigger), but was still super and had a great feel to him.
Then it was a wait til the flat portion. I drew '6' in section B of the Cup flat. The horse I pulled was very nice, but was hard to ride. He didn't like the other horses coming up behind him and would scoot a little and do a little buck/kick. The judge wasn't penalizing this because she had seen the horse do this with every rider, but in my canter, he tripped really hard and practically fell on his face. When we recovered, he was on the wrong lead and I did a simple change to the correct lead. After the flat, I was not called back. I was disappointed since I had a good round and was hopping that my flat wasn't too bad. When I looked at the judge's card (after the show), she had circled my number and written down "broke". So all she had seen was me change the lead, not the huge trip that caused it. Oh well, so as it goes.
I still had a great time and the amount of camaraderie at the show was great. It was very competitive, but fun.
And now, for the best part. So, while I was watching schooling in the morning, I noticed a big black warmblood going around. I was talking with the photographer (who rode IHSA from my old region and was showing too) about the horses and told her that the big black horse, Brewster, looked just like my old equitation horse. I couldn't believe the similarities, same dishy head, LAZY, same build, and a little late on the hind change if you didn't keep him forward. When I was helping someone from my new region get on, I asked one of the Centenary riders who the horse was because he looked just like my old eq. horse. She told me that his show name is "Gotham City". OMG! He is my old eq. horse. I rode this horse when he was 11 in 2003 and did all the big eq. classes on him before he sold to a trainer on the east coast. Brewster was my Batman. I went up to him and gave him a big hug and kiss.
It's Batman!
Big kiss for my old man
USET class on the grass in 2003
He looks great. And Centenary will take excellent care of him and keep him happy and healthy for a long time. I couldn't be happier with where he ended up.
So this past weekend, my husband and I went up to NYC to visit his sister and her new baby. We arrived Friday night around 8pm. We had planned on arriving around 6pm, but my adult brain completely forgot my helmet at the barn, so we had to make the two hour round trip down to the barn to pick it up. I had an odd week and it really threw me through a loop. I rode Monday and Wednesday as normal, but also went down on Tuesday (for Ronin's shoes and to ride an extra horse) and Thursday (since I worked from home so we could leave early to go to NY). Well, I botched that plan. Thankfully, we still didn't hit too much traffic and had a good drive up to the city.
So my husband ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon Saturday morning. He is such an inspiration. I have never been a runner (he ran cross country in high school and has been running ever since), but I have been trying to pick it up. I have been doing a walk-run program (of my own design) to slowly increase my amount of running. I go for 30 minutes and vary the amount of running in a 5 minute segment (started with 4 walk and 1 run). I now am up to 2 minutes of walk and 3 minutes of run, then repeat. I used to be up to 4 minutes of run with 1 walk, but this winter derailed me with several foot/heal injuries and I had to restart in March. As soon as it starts to feel easy, I finish out the week (I usually run M, W, F and do Pilates on T, R) and up it the next week.
Well, back to my husband who was amazing Saturday morning. He had a goal of running a 7:45 average pace. And he did! He actually ended up running a 7:42 average pace. There were a total of 40,000 people entered in the race and about 25,000 actually completed (many didn't show up at all). But it was really fun; the course gave many opportunities to see the runners. And the morning was beautiful; perfect conditions for running (cool and low humidity) and the course was mostly in the shade. I dropped him off at security and walked to the 1.5 mile marker. And to my surprise (it was at a cool circle with a huge monument) there was a farmer's market going on and there was a GF baker! So I got an apple muffin for breakfast and waited for the race to start.
Monument at the Circle
GF Baker at the Farmer's Market
Start of the race with a truck that shows the elapsed time
The Speedsters: the 1st place winner had a time around an hour, CRAZY
After he passed (I didn't get to snap a photo), I walked down to the 6 mile marker (the course did a lot of doubling back on itself) which was about 1 mile from where I was. Saw him there and took a pic :)
Looking good!
After he passed the 6 mile marker, I hopped on the F train down to Coney Island to meet him at the finish. The race was very fun and lots of people to cheer on the runners.
Finsihed in 1:42:06!
Then we took the train back to his sister's apartment, had lunch at a deli and rested and relaxed. His sister took us to dinner at an amazing taco place and the food was great. All the tacos were GF and delicious!
Then early to bed to leave at 6am for the Tournament of Champions!!!
So the month of May was pretty busy for both myself and Mr. Ronin. The first weekend in May was IHSA Nationals where I competed in the Alumni Over Fences class Friday morning.
