Silver Hills ODE October 2017 - Cross Country

I had bugger all sleep on Saturday night. My cross country was at 10.17am so I could have slept in a little but I ended up waking up at 5am anyway, and show nerves kicked in, blast them.

I was so tired, but Allie was a little pooped so I knew I had to warm her up in front of my leg and wake her up a bit - while waiting to go into the warm up she was almost falling asleep with a hind leg resting while the 95cm cross country was running literally right in front of us. Poor mare, we weren't really fit enough to be eventing, but luckily it's a short course, optimum time was 3 min 45 sec.

The warm up at Silver Hills is weird. It's a long straight line with two likes of jumps with space in the middle to ride up the far end, then you turn around, gallop back over fences, then try not to gallop straight over the gate steward. The right hand side is the smaller warm up jumps and the left is the larger. This year, we actually jumped the larger warm up jumps, two of which are a good 95cm! She certainly woke up after that, haha.

It was the same course as last year, and I knew we could jump everything in it. After the water (obstacle 3), my ankles, especially my right, started to feel very damn weak. I could barely get up off her back to let her gallop, they were that bad. I never lost my stirrups though, thanks to my fancy new Freejumps, but honestly I thought I wasn't going to make it around, I was riding that poorly.

We came to the downhill ski jump, which I wasn't worried about, except I couldn't actually get my leg on her and sit up, so she stopped. I was so cranky with myself, and she hadn't got her mojo on yet by that point. We quickly circled and she flew over it the second time with a few whacks of the whip, and then she just kinda took over - we have run this cross country course about 4 times now, and she just took a sharp turn to the next jump almost by herself, the funny girl. I even said out loud "you know where you are going, don't you?".

The rest of the jumps, she absolutely flew over. She was a total packer and she really really looked after me. She galloped so fast that even with the stop, we were 1 second below optimum time! We have never been under optimum time! I was bloody stoked with that.

The last three logs I was just hanging on wishing it were all over. My ankles and lower legs were in agony, and I was not enjoying it, which sucked big time. She galloped over the finish line and I pulled her up and took my feet out of the stirrups and let them dangle. I have no idea why they were so bad, but my body really let me down. I probably should have jumped in the two weeks leading up to the show, I guess.

You have seen us jump this before. She's not wasting energy over this anymore!

Pathetic little brush jump. It looks so sad, haha.

The stupid ski jump. It looks so tiny with all the long grass.

I love the way this jumps. There's a dip on the landing side and I like the way the horse drops into it.

Look at this saint of a mare! This is the scary trakehner with the rather deep ditch in front. She launched herself over it and really looked after me because I was useless by this stage.

So we had 20 jump faults, no time faults, and we were in 20th place. Next up, showjumping! Will my ankles give way? Or will my stupid limbs stand up to the challenge?

Derby

So, back in September, all the stars aligned and I managed to take Allie to a derby day to do a 60cm and an 80cm derby round. The derby is a mix of cross country and show jumps.

Allie was a freaking super star. As you know we have barely done anything this year, and we certainly haven't ridden off property, let alone competed. So I decided to do a 60cm round, then depending on how we went there, I would either scratch the 80cm or ride hors concors in the 80 (as it was an unofficial comp/training day).

The 60 was a piece of cake. Allie was a gem, jumped everything with confidence, and left me feeling like I needed to give the 80 a red hot go, even though some of the jumps looked bloody scary.

The 80 went awesome, too. There were a few fences I was worried about - a rather large trakehner, a blue painted house, and a big table top.

She flew over the trakehner no problems, but we had a stop at the house because, curse my wretched legs, I just didn't have them on. She thought about stopping again the second go around but as you can see from the video, she hopped over and then totally got in her grove! By the time the table top came along (not in the videos) she flew over that, too. I yelled out "F*ck yeah!! Oops, sorry!!" as I galloped away from it toward the water.

The day was bloody awesome, Allie was a champ, and we came away with a second in the 80 and a third in the 60! Always nice to come home with a ribbon or two.

Flying over the big table

We have our "it's business time" faces on here.

