Monthly Archives: February 2012

Sunday at Pine Top was a lot of waiting around for Whistler’s 2:00 run, then quickly packing up and heading back to Ocala. We all made it home around 9:30 pm.

Whistler had a great finish to his weekend, handling the difficult Training course quite well. I think the Weldon’s Wall with the drop early in the course helped–it was a bit of a wake up call that he needed to pay attention to what he was doing. He got better and better as he went around. He ended up finishing in 8th place. Here’s a bit of the shaky video.

Back to normal work at Longwood. Boys had a day off today (Monday) and then will go back to work tomorrow aiming for Red Hills in a couple of weeks.

Well at least the weather was better today here in Thomson, Georgia. It was quite windy and chilly, but mostly sunny and dry. It was a busy day for me, five rides starting at 8:00am and not finishing until after 5:30pm. Since no cross country could be run yesterday, they had to fit Advanced and Intermediate cross today, along with all the showjumping for all 4 levels, and dressage for 2.

The day started with Deacon’s Advanced showjumping. He was a good boy, jumping a clear round with just a little bit of time. He was jumping so well and so huge, it just seemed like we had so much hang time that it changed my striding to the next fence–so it wasn’t really smooth, but at least it was clean.

Next up was Finny’s Intermediate showjumping. He too was a good boy, jumping a double clear round. I was quite happy with his go.

Next up was Whistler’s dressage. He was quite a handful in the warm-up, but we got it together and put in a nice test with a few 9s and a score of 26.8; second place after dressage.

An hour or so of rest, then it was time for Finny’s cross country round. As I said yesterday, this was a tough Intermediate course; some real technical questions. I was so proud of Finny; he was awesome. Now me, on the other hand, not so awesome! I caused a run-out–I held a little too much coming into a corner so Finny couldn’t jump. But otherwise, a clean run on a difficult course. Here’s a brief but distant and shaky clip of some of the course:

Last up for the long day was Whistler’s showjumping. Unfortunately he had a couple rails. The 1st jump was Novice height and he didn’t really work to get over that little jump, so I think the 2nd jump, an oxer at Training height, surprised him and he caught it with his hind. So it dropped us several places in the standings, but this may be a moot point now, cause I will really be surprised if we make it clean around cross country tomorrow. It’s a very difficult Training course, lots of questions and lots of stuff to look at. More like a Prelim course at your typical Area 8 trial! So we’ll see….

Whistler finished up his Novice run with a clear cross country run and a 4th place ribbon. Good boy! Here’s part of his go, a bit jumpy video though.

This week I am trying to get my Ocala vet, Dr. Evans, here Monday or Tuesday to give Deacon a good once over to see if we can figure out what stopped him during his run this weekend.

Tuesday I’m riding Whistler with Leslie Law in an ICP symposium, doing cross country work. We’ll try to get some of the session video taped and post it. Also supposed to be taking horses to the aqua-tred at KESMARC, but since that tragedy there, I don’t know if they’re open so need to look into that. (BTW, prayers go out to everyone concerned with that sad event.)

The rest of the week is gonna hinge on what we discover with Deacon and probably just be work and ride as usual. More later….

Today was a day with both highs and lows. It was to be a busy few hours. Had 4 rides on 3 horses in about 3 hours time. We started the day with Whistler’s Novice dressage test. He was very good; a better test than two weeks ago at Rocking Horse. He was in 4th place after dressage, just behind some really nice horses and riders. He’s becoming more settled and does his job well.

Next out for the day was Deacon for his cross country. He was pawing a bit in the trailer when I went to get him out to tack him up, which isn’t like him; but at the time I didn’t think too much about it. We tacked up and headed for warm up. His first few steps of trot in warm-up didn’t feel quite right. I checked his shoes and tack adjustments. Then Leslie watched him as I picked a trot back up and then cantered over a few jumps. He seemed fine at that point. Was jumping well warming up so we headed to the start box. I had decided if he didn’t feel right, I would pull up and save him for his run at Pine Top in a couple of weeks. But he started the course great. He ran well, all the way up to jump 21, which was a similar combination as the one where we had our fall last year at the Fork. I made up my mind to keep our rhythm and not overthink the combination, but for some reason (me, Deke, what???) he ran out at the second elemen, a skinny toothbrush. We set up and tried again, but had another. So we called it a day and headed back for the trailer. He again didn’t seem quite right unsaddling him, seemed to want to keep walking, almost seemed a little colic-y. So walked him more and kept a close eye on him–he just wasn’t really himself, but finally settled and seemed OK. I had only a short time to get Finn ready for his run, so put Deke back in the trailer and kept an eye on him.

Finn got ready to go and we headed for start. He put in an awesome run. It was a very big and technical course, and he really rocked around it. The flags had been knocked over at the same skinny toothbrush where Deke had stopped and the crew hadn’t had time to get them back up yet; as I approached it I was a bit concerned with no flags to help Finn understand the question. He hestitated a bit but figured it out and saved the day!

Finny climbed up the standings after his double-clear XC round and ended the day in 11th place.

Last up was Whistler for his showjumping. He was a good boy, but really needs bigger jumps! He just barely canters over the Novice-sized jumps. Next trial he moves up to Training. He had one rail today, but only dropped one place, so is now standing in 5th.

Tomorrow only Whistler goes for his cross country run, so it will be an easy day. More tomorrow…