Twin Recap

This is going to be short and sweet because my lunch break is almost over:(

Gatsby was fabulous at Twin last weekend. We ended up only schooling on Saturday because the weather was so crummy, the footing wouldn't have been good by Sunday. Unfortunately one of the horses in my group coliced and needed emergency surgery(I believe he is recovering well) so it was just me and Gatsby and another lady who is just starting eventing and kept us company:)

As I said, the weather was crummy and Gatsby was very fresh. We also hadn't schooled XC in about a year and I was super nervous. When I get nervous I generally stop riding well and let me bad habits get the better of me...I could tell we were headed this way, which usually results in disaster:( Thank goodness Alexis reminded me that I actually CAN ride my horse and everything ended up alright:)

We jumped through both water complexes, the coffin, and pretty much everything else on the course. We even got over the U-log on the hill that got us eliminated! On the first try! We also jumped the corner and the ditch and wall, both of which I remember being nervous about before our first Training. The best part? Nothing looked big or intimidating to be at all! Suffice to say, we got the double thumbs up to enter Training for next month:)

He had Sunday off and when I rode on Monday I had a mild heart attack. Gatsby was not behaving up to my standards and maybe I was just getting frustrated and not handling it well but it was one of our worst rides since moving to DK. Also, he felt off on his left hind. It wasn't major, it just didn't feel like he was tracking up evenly. I decided to give him Tuesday off and let Alexis assess in our lesson yesterday.

I got to the bard yesterday and had another mild heart attack when I found a HUGE bite taken out of my horse's neck!!! (Shoulda taken a picture!). We were already running late so I scrubbed with betadine and spayed with furazol and hoped he would be fine, which he was, thank god! Our lesson was pretty much fabulous. He started off just like he had on Monday and it was extremely helpful to have Alexis there to help me work through it. Once he settled, he was fantastic. We even got some really good trot lengthenings! We also worked on his resistance in downward transitions. Every time he would brace against me in the transition I would make him rein back until he rounded up, then we would continue forward. This helped tremendously! We definitely have a ton more work to do in that area but I am glad to have a tool I know works. We also had some canter issues, similar to Monday, but I think those stemmed from a combination of his resistance and my frustration as we eventually did get some nice work.

Tonight I am off to NYC (in lieu of Japan). Alexis will ride Gatsby on Saturday and Tuesday and he will get a little break before we get down to business preparing for Twin.