6am - Schooling of horses
Course Walk
I drew number '6', which meant that I rode 6th in the 'order of go' out of 16 and the horse was named "Alabama", a horse that I had seen go on Thursday that was quite cute and very willing. I noted that the horse was quite good at adding a small step before the fence if you leaned up the neck or didn't support with leg at each distance. I watched a couple of horses go, then got on and adjusted my stirrups and got ready to ride. I was happy with my fences as I was able to get her around well, just a tad deep to one fence, but I missed the last lead change for a few strides and the judges heavily penalized my score for it, a 71. After all the riders went, I ended up 12th; oh well, there is always next year (and I have the Alumni Tournament of Champions next weekend on the 18th to look forward to).
After Nationals, I drove down to the barn to get the horses ready to go to the BEST horse show. The horses were leaving earlier than normal (at 2pm) on Friday so that we could school a couple horses. One of the young horses that I help out with (he is just 5) needed to be schooled as it was his first show since last season (August) and he can be quite a handful. We wanted to make sure that he had time to settle and school well before he and his rider showed on Saturday. So I hoped on him and schooled him around both rings. He was great! A little distracted about the ring when flatting, but once we started jumping he focused well and jumped around both rings very well. I then helped one of our other riders school her horse too. Her horse is normally very quite, but there was a giant flock of geese outside of the ring that he was spooking at so we did a lot of serpentine, circle, and transition work to get him focused on his job. Once he was settled, she jumped him around and ended really well.
Saturday went great for both Ronin and I and the whole barn. I first rode the young horse in one division to make sure he went well as he can sometimes go 'green' when he goes in his first class. He got good ribbons in his classes and went very well. We only had 6 riders at this show (small for our barn), but we swept each division; we had Champion and Reserve (where we had two compete)! Great day for the barn. Then it was my turn to show and Ronin was super. We were second and first in the fences class and fourth on the flat. I was very happy with how he went and we were Champion in the division out of 8! There was only one other adult, so we were combined with the Children's Hunters, so the class was a decent size. Then the medal class, which originally only had 3 in it (needs 4 to go) was originally going to be cancelled, then another rider filled it. So the class went and we were second. The judge said that she had a really hard time judging the class as we were all good and even tested us the second direction on the flat by having us drop our stirrups. Good thing I've been practicing for IHSA :)
Ronin very pleased with himself
This show was also a Thoroughbred Alliance show, so there were some special classes that I did that only horses who were breed to race can show in. We were fifth in the 2'9"-3' hunter class out of a good amount of horses and sixth in the Handy class out of 19! He was super. He was good in the derby, but one of the fences was in a shadow at the top of the ring and was dark brown, so he didn't see it and stopped; but came right back around and jumped it great. Lot's of horses had trouble at that fence. The class didn't start til around 7pm and the lights had to come on. Many horses didn't see the top rail at all and had it down. Many horses also just had some trouble with the fences (even though they had jumped them all during the day) because the lights make the ring completely different and the ring only has light on the side and not on the end, which makes a lot of dark spots in the end of the rings. I was still very happy with Ronin and put him to bed after the class.
The next day didn't go as well as the first as Ronin was quite tired. In hindsight, I will never do that many classes again. It is too many and not fair (I don't understand how people can do 2-3 divisions at every show!). He was still good, but tired. We were third, second, and third (two fences and an under saddle class).
Tired Ronin
Then it was home and back again the next weekend for a regular BEST show. This time, we arrived at our normal time on Friday (leaving the barn at 6pm). I schooled the young horse again and he was good. We had 6 horses arrive on Friday and 6 more on Saturday morning, plus the 2 who come from another barn. This was the biggest show for the barn so far this year with a total of 14 horses. The barn did great and there were many champions and reserves over the weekend. Ronin was good, but a little speedier than normal so we got medium prizes in the classes. Third in the medal; third, second, and fourth in my division. The next day, he was much better and we were third in the medal out of 6. I thought I had a really good round, but the judge seemed to like the bigger, slower warmbloods. Also, the lines were set very short, so we had a really hard time with the strides down the lines. We kept getting out short, so we didn't place very well. But he was good.
Had to add this pic. As anyone with a grey horse knows, poop is the enemy of a clean grey horse. I had picked his stall clean the Saturday night, but Ronin made a 'poop pillow' and his whole cheek, ear, and the top half of his neck was, quite literally, covered in poop. I wish I had a pic of his head, but I was worried about getting him clean in time, so just bathed him quickly before my 8am class.
Thankfully, Ronin has a nice break before the next show. He doesn't show until June 14-15 at BEST. However, this weekend, my husband and I are heading up to NYC for him to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon on Saturday and for me to compete at Centenary College at the IHSA Alumni Tournament of Champions! I am very excited for this and can't wait :)
