Woo!!

Wow, so Twin Rivers flew past and I can't believe its over!! I went into this event with a different mind set than I usually do; I am usually a pretty competitive person, but I forced myself to tone it down and made my goal just to finish and get around safely. Mission accomplished!!

Regal is going to turn into such a little professional!! He already has the hang of everything and he surprised me at this event. His usually quiet personality goes up quite a few notches at events, and he's been known to be a firecracker in warm ups. But at Twin he didn't do a single thing. I was shocked haha. He was an angel for dressage warm up, and it was the most I've ever had his attention in the court before, I was SO happy with him. I could have ridden the test better, and accidentily slacked off a little near the end for a 37.3...not too bad. Definitely going to work to make it better though.

I was a little nervous for cross country day, I'm not going to lie haha. This was a bigger, tougher course than Regal and I have ridden or schooled, and I was putting a lot of faith in my boy that his honest nature and my scrappy riding would see us through. Once again he shocked me with a wonderful warm up, left the box and cleared his first fence like a champ. I was most nervous for the water questions and the double down banks. We had a little trouble at the first water, I didn't ride it as well as I should have, and he probably would have gone in first time if I would have had him straighter at it, but we got one refusal there before he went straight through. I had decided to go slow on purpose and focus instead on getting through safely, but I didn't intend to go as slow as we did!! I looked down at my watch after a while, realizing I hadn't heard any beeping my whole course, only to notice that my watch had froze one second after leaving the start box!! I brushed it off and finished the course slowly but successfully. Regal dropped off the double down banks straight to a skinny like he does that every day of his life. I was ridiculously proud of my boy!!! Though we picked up a ton of time, I was still very happy with Regal's performance.

Stadium is where I really expect the most from us, mostly because I am so comfortable with it because of my background in jumpers, and also because I know Regal is a talented, honest, and handy jumper. We were on our way to a gorgeous round when I set us up terribly for our last line, an oxer in to a vertical. Regal was crossfiring around the turn to the combo, and instead of pushing him forward to it I half halted, hoping to get him to switch. I mad the wrong choice for sure. He half way tried to jump it, realized that wasn't the smart thing to do, stopped and knocked the whole thing down. Regal is so honest that I have to mess up pretty badly for him to stop. Which I actually like. I would rather have a smart horse who won't kill us by always going, even when they shouldn't. Anyways...oops. So mad at myself!! We turned and popped through the rest of course great. ARG!! I guess that's what this sport is all about though; anything can happen at any time and you just have to be so trained and prepared that your reflexes are the correct response to the situation.

All in all, I thought it was a very successful weekend!! We finished our first recognized Training level event, and I was happy to notice that nothing seemed big all weekend, and none of the questions were too hard. Challenging, yes. But scary and impossible, definitely not. We will stay at Training level knowing what needs improvement, and we're going out to Woodside next weekend. Once again I can't wait!! I am so proud of my Regal man, he steals hearts where ever he goes with his endearing personality. He is turning into one of the most honest and trustworthy horses I've had the pleasure to ride : )

Changes!!!

Wow, so much has happened!! Well I found an amazing opportunity to be a working student for an upper level rider who is definitly going places, and I found it right in my backyard!! I can't wait to see where this new turn takes us!! Regal is all settled at his new place, and I'm working away and loving it. We ended up getting in at the last minute for Twin again and I have a ride with my new trainer. Rushing around trying to get ready and crossing my fingers that it goes ok!! Regal's dressage is getting nice, I just have to watch it when he's amped up because he gets super tuned in and I don't want to give him any false signals. We're going to jump tomorrow so that should be a nice tune up. And I'm just gonna pray for our xcountry round haha! I can't wait : )

Up's and Down's...

Well, just when I thought the coast was clear from any problems with our event schedule, we lose our ride to Twin Rivers at the end of this month. Pretty depressed for a while. Getting over it now and pressing on to the Woodside two weeks after Twin Rivers. GAH I can just never seem to get it right; I get a sponser and can go to any and all events...but now my face is rubbed in it because I don't have a truck and trailer!! Oh well. I'm just really hoping we can get out for the last three we planned for this season.

Other than that, Regal and I have been doing great! Dressage is coming along, stadium has been a breeze. We put the fences up the other day and had a jump around...it was awesome!! I would like to get more xcountry schooling in, but we have loads of time. Regal continues to surprise me out on course with his grown-up approach to xcountry. His willingness to go through things he has never seen before, his adjustability; everything. But I don't want to rely on that, we definitly need to be prepared. We just keep chuggin' along, really reeealllyyy can't wait to get out again!!

Getting better is...hard!!

We had a great lesson yesterday. It was frustrating at the time, as my trainer and I are chipping away and fixing various elements of my riding and position that have been in place for over 17 years now...and those things are not easy to change. But luckily my trainer was patient with me, and I feel like we got some great work out of the session!! Trying really hard to improve our dressage and get some lengthenings from Regal is really requiring me to ride and work a lot harder! Which sounds obvious but actually takes you off guard when you have to consciously step it up. Yesterday's lesson was a very good mental and physical workout, and I can't wait to keep working on everything we learned!

Today, I just had to get off the ground a bit. All this flatwork has been benificial...but my heart was needing some air time, and I think Regal agreed. I walked through the arena this morning raising the fences to at least 3'3-3'6' and we just flew around. SO HAPPY!!! I can tell we're improving, because Reg only had one rail and it was my fault because I put him in at an awful angle with a terrible distance. Other than that, he was mega clearing them, and we had a blast. I had a revelation during our jump around and let him have his head a little more and quit holding him back...which worked wonders :) I could tell Regal felt pretty good about himself too; we both needed some fun today!!