Monday, June 10, 2013

Bowling at Bromont...

When you have a 13 hour drive home it is not ideal to finish on a poor performance and our 5 rails in show jumping goes beyond poor.... The only up side is that it is giving me plenty of time to set up my summer calendar with as many jumper shows as I can find.  There's really no other way to get past the hurdle of figuring out how to get Riley to jump well on the last day.  While he has been consistently improving in all aspects both at home and in the warm-up area I do not end up with the same horse in the ring... So more time in the ring is imperative before we start back up again in the fall.  Don't be surprised if you don't see me at any horse trials until August... we're going to go back to the "good old days" and will pretend that we don't have a full calender of events to choose from over the summer.  Instead I'll focus on the technical aspects and training  instead.  Hopefully the results will speak for themselves by the time we head out to Richland Park!


Saturday, June 8, 2013

Cross-country day at Bromont

While the internet connection at Bromont has been less than stellar... Riley has been super!
Especailly today...He really rose to the occasion and the only reason I did not come home with a clear round was simply due to not knowing him well enough yet.

No one would guess that he is still fairly new to this level. The course was big, long, very technical, and with the rain we had the night before the going was deep. Plus Bromont is known as a fitness test as it is set, literally, along the side of a mountain... Riley came out of the box and made easy work of the beginning of the course including 4ab which was a challenging water question early on. He was then very sharp through the coffin and bold over all the big ditch questions. We were only about 3 seconds down at the 3 minute mark and going strong including a great jump into the 2nd water where we had to land and make a 90 degree turn to a skinny angled brush followed by 3 long strides to a brush corner. He flew over the next 2 fences easily then I wanted to take advantage of one of the few long, straight, slightly downhill gallops so really let him cruise on... unfortunately at the end of that long gallop was a 6 foot drop, with nothing before it, where we had to land and make a 90 degree left hand turn to line up 2 skinny cabins that were only 1 stride apart and just 4 strides from  the landing of the drop. I learned something about Riley... he does not come back easily after a long gallop if he does not see something in front of him... and he does not hesitate at drops, he launches! It's one of those things that you learn in the moment... and with this particular combination there was absolutely no room to fix it as you go. We didn't even get near the first cabin so I had to circle and he jumped then perfectly once I re-approached. He just had no idea that we needed to turn to something and there was no way I could physically turn him after the effort he made off of the drop.  Picture thanks to Nicholas!  Many times a challenging question like that will be given separate numbers to give you the opportunity to circle without being penalized but Derek (the course designer) was definitely playing hard ball with us so we incurred 20 penalties.






















After that happened I decided that the rest of the course would show me what Riley was made of from a fitness standpoint so I kept a pretty forward rhythm but did not press him as I wanted him to finish well and knew we were out of the running.  He made such easy work of the rest of the course and didn't bat an eye at anything. We finished strong and in very good form and only 45 seconds over the time. No doubt he's going to be a 4* horse by next year! So far he lookds quite perky and is feeling very good.  We jog tomorrow morning and show jump sometime after lunch... and we're still in 11th place as the course caused quite a few problems throughout the division.

And not to totally dismiss dressage day I'll back track... Riley was 3rd after the dressage and showed all the makings of being able to lead the field after the first day.  Unfortunately he still needs to learn to relax a bit more in a big environment.  His way of showing his anxiety was to toss his head for a stride at the beginning of each movement...  even though it was just 1 stride it happened about 8 times so no matter how great the other parts were it really brings the score down. DOC actually asked if he'd gotten his tongue over the bit since he showed no other signs of tension and was moving the best he ever has.  So we still have plenty to improve upon but I'm so excited at what we've been able to accomplish in such a short time!




Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Accepted!

Always such a great word to hear at the jog... And accepted we were!  Our first official day at Bromont was certainly a good start with beautiful weather and Riley feeling his best.  The only interesting part of the day came after the jog when several of us were informed that our snaffles were not legal bits for dressage... Apparently the new rule (or old one that no one ever knew) says that if you cannot find a picture of your bit in the rule book it is not legal... period.  So my loose ring snaffle is no good for Friday.  Anyone that has travelled with me knows that I always pack at least a dozen "just in case" bits. Well it turns out that I have been so pleased with Riley's preparation that for the first time ever I did not pack extras and therefore have an excuse to go bit shopping tomorrow.  There truly is always something! At least I can say now that if our dressage score is not in the 40's it must be due to having to change his bit (and if it is in the 40's he's just a really good boy that doesn't really care what bit he has in his mouth!).

But dressage is not until Friday morning so tomorrow we'll head out for a cross-country preview and I'll have my trusty photographer Nicholas in tow...  I'm sure Derek has plenty of interesting challenges in store for us :)




Tuesday, June 4, 2013

River King's Journey to Bromont

At 1 AM this morning River King (aka Riley) loaded on the trailer to head from Virginia to Bromont but the real journey began back in January...shortly after the FEI announced the new qualifications based on categorizing riders.  You see, we were able to put together a syndicate to purchase Riley last fall by drumming up interest in having another horse that could potentially travel to compete at the Blenheim Palace Horse Trials in 2013 by way of the Bromont CCI*** in the spring.  Obviously there would be many challenges along the way but the FEI threw in a completely unexpected one when the qualifications changed and Riley and I essentially had to start from square one.  This meant that I had to find a way to complete, with a qualifying result, 1 CIC*, 1 CIC**, 1 CCI** and 1 CIC*** along with an Advanced horse trial or two.  Not a completely outrageous plan but when we took into account the competition calendar and the fact that the first FEI competition did not take place until March we realized there would be many miles to travel...

Without detailing all of the spring competitions I will say that the event I felt was the least productive for us was the CIC* at Red Hills which happened to come two weeks after Riley's first Advanced run at Pine Top (where he finished 7th).  I have no problem with the idea of getting to know a horse at a lower level but the way it fit into the calendar made the 1* something that Riley had no respect for...he even had the most show jumping rails down there of any event all spring. Then there was the nightmare moment at The Fork when I realized during my CIC** dressage test that I had learned the wrong test and therefore had to withdraw.. Of all the hings that could go wrong along the way this was not one that I could have foreseen.  Fortunately I was still able to compete in the Advanced horse trials that weekend which we certainly needed to get to know one another.  But that the only path left to keep heading to Bromont was to head to Ocala for the CCI** the following week.. So I went quietly around The Fork, shipped home to Virginia Sunday night, and left on Tuesday for Ocala.  I wish we received frequent driver miles!

Ocala was a success so Riley earned a week off then travelled to Rolex with Quincy.  After another week we were headed to Jersey Fresh for the CIC***.  Jersey was his best performance yet so low and behold we were Bromont Bound!


With so much to accomplish in such a short amount of time I have to give a huge thank you to Jeff (husband, vet, groom, dad - order varies constantly!).  Plus we could not have accomplished any of this without the support of the great group of people that believe in our partnership and helped make this syndicate a reality. It also tells a great deal about what a great horse Riley is... not only his physical strength but even more importantly his work ethic.  Every day he comes out ready to work and is happy doing whatever is asked of him.. I think he likes being this important!

So now that our trip is officially underway I plan to enjoy every day at what is undoubtedly the most scenic event site on our continent...