Riding the "Big Trot"

I think riding the big trot may be the nemesis of many adult amateur riders. I'm lucky that I don't struggle as much as others I know, but I'm definitely no master! It has definitely been something I've been trying to work on since I have a horse that's extremely talented in the big trots.

Heather, expert on fancy dressage horses, believes the BHB could easily score 8's and 9's in his medium and extended trots if “I” can push him enough and manage to keep him balanced at the same time… without flopping all over the place myself! In order to keep myself from bouncing around in a big trot, I have a tendency to tense my entire body, which is definitely not the correct way to ride it. It seems to be something you have to ride over and over while experimenting to get it right. Here is what has been helping me so far in improving “big trot” riding:

1. Shorten reins before even thinking about adding impulsion
2. Take a deep breath and sit deep with correct rider position
3. Add collection to help lift the front end and rev up the back legs
4. GO! Loosen the upper thighs while squeezing the calves (and heels if necessary)
5. Keep fingers closed (no spirit fingers!) and slightly pulsing on reins (not hanging!)
6. Keep squeezing with calves and adding some heel/spur if necessary
7. Almost to end, so take another deep breath, pulse calves lightly instead of squeezing to keep impulsion, and add half halts to slow back down

Sounds easy, right? ;)

Step #1 to Preparing for Dressage Finals= Back to Basics

With two weeks remaining until we compete in the US Dressage Finals, you'd think we'd be working on perfecting all of our movements, but drilling movements over and over just pisses off the BHB. So what are we doing? We're going back to basics, and for a very good reason.

Mark is not a fancy warmblood. Theoretically he's actually bred to be a farmer's horse, so he couuld be considered a "blue collar" horse. Now, contrast that to the fact that thoroughbreds were bred for the "sport of kings" and warmbloods were bred to compete in sports that a farmer could never afford the entry fee for. Yet, Mark does a pretty darn good job fitting in on the "dance floor" with high-bred society. He's a very consistent "7" horse, so we have to really work on not giving away a single point of that 70% performance we're quite capable of producing. Points tend to be "given away" in very basic elements of dressage like connection, bend, and balance. So in order to get that 7 (or even 8) we know we can get, we're focusing on those very basic things. This past weekend we worked on polishing our outside rein to inside leg connection and not much else. We also have plans to work quite a bit on other basics like square halts, improving the balance in downward transitions, and getting the proper angle in lateral work.

We may not get any scores above an 8, but you can be sure we're not going to be throwing away points for missing our basics!

Our Entry is in for Dressage Finals! And a Recap of Regionals!

The BHB will be competing in the US Dressage Finals in both the first and second level AA freestyles! We are excited to head back to Kentucky in less than 3 weeks! Entries seem to be much better this year than last, but I'm sure word got around that the show was awesome last year. I'm lucky that this year my classes will both be in the indoor Alltech arena, so no cold/ wind/ frozen/ precipitation to deal with! I'm trying to stable in the heated stable this year since the shedrows had constant noisy wind last year and the BHB needs all the quality sleep he can get at this show. A tack stall was not in the budget for this, so unless I find someone near me who got one and wants to share, I'll be trying to figure out how to best contain my mess in the aisle.

As far as Regionals, we started off with riding possibly our best first level freestyle yet in a VERY soupy arena. Hilda Gurney was one of our judges and gave us a 69% and told the BHB on the way out how adorable he is. Yay for another awesome judge in the BHB fan club! Unfortunately, the other judge for that class tends to score the BHB a bit lower and give some odd comments, so we ended up with a 67% average. Good enough to qualify for a wildcard score to Nationals in a huge (25 people!!!) class.

We got to ride our second level freestyle in the big Rolex ring under the lights (at 7:46pm) while drizzling. We were off to a great start, but we picked up the wrong lead in the first simple change and I was so surprised that we went WAY off course counter-cantering for like 15 seconds (with choreography that provides no room for error) and then I just tried to get all of the required movements in my test. The test ended with me going to centerline for my final halt and realizing I was facing A! So a quick loop around and we halted about 10 seconds after our music ended. But we got all of the required movements in! And the judges were feeling super generous to give us a 68% without too many comments about my frantic all-over-the-place mess of choreography. This put us in 8th place, and although it was high enough to give us a wildcard score, we were the second highest placed adult amateur, so ended up with a Finals invite based on placing. 

We made the exact same major error in our second level championship class. We picked up the left lead instead of the right in the simple change! And those simple changes are double coefficients, so of course it eliminated any chance of doing well. Although several of the people who placed had flying changes in their counter canter and still did well, so who knows. A few other minor bobbles took place (as usual) and we ended up with a 62% score and placed somewhere right in the middle of the class of 45. 

By Sunday, the BHB was completely exhausted. He spent 3 nights partying with 140 other horses in the tent stabling, so was trying to catch a nap any chance he had. I used a whip warming up for our first level championship to help rev him up, but by the time we walked from the warm-up to the arena and had to wait for our bell, he had fallen back into slug mode. So I tried kicking my adorable slug around the arena, and we were given a 66% for our efforts to place in the top half of the 65 horse class. After this class, I was glad we weren't going to be competing in too many classes at the Dressage Finals, since he wore out by the fourth day there, and I probably couldn't afford to enter that many championship classes anyway.

