It's been far too long and I apologize! Let me catch you up on the past week. We left for The Fork horse trials on Monday. I didn't have Internet where we stayed, that's the reason I've gone so long without blogging. I had lessons on Ollie with Buck Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He helped me a lot in just a few days. Ollie likes to go around with his chin pinned to his neck and his head up like a giraffe... attractive I know. Buck made me make Ollie go forward and get his head as low as I could. We were literally trotting as fast as Ollie could go and he eventually stretched his head down low. That's his problem, he doesn't respond to the leg as efficiently as we would like him to. Without the leg his head can go as high as it wants, so me kicking him forward entices him to stretch that neck down nice and low. Audie did dressage on Thursday and was being really good in warm up, I felt confident and ready to win the dressage. She went out and all the trot work was smooth and flowing. The counter canter was rough and Audie all of a sudden knew how to do flying lead changes. It's moments like those that you just have to salvage what left of the test you have. She earned herself a 37, not what I wanted but I really haven't had much time to practice with her. Ollie did dressage on Friday. He was wild during his 9 am pre-ride, Buck said he was looking good though. At 2 pm his warm up was good and he was still acting a little wild, shaking his neck and jumping around in the canter. I was worried about not practicing the flying lead changes in warm up, I thought if I did one or two changes I might not get them in the test. I went into the ring and all the trot work was good, he kept his neck out and his lateral work was really nice. The canter work got a little tight when we had to do our half passes and the flying changes weren't that bad. The first one wasn't really one, we kind of walked then cantered. The next one was ok and the last two were pretty good. Ollie scored a 37 also, I thought it was a good test since I had just changed trainers a few days before the event. Cross Country for Ollie was intimidating, very big and wide jumps on the course and a lot of corners. He was a superstar though, jumped everything clean and had a bit of time. I didn't push him to go too fast because I just wanted to make it through the course clean so I would be qualified for Jersey Fresh. Audie had show jumping the same day and was a speed demon. She flew effortlessly around the course and jumped clean. On Sunday Audie had cross country first and she once again flew around like a racehorse jumping clean. Ollie's show jump round was good, he did drop two rails but it was my fault. I didn't see the distance at the first jump and slowed down too much taking down that rail. I then struggled to get back into the correct pace taking another rail with me. I wasn't too disappointed because I was still qualified for Jersey and I didn't fall off!! Buck said he's going to have me play around with saddles because the one I use is a cross country saddle, so it puts me behind the motion too much. Since changing Ollie's bridle he's been jumping so much better and using himself properly. The weekend was fun and I'm ready for the next show!
Once again I'm sorry for taking so long to write. Hope every one's night is wonderful!
Goodnight!
Your Aspiring Olympic Rider,
Callie Adaire Judy
