Pine Hill February schooling show 

Published on by Amanda C

Despite a fairly ominous looking forecast, we didn’t get rained out this time! It was ridiculously humid Sunday morning before the wind picked up though. I was sweating balls just from getting dressed and had sweat dripping into my eyes in dressage warmup. Ah, February in Texas.

So fancy, that derpsage horse in the warmup

I got on for dressage and had surprisingly little horse. Like… I was kicking him. Henry! Kicking! I actually regretted not putting my spurs on. But he warmed up really well and came into a nice connection pretty quickly, with good trot work both ways, some lengthenings, and a little lateral work. We did a few medium walk to free walk to medium again, trying to prevent that anticipation he sometimes gets, then just chilled til it was our turn. He was being so good I didn’t even want to canter, lest I ruin whatever magical unicorn juju we had going on.

And what do you know, he went in the ring and was actually quite rideable, obedient, and kept a steady connection. Pretty much everything was better than last month’s test. It actually took all the leg strength I had to keep him cantering. What horse is this? I have no idea. But he scored a 30.5, which would have put us in second if we weren’t going HC. Whaaaaaaaat??? The judge even said he was “obedient”. Pretty sure that’s a first.

Note final halt score. Boom. We stop good.

After dressage I had less than half an hour until stadium so I quickly changed tack, put my spurs on, grabbed my whip (because remember I thought I had no horse… HAHAHAHA spoiler alert), and trotted back down to warmup with just a few minutes to spare. As soon as we got in there Henry leapt into a canter and was SUPER AMPED. We jumped each warmup fence once then headed up to the ring, just in time to go in.

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oh sweet jesus help me

Aaaaand I was sitting on a keg of dynamite. As soon as the whistle blew it was high ho silver and Henry was off and running. Like, literally, he dragged me to the first 3 fences. I regretted the spurs/whip and instead wished I had brought my Dr Bristol. Someone was very cocky. We got so close to the base of 3 that he pulled the rail there, but that was finally enough to make him think that perhaps he should take my opinion into consideration. The rest of the course was still a bit quick, but he listened. Mostly. I think with the SI injections I got my badass horse back but kinda lost my brakes. Back to the Dr. Bristol next time for Mr. Sassypants.

phprofeb1
this was only fence 2

Then we had 4 hours til XC.

We had talked to the TD beforehand and explained Henry’s current issue with the Irish bank. Since I was already running HC, she gave me permission to skip it if I wanted to (yay schooling shows!). I figured I’d decide when we got to it.

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Die, stupid irish bank

Henry didn’t realize it was XC time until a horse zipped past him in warmup. Then he was suddenly quite awake and raring to go. I had opted to take off my spurs, lest we end up somewhere in Timbuktu, but he was definitely feeling forward as we hopped over a few warmup jumps. He marched over to the startbox, occupied himself with licking the box while they counted us down (it wouldn’t be Henry if he wasn’t doing something totally weird, right?), and then we were off and running.

I don’t have helmet cam footage because I lost my charger cable. Just add that to the comedy of errors already accumulated from yesterday’s post.

We popped easily over 1 and 2, then he really clicked into gear and hunted down the bank combo – the train car to the double up bank then bending 4 strides to a skinny on top of the hill. I gave him a big “good boy!” and a pat, and he dug in galloping again.

train car
double bank
skinny

We flew over the skinny rolltop at 6, jumped the brush fence at 7, then he saw the Irish bank and I immediately felt him hesitate. Maaaaybe I could have booted him off it if I really wanted to push it, but he’d been rolling along so well up to then that I didn’t see the point in ruining what we had going. We already know he needs to school that question more, so why possibly create an issue for no reason? I let the jump judge know I was skipping it and we kept going.

There was a long gallop through the woods (which was half Henry spooking at the bushes and half him being SO HAPPY to be galloping. I was laughing.) then we came out of the woods, he spotted the water, and he was positively jubilant. He really loves water.

After that was the huge ramp that used to freak me out so much, which we easily jumped out of stride. Take that, stupid giant ramp that used to make me crap myself! Then through the crater at the time warp, more galloping (and spooking) through the woods to the angled feeders. He was totally lock and load at both. It was like as soon as he saw the jumps he went “OMG I FOUND IT!!!” and he was On It. All I did was get him on the right line and hang on. If horses could smile, he’d have been ear to ear.

angled two stride? easy.

