Penny Oaks: Dressage and XC Wrap, Plus a Contest!

Interrupting his first of many naps over the weekend.

The TL;DR version is: Connor finished on his Dressage score of 36.3 to take second out of...13?  15? to his former pasturemate by 0.5, and my trainer says we're ready to move up.  Woo hoo!  Also, I bought all the pictures.  Literally, all the pictures.  Get ready.

(Except the pro's didn't photograph Dressage, but managed to get almost every XC fence.  What?  Oh well.  All photos taken by Xpress Photo and used with permission).

Watched a YouTube video on how to french braid on my phone while standing on an overturned bucket in his stall.  Turned out fairly well, all things considered.  Austen, you were missed.

Dressage

Heartland gave my trainer a good idea of what we needed to do to be competitive here.  All we did the last two weeks was Dressage, and specifically, relaxation.  My warmups at home and at the show were to be "Long reins, lots of moving his hind feet around and letting him stretch - nose to the ground if he'll offer it."  When I get him in that state of mind, by the time I pick him up, he's on my aids and ready for action, but not tense.

When the judge rang the bell, I did a 20m circle outside on the opposite rein of what our first turn would be at the head of the arena, counterbending, then turned down centerline (no halting at X upon entry in eventing) and had him bang on straight between my aids.  That was our only 8, and we earned it, his feet have never traveled so straight in his life.

The rest of the test was fairly judged 6's and 7's (with one 5 when a walk transition right in front of the judge had way too much hand - oops), but what stuck out to me most is that the comments we got are exact opposites of what we were getting 18 months ago.  Today we got 'forward and steady mover', 'obedient', and my favorite, "well-bent".  Well-bent!

Cross-Country

This was our first true-ordered event, with Dressage, then XC on Saturday, then SJ on Sunday.  After Dressage, Connor was sleepy, and he had no idea he still had work to do.  All during the long walk to XC, then warming up over stadium fences in the field, then going over to the start box, he had no idea XC was coming.  In the start box, he was too busy giving the start box people the Suspicious Spooky Ear and bending away from them:

This is from SJ, but you get the idea of the Suspicious Spooky Ear/bending combo.  He's spooking at flowers here.

to which the starter said, "It's okay, little guy, we like horses here!" and tried to convince him that she was a nice person.  I really appreciated that, going the extra mile to help my spooky pony learn to deal with things.

Even cantering out of the start box he still had no idea what we were doing, and fence 1 came up fast.  Right before 1, he scrambled and his brain went "HOLY SHIT WE'RE ON CROSS-COUNTRY!"  That is exactly what it felt like, profanity and all.  He was so surprised.  I just had to let him figure that one out for himself - green XC horse moments.

Dressage-quality canter transition out of the box...he still had no idea we're on XC...

"So...why are we here, again?"

Fence 1: "HOLY SHIT AN XC FENCE!" He scrambled to the base of this, then jumped straight up in the air - which is this picture.

Fence 2 was equally scrambly because there was a guy in a chair next to it, and you know, guys in chairs.  They're terrifying.

Badass eventers!

Fence 3 was a BN-height log, and he started to get his groove on here, before a long canter around a hill to 4.  He started to really enjoy himself at this point, and took off with me on the other side of the fence, ears up and whinnying.  I laughed.

Sort of deer-like, but we're rolling with it.

Yep.

Whoa, pony!  He hauled me around the course ears up, having a blast.  It might be time to think about an XC bit.  Or maybe I am content with letting him roll like this, it was so much fun.

Fence 5:

And the aftermath of Fence 5, which was me being thrilled with how bravely he jumped 5, and yelling "Good boy!" even though it looks like I'm surprised we survived that last fence in the photo:

THIS is what eventing the Welsh Cob feels like.  Having a blast, not scared at all.

Best friends and war buddies.

We really started to hit our stride together on the second half of the course.  He was jumping more across than up, and we were discussing and agreeing upon distances a couple of strides out.  You can tell he wasn't jumping squirrely because my eq (as it were) improves a lot.

My favorite.

And by the final fence of the round, we were absolutely on the same page.

Alright, now for a contest!  This was Starter level eventing, and the optimum time for the 1,333m course was 4:51.  Guess our actual time to win a prize!  As a bonus second entry, calculate what mpm (meters per minute) that time is.  Enter in the comments, and no checking live scores to cheat (they're still not up, so you can't yet anyway.)  Go!