Week 29: Dissadence

No more rooting!

                I haven’t updated the blog in three weeks now and I have a lot to cover! Coming off such a great weekend at Fair Hill, my trainer and I decided that Finn and I should move up to the two foot three division at Horse Park this upcoming weekend. In order to do well at Horse Park, Finn and I have hunkered down and begun working on the details that can make a good day a great day. The week after Fair Hill was spent working on our dressage. At Fair Hill, Finn and I had finished on a score of a 46. My trainer decided that it was time for me to ride my dressage in a dressage saddle. I must concede that I have yet to find a dressage saddle that fits my horse properly and I have fallen into a rhythm of riding in my beloved Nona Garson Elite jumper saddle. I ended up saddling up Finn in one of my friends Devoucoux Makila dressage saddles and oh did Finn and I love it! The monoflap design made it very easy for me to feel Finn’s movement and place my body accordingly. I have also been riding Finn in a new bridle with a monocrown that he seems to LOVE. With some really hard work on my arms we have almost eliminated the bridle rooting.

                We also worked on our jumping this week. I feel it is important for me to admit that my jumping is not all that. I have jumped horses (I jumped my friends ex-hunter this week-more on that later) but I have never jumped a horse as green and as willing as Finn. Finn is a hot horse; sensible but very forward. In my first jump lesson after Fair Hill my trainer put the jumps up to about 2 foot 3 to 2 foot 6. The first part of the lesson was amazing! I am finally figuring out how to sit on Finn without driving him towards the fences and he is starting to jump up to me. Then came the line. I am a nervous nelly when it comes to combinations that start with an oxer. This combination started with a huge oxer (ok so maybe not huge but still). In an effort to get a nice approach I was stifling his ability to jump fluidly through the line. My nervousness resulted in a bad lower leg and a scrambling canter between fences. We managed to get a good ride through the line at the end of the lesson and decided to try again in my next lesson.

                In the next lesson, my trainer had be ride in her Chiberta. The Chiberta has a much larger calf block than my Prestige saddle and she thought that might provide me with some mental security. Finn was fantastic! It seemed like the last lesson hadn’t even happened at all. We both were in tune and we were able to get a great ride through the line (we did put it down a hole though). We also jumped a bunch of planks and other jumps to get Finn ready for show jumping.

                This last week was not very consistent. After an AMAZING flat work ride Finn ripped off a shoe. A day after getting his shoes reset, he proceeded to rip off the other shoe. I decided to give Finn off a couple of days and ride my very kind friend’s horse and work on my own position. Her horse was a hunter for a very long time before beginning his transition into eventing. I managed to jump him around a course by the end of that lesson. At first, I had a really hard time not trying to jump for him, but I worked through it. It is amazing to me how different horses can be from one and another. Cooper was far more rhythmic than Finn, yet he required a lot more push to get to the fences compared to my horse. With training I believe that Finn will only get better.

                Yesterday we took Finn to the Horse Park open schooling day. They hadn’t set out many of the smaller jumps so we ended up schooling the BN and N jumps. Finn was AMAZING. He tackled every jump like a rock star and he had the perfect mixture of get up and go and calm and relaxed. I can not wait until next weekend’s event!