Then we weaved around some trees to the corner, which we’ve never jumped before but have heard everyone talk about how it just doesn’t jump well. Henry spotted it and took me straight to it, no problem. I don’t think I could have missed it if I tried. After that it was just one more gallop stretch, over the last brush fence, and through the finish!

Bobby hates the corner

Yeah, we skipped the Irish bank (which IMO is a really hard question for the level on a “move up” course… alas no one asked me…), but I don’t really care. Everything else was total clockwork, he ate it up, and nothing looked big. We’ve jumped off the Irish bank before, and we’ll do it again… just… not until Henry really understands how to do it properly. Plus, even though I went watchless we came in 10 seconds under optimum, so our pace was right on. Henry pranced back to the barn and cooled down quickly.

I needed a confidence booster to feel like we belong at this level, and that’s what we got. It was our first XC run since Coco last JULY, and it was so freaking fun to be back out there again. I was thrilled with his dressage, fine with stadium (ok I need more whoa but the jumps looked small, so I’ll take that), and super happy with XC.

Henry is fit, he’s happy, he’s sound, and he’s jumping better than ever. What more could you ask for? WE DIDN’T DIE!!!

Buuuut my truck’s trailer lights DID die. They shorted somehow, and we were kinda stranded. Trainer hauled Henry (in my trailer) back to her barn since she’s near the show venue, and now Henry is “vacationing” there until my truck can have the wiring fixed (happening today, hopefully). Sigh. I broke the tent and the truck and managed to lose my helmet cam charger all in one weekend. Never a dull moment.

42 thoughts on “Pine Hill February schooling show ”

  1. WOW i could watch the water video over and over again. Henry was so freaking WIRED over those elements. HA HA HA if he was a kid he would have been bouncing in his seat! 🙂 Great recap and sounds like a great weekend! Sorry about truck. Been there got the tshirt. Leaving the new venue in MD on Sat where i had a lesson my lights stopped working. I was freaking out cause i was a) by myself and b) it was almost dark. SO when i got to a stop sign i got out and said a prayer and wiggled it back in (And sure enough it must have worked loose). GOT LIGHTS YAY! 🙂 scary as shit. (this place was total hills up and down so i am sure my connection wiggled loose up the few mt everest my poor truck had to climb.

    Hope truck is back to working soon 🙂 Poor Henry stuck at ‘school’ 🙂

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  3. bahahah his expression in stadium. and I LOVE how gung ho he is about water.

    i think that giant man eater (aka irish bank) on a SCHOOLING training level course is preposterous. especially given that its oh, i dunno, FEBRUARY. maybe i’d get it if it were october.

    maybe.

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    1. Well I just took it off my course. So there, course designer. LOL. The real objective was to jump around Training height at Training speed and build my confidence, and we didn’t need the bank to do that!

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  4. congrats on a majorly confidence-boosting outing at the new level! even without the bank, it sounds like you checked off all the right boxes! i miss running xc soooooo badly (haven’t schooled since august and haven’t actually run a course since may…), hopefully soon!

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    2. emma won’t be long and you too will be leaving that start box. What are your plans with Charlie surely you can do a green as grass or elem this spring with him? CAN”T WaIT 🙂 hA hA HA

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  9. Well… I guess not everything can go perfectly. But Henry sure did, and really isn’t that the most important part of the equation? Hope the truck repair isn’t to expensive or lengthy.
    Forgive my hunter princess ignorance, but what does running HC mean?

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      1. Oh! That makes sense. I know why sometimes people do that at our shows, and can understand for a rated one. But what’s the reasoning at a schooling show? Or do schooling shows also find their way on your record in eventing? I’m not judging, just curious 🙂

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        1. Our schooling shows don’t allow you to school the XC course the day before unless you run HC, so since we went out and lunged him down a couple banks the day before, we had to go HC. Fair is fair!

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          1. Now I get it! Thanks for the info. That makes good sense to me. It’s nice to have that option, especially when you have things you want to work on like the banks for Henry or the new height for you.

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    1. Bobby and I were actually talking about that yesterday – we both want to go gallop on the beach this year! And yes you’re right, no one will probably ever see either of us again.

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