Hanging out between rounds

Winner winner chicken dinner!

Zooooooooom

Through the water

Silver Hills eva80 - Cross Country

So after we had some lunch I was getting too nervous to wait around so we tacked up and went up to the cross country warm up a little early. On my way up there some girls from my class I had been chatting to earlier called me over to wait with them on their horses as the previous class (the 95cm) was running way overtime. We ended up just sitting and watching the water jump from afar for a good 45 minutes.

One poor horse got caught on the water jump, he didn't have the power to get over the ump and got stuck with it under his sternum, poor horse. They had to cut the jump down to get him off it. Both horse and rider were ok and walked away from it a bit sore. All of us watching were glad we didn't have to jump that jump!!

If you are interested I posted the course walk for our class.

Anyway, the warm up is weird at Silver Hills. It's literally a line of jumps next to the driveway, so you trot up, turn around and canter back over the jumps. I just had Allie go over the line twice making sure she was in front of my leg then they sent me over to wait at the start box early. I was glad because then I had the room to canter in big circles stretching her out and bringing her back and keeping her infront of the leg. She was absolutely itching to get going cross country but was very very level headed. I was so impressed with how rideable she was.

We entered the start box just before he counted down to 3, 2, 1 as she didn't feel like she wanted to stand still for any length of time. We walked in and burst out to the first log, then a left turn to the second jump and I lost my bloody right stirrup! Not wanting a repeat of our last xc stop due to a lost stirrup, I circled (thank god it wasn't counted as a refusal) and over jump 2 we went. Jump 3 through the trees was good then we cantered down to the water, two strides of trot to get in then she powered through the water in canter and out again to turn right then onto jump 4.

Game faces!

"GOOD GIRL!!!""

Next up was the scary ski jump but we absolutely blitzed it with lots of leg and Sam's voice in my head telling me to just set up the right pace and let the horse handle the jump.

Tight right hand turn and then up to the easy shute log pile then soft right to the square roll top thing.

No leaping or any "holy crap' moments here! We were cross country MACHINES!

Over that then out to the right then turn left through the trees to the giant log, and tight left again to the brush. Right then I lost my bloody right stirrup AGAIN but she was rolling along so I luckily got it back and jumped the brush ace.

Yes, yes I DID buy all the pro photos.

Soft turn right to get a good line to the log pile between the trees. She jumped that so so so beautifully.

Cluck cluck cluck!!

I think this one is my favourite.

After this I ha to find my line to the trakhaner. There was an option to double back and go over a small log but she was jumping frigging awesome so there was no way she wouldn't jump it! No photos of us over it but I let out a big "whoohoo!" going over it because I was having SO MUCH FUN!!

The last lot of logs were perfect, so easy compared to the jumps before, however the horse in front was going so slow and she was having trouble holding him so I didn't want to just gallop past her and cause an accident. We ended up almost 30 seconds over the optimum time because of this when we would only have been maybe 10 seconds over (and not at all if I hadn't have had to circle to get my stirrup back). They were only sending us out 45 seconds apart, I just drew the short straw riding behind someone going slow.


Here's some video Natalie took. It shows how bloody awesome we were going!!

I was on a HUGE high during and after cross country!! We had safely completed out first 80cm, it was harder than I thought it would be, but we did it with confidence and Allie was love love LOVING the cross country so bloody much.

So with the time faults from xc and the faults from showjumping we ended up 24th out of about 33. I was a little disappointed at first but honestly the quality of horses that were there was surprisingly high and I am just so proud of how we handled ourselves and of how I rode the whole weekend. Definitely a personal best for us!

I'm planning to stay at 80cm until we can get into the top 10 consistently. I think a year or two at this height will keep up safe, but challenge us sufficiently.

That's us!

Silver Hills Course Walk

Ok just skip this one if you want to hear how we went on this cross country course. I just don't want to clog up my other post and make it too long.

Course map

1 - simple log

2 - Oxer

3 - vertical

4 - through the water AROUND that jump. That's the jump that horse got caught on.

