Wow, well Ram Tap was...interesting. Rain bogged down all the footing, and mud did not help Regal and my performance!! He was gorgeous in dressage despite the sloppy footing, which I can tell is not his favorite. Stadium was a disaster. Hands down the worst course we've had, but I learned a lot. We had refusals and rails and time...you name it we had it. Ick. Cross country the next day was double clear and reminded me why I remain in this sport!!
Just got back from a weekend at Twin Rivers, and overall it went well!! I was bummed with our dressage performance; it wasn't the best we could do. But for whatever reason that day Regal and I were not in sync and something was clashing. I could tell he was irritated and distracted, and not as supple and forward as he should have been. Some days you have it and some days you don't. Stadium was a slight improvement. I feel like there were amazing moments durning the course, and I can tell we are slowly getting the feel of how it should be. Regardless we still had faults. Once again, cross country was our saving grace :) Twin made for our third double clear xc round in a row!! It had started to rain a little during our course, and on our third to last fence, a log into water, Regal slipped and lost his hind end a bit, I lost my stirrups, we had to circle to get a good approach to the fence and we still came in slightly under optimum time haha...quite an accomplishment considering how far behind time we were just last September!!
Though sometimes it feels like the improvements take forever, I can tell they are happening. It would be nice if everything happened over night, but one of these days it is going to feel so good to have that clear round and know Regal and I totally deserved it :)
Monday, March 7, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Time Flies!
Hello blog, it has been a while!! What a winter...and it isn't even over yet :( boo to rain!! Regal and I are still pushing on in our training, and improving by leaps and bounds!!
We have already kicked off the event season at Galway Downs at the beginning of February, and I can tell we've improved. He is just beginning to act like such a grown-up at the events! All of our warm-ups were great, dressage went well with room for improvement but no blaring flaws. Our cross country round was the best round we've ever had out there. I almost felt like I was on a packer, and I might have been a little on my game that day as well ;) haha. I really felt like we didn't miss once on course, which is an unusal feeling for me, I guess Regal isn't a total green pea anymore!! No hesitation at water, and under time...double clear!! Unfortunetly the missing link has turned into stadium for us. We are on the way to correcting it, but we took a few rails which knocked us from ending up in 2nd to ending in 8th. We're learning though, and I can't wait to see where this season takes us!!
Regal and I are heading to Ram Tap this weekend, fingers crossed!!
We have already kicked off the event season at Galway Downs at the beginning of February, and I can tell we've improved. He is just beginning to act like such a grown-up at the events! All of our warm-ups were great, dressage went well with room for improvement but no blaring flaws. Our cross country round was the best round we've ever had out there. I almost felt like I was on a packer, and I might have been a little on my game that day as well ;) haha. I really felt like we didn't miss once on course, which is an unusal feeling for me, I guess Regal isn't a total green pea anymore!! No hesitation at water, and under time...double clear!! Unfortunetly the missing link has turned into stadium for us. We are on the way to correcting it, but we took a few rails which knocked us from ending up in 2nd to ending in 8th. We're learning though, and I can't wait to see where this season takes us!!
Regal and I are heading to Ram Tap this weekend, fingers crossed!!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Ups and Downs...
Scratch Galway :( I was on a wait list and that event is PACKED!!!! No luck for me and Regal Beagle. Thats ok. Sights set on the January Galway at the start of next season; hopefully we will get our act together over winter and come back ready to rock in spring!!
Other than that, Regal is growing a fuzzy winter coat and enjoying his turn out times very much :)
Other than that, Regal is growing a fuzzy winter coat and enjoying his turn out times very much :)
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Just Going Along...
Just finished getting my trainer packed and sent down to Temecula early for Galway. She went down early to clinic with Buck Davidson, and man I wish I could have managed a way to be part of that!! What an opportunity. Oh well, next time!! Regal and I have just been truckin' along in our training, improving I think. I'm really excited for Galway in 2 weeks, I'm slowly expecting more and more from us every time we go out, and I would love three things from Galway, our last event of the season.
I would love to improve, even just a tiny bit more, on our dressage score.
I would love to have little to no time faults cross country.
And I would love to not crash through a stadium fence.
