5 years later, more bad birthday riding that is still big fun

Five years ago, this blog started with Rocking Horse I, on the weekend of my 45th birthday http://seema-thefloridachronicles.blogspot.com/2008/02/first-event-of-season-in-which-horses-i.html.  The horses were much better than I was.  As we know, history oft repeats itself, and this weekend, for my 50th birthday, I headed off to Florida for another go at Rocking Horse I.  Last year, this was Keegan's first event at the BN. This year, we had a go at the training move-up.  The weekend got off to a great start with a very good dressage lesson on Friday. There was a brief flurry of texts to figure out where our Coggins was, but it was in Missy's truck and Missy was headed to Rocking Horse even earlier than I was the next morning.  Hilda and Ken, along with Lynn and Johhny headed up to Rocking horse in the lovely motor coaches on Friday evening.  I hung at the house listening to basketball.

Saturday, I headed up to Rocking Horse with Keegan fairly early in the morning.  I was a little worried that he might not want to load in the dark, but no worries, he marched right on.  He remained calm and easy when we arrived at Rocking Horse.  I picked up packet, chatted a bit and then hopped on for dressage.  The test felt really good except for the first canter transition, which was a bit fussy, but overally quite good.  Watching the video later (thanks, Ken!), I saw that I lost his hindquarters at the end of a couple turns (something Missy has been working with us on) and that my arms tended to be a bit too low and straight (an improving, but never-ending issue).  Overall, I was really pleased with him and despite his lengthenings still being a work in progress, there was no drop-off from his prior scores at Novice.  Still plenty of room for improvement.

After a little time off, I got back on and headed over to the stadium.  I got there a little earlier than necessary and so got to watch Grace Carpenter's very nice dressage test on her Isabella.  We jumped a few and headed into the stadium, which was really just an amazing experience.  It felt totally easy (although others said it was a challenging enough track, with just over half the horses having a double clear).  I got a clear round and a happy birthday from the announcer, both of which were fun to hear. Hilda and Cyndi also engineered a lovely happy birthday "advertisement" in the program, very cool.

After taking Keegan home, I came back up and Hilda and I walked the cross country course (more on that later), then returned to the coach, where a wonderful birthday party was underway.  While, I had guessed there might be something planned, I had not envisioned the scope which included Henry sending wine and Lynn following Henry's recipe to bake me my very favorite cardamom pound cake.  I got some lovely presents (including a great picture of Keebler with Jordan to start my collection of that great partnership).  In addition to Hilda, Ken, Lynn, and Johnny, Genny (another Ashmore rider),  Jordan, (her mom) Billie and (another Cyndi studnent) Emily came by as well as Cyndi, Sam Bueckananon (who rode Gaston in the clinic last week and also had a good day) and her mom, Jeff, Missy, Steph Cauffman representing the Blue Hill crowd, Maripeg Bruder (never one to miss a party),  Sandra McDonald and Laura Duhamel from adult riders and several others stopped in to say hello. It was a great crowd and great fun.  Missy had a great day on both her own Ike and on Super Nova (who is for sale - total jumping packer - Missy said she had a blast  http://bluehillfarmpa.com/Pages/SalesHorses.html).  Steph and Dylan also had a great day (other than Steph not having quite all the rust knocked off her distance finding) and Steph was in first place on Cindi Cauffman's Ben (Absolute Bearing) after dressage and SJ (and ended up winning their division with clean xc on Sunday).  Sandra rode both of hers at training and Laura Duhamel apparently came off the xc grinning ear to ear and finished on her dressage score.  Sam and Gaston were also doing well with the clinic paying off.  After enjoying all the yummy food and wonderful company, I headed back down

Sunday morning, same routine.  Pop Keegan on the trailer and head up to Rocking Horse, hang out a bit, then tack up for cross country.  Keegan was adjustable and listening in the warm-up and I felt we were quite good to go.  On the other hand, the cross-country was quite substantial. I heard later from one of the officials that they felt the training level course was the one course that wasn't really a move-up course.  5-4-3-2-1 have fun! and off we went.  Keegan jumped brilliantly through the first half of the course, handling the big enough bench, the accuracy question at 3, the turning question at 5 all well.  Then we had a stutter at 8, when he got distracted going into the woods, paid no attention to my leg (admittedly weak as I've been battling a pretty grim upper respiratory tract malady) and had a stop to take a look at the in to the half coffin.  We regrouped and finished.  He was then brillian over another table, through the major terrain question and over the big picnic table, but then just found too much too look at a the water, and I just wasn't riding him well, so our day ended there.  It was vaguely disappointing, but mostly I was impressed at how easy the bigger fences felt.  He clearly needs a little more trust in me (and to pay attention when stuff gets tougher), but I also thought back and realized that this is his 5th cross country run total (BN at RH 1 last January, N at Ocala last February, N at Fair Hill in May and N at Radnor in October), that other than the clinic last week, he hadn't been on a cross country course since October and that in general, he had never schooled anything as tough as the questions he was being asked on this course.  So, back to the drawing board with some more schooling and another novice run at Ocala in a couple weeks, but overall, this horse is a total rockstar.  Once I manange to get my act together, we are going to be having even more fun (I think that is possible).  The birthday fun continues with dinner with Henry tonight and the city party tomorrow night.

Meanwhile, the training sessions are under way in Ocala.  Caitlin is there, so I'm hoping for a report.  Jenna posted a lovely facebook picture of Caitlin jumping Hoku earlier today.  And further north, Full Gallop took place.  Sally had some great finishes on Joule, Oliver and Charm; Erin Sylvester won the training; Kate Chadderton rode her whole string; Ryan Wood had several  Courtney Cooper was back in action, and Chris Talley and Super Pony put in an appearance.  Up north, basketball was the big news as Villanova beat #3 Syracuse and the Celtics lost Rondo for the season.  I returned to an icy mix coating my car this morning, but it has turned to rain since and I hear it is warm in the midwest which means it should be warm here soon. Of course, I am so lucky, I get to head back to the warmlands next weekend.