September B-Rated Show EOH

The Ease of Handling course was tough. There are ways to make the course a little easier: group obstacles in areas and move from area to area; minimize the number of times the rider moves from one end of the arena to another; minimize the amount of open space a rider has to ride. This course was the opposite of that. There were seven times the rider had to ride from one end of the arena to the other. So, we started at one end, rode to the other end to start our first obstacle (single slalom), then the bridge, then the other end of the arena for switch a cup, and so on. I knew going in that the long lines would be challenging for us, primarily because squirrels, and also because it is much easier to keep a horse put together when there isn’t so much arena between activities. It became pretty apparent pretty quick that it was also going to take a ton of time. We averaged fifteen minutes per ride.

In warm up, Ashke was letting me know that he was not happy with how he was feeling. He would not hold the left lead canter in the back on a circle where I was asking for bend to the left, and struggled to give me bend to the right. The people watching who know what they are looking at said that he did not want to reach with his left hind leg. (Remember when the doc asked me if we were doing both hocks even though we hadn’t talked about it? Should have seen that as a warning from the universe.) Chris said that in his leg yields, which he is excellent at, you could see he did not want to reach out with his left hind and you can also see if you watch closely in the video, he was short striding just a touch. I could feel all of that in the warm up arena. I knew there were issues and that there would be pieces of the ride I would have to manage, but he wasn’t unsound. He was just telling me his knee was bothering him. It was also an issue to sit saddled and wait for the EOH ride. I should have pulled his saddle. 

We were the last rider in EOH. I have to say, no one DQ’d at EOH for the first time in any of our shows.

The spook at the garrocha was a first in three years. Even when I approached the second time, I had my spur planted in his ribs forcing him over, but you can see he wasn’t interested in playing. And then he spooked at the bull/ring/end of the arena and got a bit bouncy going through those obstacles. Those scores were totally earned. The bump in the side pass pole was him being lazy, plus, I really need to work him on crossing consistently in the back when we are doing the poles. It really is a combination of lack of I mpulsion and his reluctance to stretch under himself that is the core of the issue. (Winter riding goals # 5564).

After this was just the speed round.