Cross-country mayhem

Or how we fared with 10 riders going cross country schooling.

The harvest moon setting as I headed to the barn.

It was a great day.  I got up at 5am and to the barn by 7:30.  Packed up the pony with the five that we were taking from our barn (Violet, Charlie, Riley, JR and Finn) and headed out.  We signed in at the Florida Horse Park around 9, hoping to be out schooling by 9:30.  It was a bit after that, because we had to find the others that were joining us for this schooling.

So there we are, a total of ten riders and eleven people (we had one extra, just in case).  One of those was not schooling, since he was only 6, but he did walk around with us on his mother's retired Training level quarter-horse, lagging toward the back of the group so he could holler "Mom, can I trot?!" to catch up, and asking pretty smart questions for someone new to the whole eventing thing.

"What do the numbers on the fences mean?"
"Do they get to stop between the fences, or do they just keep jumping?"
"Do they try to make it more dangerous as it gets harder?"

A beautiful foggy morning at the farm.

   Yeah, pretty perceptive little one.

Anyway, it was a varied group, with most of the riders doing Novice, a couple that were working on Training, and two of us doing elementary.

We were in the saddle for three and a half hours.  It was fun though.

Pony is ready.  And thanks to Ginny for the saddle loan.

I had one goal.  To not have any stops.  As a bonus goal, I would love to work on some of the BN fences, but that was up to Marcy.

In getting V ready, we discovered I had no rein stops on my regular bridle, so I went with the french link gag that we have used in the past since the reins on that bridle had them.  Yeah, in the future, I will simply switch the reins.

Violet gets a little, well, to be frank, she gets a little bitchy about pressure on her poll.  In the past, we have simply made her deal with it in order to get the control I needed because she was not happy about leaving the group and being in the field with OTHER HORSES, OMG.

This time, she was really very good about separating from the group, and very rideable and controllable.  I didn't need that extra.  What it did do is make her throw her head in the air and become disconnected from back to front.  Which led to "OMG MY LEGS ARE GOING SO FAST, IS THAT A FENCE, I SHOULD PUT MY HEAD DOWN TO LOOK" and a pop-step in front of the fence.

But she didn't stop.  Not once.

My cohort and I spent a while going over the same fence while the rest of the group was working on the banks.  Once we both got our horses going forward over the fence, we upped the ante and jumped the Beginner Novice bench that was next to it.  Neither of us had problems.

I discovered on the second to last fence that part of my issue that day was leg position.  When sitting to go forward in the last few strides, I was pushing my leg forward and losing my pushing leg on the pony.  I am so used to being able to stretch down and around the pony, in both dressage and stadium, in my saddle that I didn't realize when I did that in the cross-country saddle, it actually took my leg off below the knee.  So, I'm looking forward to the next time we school when I can work on correcting that and learning what it is supposed to feel like.  Definitely got better after I was informed.

Accomplished and tired pony.

So, while we were a little worried about the whole mass of riders heading out to the field, and it took a great deal longer than I anticipated to get everyone happy with their schooling, all the horses were good, and it was fun.  Violet and I managed to hit our goal, and we have expanded our group a bit, and I think that's a great thing.

On a more somber note, this was kind of a last hoorah for Marcy who is heading back to surgery tomorrow to redo some work on her clavicle.  Hopefully she will heal quickly this time and be back on and working before we know it.