My mother is currently hoarding all of the pictures and videos from Regionals, so nothing to post now. But I did see that one of the photographers at the show got pictures of the BHB medium cantering through the slop with all of his feet well up in the air and his ears pinned back. I thought it was adorable!

Championships on a Budget!

Competing in 4 championship classes at an out-of-town Regional Championships can add up extremely fast! Just my entry fee alone is cringe worthy! So I tried everything I could to cut down the expense of this competition. If I had been able to share a tack stall it would have been ever better! I definitely won't get a tack stall if I go to Nationals unless it's shared. Just too expensive at Dressage Finals costs!

Cost Breakdown:

Competition fees: $751 ($300 in class fees, $61 in office/drug fees, $175 each for my stall and tack stall—I was expecting my barn mate to go and share but she isn’t going, and $40 in meal tickets for my trainer and mom)

Food: Raid pantry to bring protein bars for breakfast and some snacks/drinks for the tack room. Two dinners are included for competitors (Thursday and Saturday).Volunteering 1.5 days gets me 2 lunches and 1 more dinner in exchange of giving some much needed help to the show during my downtimes. We’ll stop at fast food places to eat while travelling. We should be able to spend less than $25/person in extra food.

Hotel: Book $45/night decent motel and share. Total cost for 3 nights= $135 ($67.50 each)

Trailering: Trailer my own horse with my somewhat rusty trailer, and then I’ll have a vehicle too. Estimated fuel cost=$250

Golf cart: $67 a day for a gold cart rental?! Heck no! I’m bringing my bike!

Parking fees: Volunteering gets me a free parking pass at the KHP to save $15!

Total expected costs (for my mom/videographer/groom/motivator and me combined, but excluding trainer fees and her much more expensive hotel): under $1200-- which is still quite expensive, but do-able for a Championship.

The 2014 Region 2 Dressage Mega-Championships

4 days, 8 rings, 13 fully-occupied barns, couple dozen completely sold-out hotels in Lexington, 50-90% chance of rain each day, 680+ horses, and 1750+ rides. Those are just some of the numbers from the 2014 Region 2 GAIG Dressage Championships! It's definitely the biggest horse show I've ever been to!!!

I’m sure the poor organizers are overwhelmed with this monster show. The Championship class entries are exponential considered to any of the other Regional Championships this year. Training level AA has 70 entries! And first level AA (that I’m riding in) has 65! Even one of my freestyle championships has 25 entries—which is absolutely unheard of for non-FEI level freestyles.

 There are only ribbons for the top 8 places, so those ribbons will be elusive for the majority, and well-earned by the few who manage to snag them. Fractions of a point are bound to separate placings at the lower levels. I rode in a class of 50 last year and didn’t manage to place, even though 2^nd place was only .2% above me. I’m wishing I went to the Region 1 Championships in NC this past weekend, because those were nice small classes that were much easier to place in!

My chunky blue-collar horse and I are definitely planning on bringing our A-game to this show, especially since he’ll thrive in the busy atmosphere. We’ll have to compete against pros on fancy warmbloods in our freestyle classes and then against other amateurs fiercely batting for a $2 ribbon (they’re the neck ribbons, so more expensive and prestigious than the regular $.50 ribbons we attack like a TV in Walmart on Black Friday ;)) in the Adult Amateur classes.

The BHB at a couple months old showing his well practiced game face! It's still the exact same today, just a smidge less adorable!

I’m volunteering to help run the show between my classes and strongly encourage any other competitors to volunteer any extra time they may have. And if you’re bringing a husband or parent, you’re pretty much required to volunteer them to keep them occupied ;)

Sometimes the Magic Changes... in Tack Choices!

Last year we found an amazing bit that helped elevate the BHB's front end. This magic bit is a Myler comfort snaffle. 

The Magic Bit: Myler Comfort Snaffle

In the past few months, this bit has lost it's magic :(. It did a great job of helping teach him how to lift up his front end and carry himself, but now he has a tendency to stay above the bit and brace with it. It also does not provide much room for rider hand error without upsetting the horse. He's been preferring one of his $5 bits instead-- a single joint German silver mouthpiece eggbutt bradoon similar to the one below:

The BHB's Current Favorite: $5 Single Joint Bradoon w/ German Silver (aka Copper) Mouthpiece

The BHB likes to work in a variety of different bits and nosebands (or lack of). I found this bit hiding in the bottom of a box of mine this month and decided to toss it in our rotation... and he loves it! He's been going in this bradoon for most of the month and really doing quite well, with much reduced bracing. I felt he was leaning a little too much the other day and switched back to the Myler the next ride, and he was not happy at all about it. There was bracing, head tossing, and overall unhappiness of both horse and rider. So the bits were switched back immediately following that ride, and will likely stay that way until the end of the show season when we'll start working more in a double bridle.

Horses just sometimes change their minds about what tack they prefer. It just takes some experimenting to discover! I'm sure trying curb bits out on him this winter will be boatloads of fun.

USDF Year End Awards!

USDF year end awards are in the process of being finalized. Here's how the BHB did. Not too bad considering the big issues we faced while showing this year (sore feet, extremely hot weather, back to back ride times in extremely hot weather). We probably could have done really well if we rode the extra 4 first level tests to qualify for a First Level Musical Freestyle Challenge, but I didn't really want to spend money going through the same tests Mark memorized last year.