5 - log pile

6 - ski jump. My jump was the bigger downhill ski jump in the background, not the small one in front. I was worried about it because it as down hill into a tight rollback to get to 7.

7 - this log pile is super inviting, framed on both sides with a shute like fenceline.

8 - square rolltop? Is that what you would call it? Anyway, it's bigger than it looks.

9 - big wide log. Fun to jump but need to get the right line through the trees and there's a sharp left turn afterward.

10 - the most inviting brush I've ever seen.

11 - Log pile frames by trees. There's a drop on the landing side. Jumps awesome after the last three jumps.

12 - Trakhaner. The ditch is quite deep and a bit wide. I was worried about this one but knew she would be rolling along and wanting to jump the moon by this stage so tried not to worry about it too much.

13 - Lovely little jump with a little width from the ground log.

14 - Log pile 'skinny'. 

15 - another easy upright with some width.

16 - Bigger log pile.

17 - final log with the finish flags a few strides after. 

Mudgee - Sunday Cross Country!

Sunday dawned bright and cold. It warmed up a little and it was an absolutely stunning day.

Gorgeous, right?

My ride started at 8am so I was up with the first light to bring Allie up from the night yards to the day yard to give her some breakfast. When I got to the night yards, the little shit wasn't in her yard anymore!!! Luckily the night yards were surrounded by a bigger fenced paddock so she couldn't go anywhere but I was still a bit cranky with her.

She ate all her breakfast and we had ours, then I we got ready and warmed up in the arena with the other 3 people in my group. Sam was running a little late because he gave an early jump lesson but we were on the cross country by about 8.15.

Sam gave us a safety brief (basically, the footing was ok but a bit wet/deep in parts so balanced riding and careful turns were the most important thing for the day). and then he had us warm up in trot then canter, transitioning from big forward pace to a shortened pace and vice versa. Then we started with a nice small arrow head which Allie and I aced, then we moved onto a bigger 80cm arrowhead. I was a little intimidated but if the tiny pony in our group could clear it then so could we.

She stopped at it.

Basically I hadn't had her canter right and hadn't given her enough leg to get her over it. Sam had me stand square onto the fence while he chatted about what went wrong, then had me gallop off and come at it again. Second go through we jumped it, but it was messy, for the same reasons.

Third go around though, was perfect.


We moved onto an 80cm oxer, and it went almost exactly the same, except without a stop. Our first jump she positively leapt over it and I am sure I swore, rather loudly. Here's the photos.

I look terrified.

But I gathered myself to ride away from it positively.

Second go through was better but not perfect, and third go through was perfect.

See?

Next we did a little house, then a much bigger house. The first time to the big house again I quit riding a stride or two out and we had a run out. Sam had me slowly trot into the jump and stop dead straight square in front of it a couple of times, to show her that she is NOT NOT NOT allowed to do duck out, only allowed to go straight to the jump.

We jumped it twice more, perfectly.

Little house. Easy peasy.

Big house! Bit scarier.

Better!

After the big house, we jumped everything first go perfectly. I finally found the canter we needed. It was MUCH faster than I thought it should be. I felt like we were practically galloping straight at the jumps and it was hard to keep my leg on and not back off.

Scary brush? No problems!

Getting moving

Small table. She barely blinked.

Barrels!

Cantering through water

And out!

And in!

My face is too hilarious.

Sam said "If you can't jump each of these jumps first go well (not taking three goes to get it right) then 80cm is going to be too scary for you".

I feel like I know now the pace we need to be going at to get her rolling. We need to approach the jumps quite straight (I kept cutting my line a bit so need to go wider than I think if the jump is off a turn), and I need to ride away positively no matter how we get over the jump. Shake it off and look to the next jump, make it perfect!

By the end of it, we were jumping awesome and I felt like I could jump anything he pointed me at. I'll definitely be going to Sam for more cross country lessons in the future. His farm is only an hour and a half away from me so it's feasible to go there for a lesson (or a few!).

Allie floated home perfectly and was very glad to be home when we got back.

Silver Hills ODE 80cm this weekend! Wish us luck!

Fin