ENYDCTA/Old Chatham H.T. 7/12/09

Well... it all had to come crashing down spectacularly at SOME point, didn't it? I had the very negative thought perpetually nagging me that how on EARTH could this good luck hold? Well, it couldn't. Today ended our winning streak with a very bruised ego and a broken finger (the middle one, ironically). I was denied my Area Championship for the SECOND year in a row due to an early complete fail on XC. Just like last year. I shoulda known!

So last year at Areas, our winning streak ALSO came to an end when we had a really wild runout to the left on XC, right? Of course I had that thought nagging me this entire time, and who knows? Maybe I had that negative energy in me and she picked up on it. I've been feeling horrible all week, totally unprepared for this and unable to focus. Nothing about it felt right... that should have been my first clue. I tried as hard as I could to stay positive, but I just felt weird all week. The day began this morning with a 4am start, and I should have known something was amiss when we didn't even make it out of the driveway without hearing a large CRACK! coming from the trailer. As it turned out, the chains suspending one of my swaybars from the hitch SNAPPED on the right side... no really, one of the steel links popped like they it was made of paper. So weird. And that also meant we had to trailer there without my swaybars, something I've never done long distance. I didn't like it one bit. When we got there at 6:30am, we re-walked half of the XC, but didn't really go look at fences one through four again. I felt that once we got to fence five and beyond, we'd probably have trouble, so I prepared myself for it. (This will come into play later). We had a LOVELY dressage test - perhaps the best one all season - but our judge was a notorious I-only-like-unnaturally-forward-tests kind of guy, so he scored my completely rhythmic and relaxed test poorly. Now, remember the video from the other day when Gogo was just lazing around? She was at least twice that forward in this test. I felt pretty good about it. He did not, and we were in 4th out of 23 with a 34.7. Okay, I suppose, but not the score I expected. I was sure we'd break 30, and I am certain that under another judge we would have.

On to XC. Old Chatham is a spooky place. I mean, seriously spooky. I watched maybe nine horses go through the water yesterday and only one of them went through without any penalties. The rest had stops or falls. I saw other riders falling left and right... I don't know what it was about this place, but EVERYONE had trouble. The warmup for XC is below a big hill where everyone goes to sit and watch, and the water complex spreads out below that. Gogo was unbelievably looky the entire warmup, and I was concerned about it. She's not normally that spooky, but there was so much to look at. She jumped all our warmup fences perfectly though, so I figured that she'd be super spooky on course but we could manage. I was anticipating a rough ride, and that's exactly what I had.

Fence one got a good look but we went over it, and she wiggled like crazy to fence two but went again. Fence three was big and looky, and holy CRAP she launched from well over a stride out, leaving a huge amount of space between her and the fence and landing very hard on the other side. We recovered, I told her she was a good girl and we cantered up out of the woods into the big spooky field. We approached fence four, a kind of weird looking wooden thing with some potted plants. We locked on to fence four. We cantered up on our left lead to the base of fence four. We were at the base of fence four, right at the perfect takeoff spot. And suddenly, with absolutely ZERO warning, Gogo did something she's never, ever, ever, ever, ever even REMOTELY suggested that she's had in her before - in an instant, she swapped from her left lead to her right, dropped her shoulder and head down to the dirt, slammed her hind end underneath her, and pivoted 180 degrees on one hind foot in the other direction. THE DIRTIEST STOP EVER. She's never STOPPED before at ALL! Me being COMPLETELY 100 percent off-guard (because I had NO idea she had it in her), was slung off over her left shoulder by sheer inertia, and landed on my feet, right hand still holding the reins. She dragged me a good few steps on my knees before I stopped her (I think she was completly panicked to see me on the ground), and backed her up hard a few steps. And that was that.... elimination. My first elimination at an event... ever. My first fall at an event.... ever. Her first dirty stop..... ever. We didn't even make it to any of the challenges on course at all. All I can say with this new rule of one-and-you're-done is that I hope she didn't learn that she can dump me and then get to go back to the trailer, because that's what happened. I don't think she's that kind of horse though. But then again, I didn't think she was the kind of horse who had a stop in her, much less a filthy dirty one. Wow.

Somewhere between trying to catch myself on her neck and grabbing the reins with my right hand, I broke my middle finger on my right hand. Yep, broke it. Not confirmed by x-rays, but confirmed by the blinding pain and inability to bend it... and the unnatural purple color. It's just the very tip of my finger, perhaps the knuckle (not sure) but that sucks a lot too. It had a big ugly metal splint on it now. At least when people ask me how I did I can flip them off without getting a reprimand for it. Irony has a cruel sense of humor, if you ask me.




So now what? Riga is next week, so I'm hoping she can redeem herself. I feel a very rare sense of it-wasn't-me-it-was-her for this one. I am very quick to blame myself, but as far as I can tell I did nothing wrong. She was very, very naughty and I am very dissapointed. Now, unfortunately, my trust in her has been rattled and I KNOW I'm going to override everything next weekend and for sure at the AECs. I don't know that I can trust her right now to do it on her own anymore. I never expected this. But I can tell you one thing... a horse with sore hocks does NOT put their hind legs that hard underneath themselves. So at least I feel better about that part of it. I feel completely robbed on our dressage test too... it really was a nice test, the nicest I've had this year really.

I felt the tiniest (and I mean tiniest) bit better to find that both of my fellow Novice Championship competitors parked on either side of my trailer were BOTH eliminated on course also, for nasty falls. One of them got pitched into the ditch (the horse actually almost fell into the ditch too) and the other's horse fell on course, studs and all. The ground WAS very turfed and wet, and Gogo scrambled down the hills to the warmup and to the actual course, so perhaps she was worried about the footing herself. She's very weird about those kinds of things... always knows where she's putting her feet. So I dunno. Perhaps the horses knew more than we did.


Honestly? I'm not sure what to think. My hope is that there is redemption at Riga this coming weekend, and I'm sort of glad it's coming up to quick because a) it's a nice, easy, confidence building course and b) it's immediately after this poor performance so it'll be fresh in both our heads, and we can hopefully soothe this horrible insult to our relationship. I was really starting to trust her on course too. Apparently, she still needs her hand held pretty strongly. She is still very green on course, after all, though it's easy to forget. Still, I can't see any reason to have such a horrible, filthy spin like that.


Except for maybe this: she always keeps me completely humble, reminding me every day that she's not doing this because I want her to, but because SHE wants to do it with me. She's a mare, and I can't argue with that, I suppose. Last year at Areas and the AECs, this year at Areas... man. She sure picks the big time shows to really bring out the best of my humility, that's for sure.


Mares.

Seriously. Mares.

MARES.