It was another hot humid day ahead of us with thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon. At 7am is was already almost 80 degrees. Trainer arrived and a away and headed over to the ring.
The jumps looked HUGE! When they say they are .80 meters, they are a solid .80 meters. .80 meters is 2 feet 7 3/4 inches, so almost 2'8". If I am being completely honest I was really intimidated by the jumps. Especially the oxers. They were square and wide. Eeek!
The courses:
The first course was a speed round and the second course was a timed first round with a jump off. The courses were pretty straight forward with noting tricky. They had 2 in and outs. If you remember, Liam and I haven't practiced many in and outs.
Got Liam all tacked up and headed to the schooling ring at about 7:45am. I love the schooling rings at this show. They are big with amazing footing. A lot of times shows have these tiny warm up rings with horrible footing.
Liam actually seemed pretty chill walking out to the ring. I hopped on and picked up my trot and was pleasantly surprised how quiet he was. We trotted around both directions looking around, but then got right to work. My trainer/friend set jumps for me and we started schooling over them. Liam was again really pretty chill. It was a way different ride then I was used to. It was almost like I had to create the energy. Typically I am trying to relax him to the jumps. We kept finding the base distance because I am not used to this quiet Liam. I wouldn't call the base distances chips though, it was more like settling to the base of the jumps. Liam wasn't backed off the jumps at all but he wasn't taking me to them like he normally does. He felt almost huntery... This is new.
Headed into the ring for the first course. He woke up a little in the ring and I picked up my canter and I got a nice forward canter and jumps 1 & 2 came up beautiful. Rolled back to 3 which came up great, by holding my shoulders, but keeping him in front of leg. Cantered away to 4ab and I felt him peak a little. Like, what is this? I didn't feel like he was going to stop, it was almost like he was trying to figure it out. I clucked and he jumped right through. Good boy!. Now we were moving. We were very forward to 5 and I never really got him balanced and I jumped up his neck and he hit the rail with his front end, darn. 6 came up long and again I never balanced to 7 because I didn't realized how open his stride was and we did a 4 in the 5. opps. My trainer and I talked about possibly doing a 6 there, but Liam had other plans. At this point I realized that Liam was on the move now after the clucking at the in and out. I landed from 7 smiling and laughing that we just left out a stride, I have been so worried that Liam couldn't make it down the lines. I was thankful that we had a roll back to 8 to balance a little. I balanced him through the roll back with my shoulders again and kept my leg on and 8 came up lovely. Stood out to 9ab, this time Liam had no hesitation to the 2 stride in and out with a bending line to 10. Again, I never balanced to 10 and we kind of had a flyer. But all and all I was really pleased with my first course. Could I have rode better absolutely, but I am a true amature and Liam was ok with my mistakes.
Heading into my second course I knew I had to balance a little better. It wasn't like Liam wasn't listening to the balance, I just wasn't asking him to balance at all. Jump 1 came up good with a left turn to 2 with 5 strides this time to jump 3. I just sat up in the line and the 5 strides was beautiful. Right turn to 4 ab, again this came up great, sat up to 5 and it was beautiful. Around the end to jump 6, 7, & 8 which was a 5 stride to a 4 stride. Found a good spot in and just sat up with leg on and the 5 to 4 was beautiful. Right turn to 9, now you didn't expect me to ride this whole course well, did you? What did I do, never balanced to 9 and jumped ahead, had the rail... Darn it!!! Landed and beautiful ride to 10ab, with no hesitation this time from Liam. Ugh, I just needed to sit up better to 9 and the course would have been perfect, oh well. I was really pleased and was all smiles leaving the ring. I even said to my trainer that this was actually fun. Big change from the day before where I was saying that this is not fun at all. I was so happy with Liam and the grown up horse showing he just did.
Untacked him and hosed him off and settled him in the stall for the afternoon. Liam was really tired and even took and nap in his stall! Success!
I was all done showing, Liam clean, tack clean, and packed up and it was only 9:30am. I could get used to this. The ran the ring as an open card, which I think all horse shows should do... Liam got a well deserved nap and hand walk later and tucked in for the night.
I'm so glad that it went well!
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