Bint + Bubbles

Lucy Maye and sister Emma Jean gave Bint a nice warm bath yesterday after Lucy Maye's lesson.

Ride log: 3.9.10

Charlie: After warming up on the flat, started trotting and cantering over a cross-rail on the circle--flatwork over fences. Charlie was definitely overthinking the tiny jump, either making a move at the base, standing off and taking a big jump, or losing his balance and running off on the landing. So we just kept coming to it again, and again, and again, and again, until the jump was no longer a point of interest and he was jumping it sensibly out of stride and in a balance. Noted that to the right he had a tendency to land on the left lead and do a change one stride later.

Day: "Available in the mouth" is our mantra at the moment. As we are all well aware, Day's mouth has a mind of its own, so we just worked on suppling and making him give me one corner of his mouth, then the other, until he was even in both my hands, soft and stretching out and down to the contact. Also, bending around the inside leg without running out through the outside shoulder. We didn't broach the subject of canter today since we had our hands full already at the walk and trot. It was funny: He kept dragging me toward every pole on the ground he saw.

Lesson: Lucy Maye

Red Hills Helmet Cam

I was at the start box when Peter Atkins went out and noticed he had a helmet cam on. He didn't make it all the way around the course, unfortunately, but I checked YouTube this morning anyway to see if he'd posted any video. Watching it you'll understand why we all went through the finish line with Spanish moss sticking wrapped round our helmets and our horses' ears.

Driver's seat airbag

Alex Green was kind enough to loan me her brand new Point Two Air Jacket to wear on x-c day. They're fairly new to the U.S. (the European events have been wearing them for a while) and are similar to vests used in motorcycle racing. A ripcord snaps to a loop that attaches to your stirrup bars and, when you "become detatched" from your horse, an air canister inflates in something .l seconds and POOF! (see photo) you may have just avoided a broken back, neck or collarbone. Uninflated, it just fits over the top of your regular safety vest like a flat, lightweight jacket, weighing about 2 pounds.

The trickiest part is remembering to unsnap the ripcord before you dismount at the end of cross country. Coming in to the last jump, I was already thinking: unsnap vest before dismounting, unsnap vest before dismounting. I spent some time in the post-xc vet box Saturday afternoon (helping to cool out Phillip Dutton's horses!), and it was HILLARIOUS how many riders came off course, jumped off, and POP!!!! Human balloon. I wasn't surprised at how many riders already had the vests considering the risks of riding at that level. Even the hefty price tag (about $800) pales in comparison to the hospital bills one incurs after a bad tumble, trust me.

Red Hills X-C course walk

I debuted a new x-c look, designed to intimidate the competition.

A nice galloping fence to get the ball rolling.

Fence 19 won the "oh #?@!, I have to jump this?" award.

It was 4'3" and almost 7 feet wide.

The second water combination (green flags = prelim) was custom made for a runout, between the skinny last element and the big crowd surrounding it (there were 15,000 spectators on xc day).

I loved the decoration on this one: momma bear, papa bear, and baby bear eating porridge!

Every jump on the course was like a work of art.

This was off a bending line from...

...this bank complex.

Another work of art.

In general, I loved this course. The new course designer, Hugh Lochore, has transformed it from previous designer Captain Mark Phillips' "Finnegan's Wake of x-c courses" (description borrowed from a course builder friend) to a track with enough terrain and technical fences to make it challenging and enough big, galloping fences to build confidence in horses and riders at the beginning of the season. Of 133 (I believe) riders, there were 24 eliminations or falls, and unlike the event's last running in 2008 no horses or riders were seriously injured.

It was an interesting track--I've never run a course with roped-off galloping lanes and crowds. Walking the course the day before, Julie warned that Red Hills has a "mini-Rolex feel," which can feel great when you land from a jump to cheering, but can also be distracting for the horses. Not Maggie--she was so focused on the course ahead of her it would've taken a bomb going off to distract her.

Another major challenge was trying not to hit a tree. Of course, you know me, I managed to still get lost on the course: After Maggie was absolutely spot-on through a challenging two-stride of angled fences, we got a little carried away and took off galloping down toward a part of the course only Advanced and Intermediate had to go through. It was probably a good 10 or 15 seconds before I realized my mistake and had to turn around to get back on track, so we accumulated some pretty serious time penalties (40). But I could care less, really, the way she showed up for me on that course.

Red Hills: Stadium

I was really pleased at how Maggie jumped round the stadium jumping course on the final day of the horse trial. It was a difficult course by virtue of the terrain, as it was built on a grassy slope, and the atmosphere, as there was a lot going on outside the ring between the trade fair, the bleachers, etc. I went in just focusing on riding her in an uphill balance, with a long neck out in front of me and a supportive leg. We had rails at the last two fences: The first was a one-stride with a bad glare off the top rail, so it was just a little tricky to sight the fence, and the second was my fault as I asked her to stand off a bit and jump on a max uphill fences without having the power behind to back up my request. In general, though, I was quite happy with her rideability.

Dean Graham and Megan Fischer, my Ocala trainers, drove up to watch me go cross-country the day before, and Dean, who is the master of riding hot, brilliant horses that no one else will ride, gave me some really good advice: To create a more harmonious picture, just guide her around the course and let her handle the rest. She's got the natural rhythm to meet her fences in stride and a good natural balance. I definitely kept that in mind today. Whereas before I might have kept "tapping (or slamming on) the brakes" to make sure I was in control, today I just rode her forward and kept looking for my next fence.

Red Hills: X-C

Two words: clean round!!

I have never been more proud of my mare than I was today. She rose to the occasion, and I just hung on for the ride.