I mean really I would love a 20 in dressage and double clears all weekend...but I'm being realistic haha :D one of these days those will be our goals, but for now we're both still greenies.
I'm basically just going along and enjoying the journy right now, fingers crossed for Galway!!!
I would love to improve, even just a tiny bit more, on our dressage score.
I would love to have little to no time faults cross country.
And I would love to not crash through a stadium fence.
I mean really I would love a 20 in dressage and double clears all weekend...but I'm being realistic haha :D one of these days those will be our goals, but for now we're both still greenies.
I'm basically just going along and enjoying the journy right now, fingers crossed for Galway!!!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Exhaustion is a Way of Life...
Time is flying!! Ok so we got back from Woodside late Sunday night, our second recognized Training complete!! I feel like I can hardly remember the details, but I'll do my best.
Our dressage warm up was terrible. Seriously...terrible. I was borderline embarressed in the warm up ring, but once we got to the court we somehow pulled it together for a pretty nice test! We shaved a point off from our last score for a 36.3...which is still way higher than I know we can do. We're just going through a transitional time right now; when it's good its great but when it doesn't work it's pretty ugly haha. His trot work and transitions were better, but our trot lengthening killed us. We broke twice in the movement...eep. At least its all fixable ;)
We rode stadium the next day, and I don't know what has happened to us. It used to be our best phase, but once again, we are going through a pretty transitional time in our training. Ugh no excuses though. We knocked a rail on our first fence (always depressing) and crashed through the third fence :/ SO MAD AT MYSELF!!!! The rest of the course was fabulous. After about an hour I managed to look at the bright side...in the process of crashing through the fence (after smashing my face on Regal's neck) I landed in front of the saddle and almost slid up poor Reg's neck. Usually in the situation where he feels me falling off he accelerates the fall by spinning, bucking, etc. He did kind of jump to the side and out of the fence, but I pulled him up and he stood like a champ while I scurried back into the saddle. At least I didn't fall!!
Sunday was cross country, and for some reason I was pretty nervous!! More nervous than I was for Twin, and I think Twin should have intimidated me more. Long story short; I have an amazing horse :D He was a superstar!! I still chose to school through the first water, and he was awesome, no hesitation through either water, or at any fence. We still had some time but I can tell we're improving.
Overall a step forward. I am constantly reminded of how far we still have to go, but there are little moments I can now appreciate how far we've come :)
This weekend wouldn't have been possible without my amazing sponsor, amazing trainer, and amazing boyfriend, who took off work to help out and support me. I am so greatfull!!
Our dressage warm up was terrible. Seriously...terrible. I was borderline embarressed in the warm up ring, but once we got to the court we somehow pulled it together for a pretty nice test! We shaved a point off from our last score for a 36.3...which is still way higher than I know we can do. We're just going through a transitional time right now; when it's good its great but when it doesn't work it's pretty ugly haha. His trot work and transitions were better, but our trot lengthening killed us. We broke twice in the movement...eep. At least its all fixable ;)
We rode stadium the next day, and I don't know what has happened to us. It used to be our best phase, but once again, we are going through a pretty transitional time in our training. Ugh no excuses though. We knocked a rail on our first fence (always depressing) and crashed through the third fence :/ SO MAD AT MYSELF!!!! The rest of the course was fabulous. After about an hour I managed to look at the bright side...in the process of crashing through the fence (after smashing my face on Regal's neck) I landed in front of the saddle and almost slid up poor Reg's neck. Usually in the situation where he feels me falling off he accelerates the fall by spinning, bucking, etc. He did kind of jump to the side and out of the fence, but I pulled him up and he stood like a champ while I scurried back into the saddle. At least I didn't fall!!
Sunday was cross country, and for some reason I was pretty nervous!! More nervous than I was for Twin, and I think Twin should have intimidated me more. Long story short; I have an amazing horse :D He was a superstar!! I still chose to school through the first water, and he was awesome, no hesitation through either water, or at any fence. We still had some time but I can tell we're improving.
Overall a step forward. I am constantly reminded of how far we still have to go, but there are little moments I can now appreciate how far we've come :)
This weekend wouldn't have been possible without my amazing sponsor, amazing trainer, and amazing boyfriend, who took off work to help out and support me. I am so greatfull!!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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 : )
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 : )
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