Equestrian Summer

So I haven't been doing regular posts like I did during the school year about my lessons with the team, partially because I've been focusing more on training.

Oh and by the way, those dressage dreams are over until I can buy a Warmblood. Apparently, you will lose a Paso's gait if you teach them dressage. What I don't understand is why the woman wrote the book on "Classical Training for the Paso Fino" if she says right in the introduction that Pasos and other gaited breeds aren't very successful with dressage. Uhmmmm kay?

Let's see. A summary of my summer.
I rode Cameo a whole bunch. From her, I learned how to keep a horse from refusing a jump.

I rode General once. I wasn't too keen on riding him when I did because his hoof looked nasty, and I told Nell that, but he was an okay ride. Very bouncy trot. From him, I learned to not work at posting and that you just have to go with the rhythm of the horse. The horse will propel you and you don't need to work your inner thighs all too much to post. Also, I learned that posting should not appear to go up and down, but rather rock back and forth.

I rode a Saddlebred/Arab cross, Dutchess, twice. From her, I learned that it is absolutely necessary to time your jumps and lift yourself up while in the air, otherwise you could possibly fall off. I also learned from her that you NEED to keep your heels down. I didn't and lost my stirrup almost every time over a jump. Thankfully, I managed to stay on. "If I go down, you're going down with me."

Today, my last lesson of the summer, I rode Two Socks. I only rode him once before when I was learning diagonals because, conveniently, he has two socks on the left side of his body.
Oh boy. I need to get a stronger leg, that's what I learned from him! I thought I had it after my adventures with Jimmy, but apparently not. My mom said she never saw a horse come away from a jump trotting...well today she did, that's how slow he was going. I thought that his trot was very nice on the flat, but apparently his "breakneck speed was that of death". I have to see if I can use spurs in the IHSA shows, because personally I find crops too hard to deal with. And with today's performance, I'm pretty sure that my next lesson will land me on Jimmy again. Fantastic.

I've already started lesson coordination. I even made a neat little form to send out as an email that will automatically fill into a spreadsheet. I'm kind of an organization nut like that. And I already have my lesson during the fall quarter in mind and pretty much secured. I'll only get one practice in before the show, but it's not like I'm going to be jumping at these shows. The points for this system are ridiculously hard! They make it so hard to point up in a year, and I'm only doing three shows. Even if I take first in all my classes, I'm still pretty sure I won't have enough points to jump next year. Oh, the frustration. So all my goal is to beat my NIU rival.

I'm all set with my show clothes. I bought a lovely new coat, all black, with gold buttons and velvet collar. My mom's was too small. Can you believe it! My mom was even skinnier than I am when she was younger! I have to vacuum myself a bit into her white breeches, but they look good, especially with her show shirt. Thank goodness it's no-sleeved. I have a beautiful pin for my ratcatcher and I tried on her tall boots today which fit perfectly. All I have to do is bring them to the shoemaker's to repair the sole a little bit, possibly add some traction to the bottoms because I kept loosing my stirrup again today, even though my heels were down.

I won't be out to train tomorrow. I have to work that football game. Go Wildcats!

Equestrian Team Day 12

Absolutely GORGEOUS outside! We got to ride outside.

I may not have explained how lost we were last week. We were an hour late. We didn't have the GPS that we came to take advantage of, so I printed out directions from Google Maps. Well. Google Maps is WRONG. It led us into a sub division. We tried first going on sight and after we got lost we turned to the Google Map. Led us to the subdivision. Desperately we accessed Google from someone's phone and managed to find our way back to to the stable an hour late.

Tonight, also without the GPS, I printed out Map Quest directions. The lead to a mysterious, nonexistent Buckley Road exit off the highway. Why are all these directions wrong?! So I flipped over the paper, found a pen, and we decided we were doing it on sight. We already knew how to get lost, we only needed to find out how to make it there.
We were only 20 minutes late!
And on the way home, we only made one wrong turn and missed one turn but easily corrected it! While these directions seem to work, hopefully we'll have a GPS next week when I can match up these directions we travelled tonight with the GPS directions and see how it goes. Then we'll send them out to the rest of the team because we don't want anyone getting lost in Northern Illinois, or worse, Wisconsin (and trust me, it's happened).

I rode Two Socks today. I rode him once before when I was still learning how to generally get my diagonals. But today we jumped a lot! I loved Two Socks's canter, it was fabulously smooth. Once I get my diagonals down pat I should clean up at shows! I jumped two jumps in a row today. Granted, they're only the little X's still, but I'll get there, especially if I take lessons over the summer. I'm excited for next week, our last lesson for the year, because I'm supposed to ride Cameo. I love her to death! Something about those mares. =]