Then... Wednesday was a super cold day.... I put Dan's heavyweight on with a hood. I left at 8 am and it was cold! It was cold all day! Then I came home at 7:45 and... this is what greeted me. Doh!! I have no idea... The corner was soaking wet and his hind foot was wet and muddy. But he didn't have access to the creek. And the water trough looked unharmed. So... no idea?!?
So.... anyways..... Today was a fun day! I went to Ashland to go ride with Kelli and Peri. We had a plan and then it sort of fell apart, but it worked. :) I ended up adjusting both Sunny and Arwyn, which was fine and I'm glad I was able to do it before their show. It just meant that I didn't spend as much time riding. But that's okay because we still had a blast.
I rode Dan with them. Kelli had already jumped in stadium and had the fences set at 3'. I swear, my eye is shrinking because the one 3' oxer looked big!! Go Kelli! Since I had just done the courses at High Point and Peri wanted to get out in the field, we decided to go to the field. Kelli joined us and hopped over a few things too. Go Kelli. Peri and Roux did a good bit and cantered out in the field too. Go Peri! Roux was a little worried about the banks but settled nicely.
So I played out there too. :) Which was my plan. Caroline had mentioned previously that Paradise has a table cloth on a cabin in their BN course so I wanted to practice that. I sort of thought it may not matter to Dan but just in case... Of course I couldn't find a red one, but I did find a blue plaid one. So.. it was a bit windy today.... And I didn't think ahead and bring anything to hold it down. So yeah.... But it was good!
I warmed up him over some stuff and then we headed towards the table cloth. He jumped it fine, although we drifted a little. So I turned to come back around and two strides out from it, the wind lifted it up towards us! Ha ha!! Dan startled and scooted left, legitimately!, and so we circled. By the time we came back around it had settled into place and he jumped right on over it, like it hadn't just tried to eat him! I'm so proud. He jumped it big, but he jumped it fine. :) Yay!Then I decided to pop over the banks. We did the up and the down and then I even walked down the big prelim bank. Then trotted down. Then trotted up the training one. Then I decided to think about doing the coop on the back side. I wimped out and decided that going down the coop and then dropping down the bank would be asking too much. So I decided to go up. We trotted up the bank and then over the coop. It was a bit of a heave the first time so we did it with a bit more energy next. And it wasn't bad. :) But I still decided that it was too much of a question to ask to go down. I figured he'd jump it bold enough that I wouldn't be able to balance him enough to go downhill. So we made a smart decision (I think) and left it at that.
Then Peri and Kelli made me a course. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad. We did the novice up bank to the log stack, then around to the helsinki (for the first time, he was fine!) and then dropped down the prelim bank. Then we did the two stride coop to coop, then the hanging log/faux trakenher and then we cantered the ditch to the log and up the hill over the hanging logs. Then we circled around and jumped the log drop into the water and cantered out. We cantered in to the water too. :) Wheee. There was a vertical set up on the edge of the water and it was fairly impressive looking and leaning in towards the water a bit. So I chickened out. But then as we cantered past it, I thought... we could do this! So I circled and came around again. Ugh. It was awkward! He got underneath it but he tried and he cleared it. It's not pretty, but... close enough. So then we cantered over the tablecloth cabin again and then the dog house. Then I decided to try the water jump again. He took the flyer this time, but again he cleared it. I decided to quit with that. It was a tough question and big and he tried twice and while it wasn't pretty, it wasn't his fault.
Fun day! Our fun little course
No comments:
Post a Comment