Jojo winning test show previous.
You know I’ve always loved the saying that being a rider is a lot like being a rooster. One minute you are the cock on the block and the next, the feather duster. I was definitely the duster this weekend.
I should preface this by saying that I know one cannot win all of the time. I am very lucky in that at the last event two weeks ago I won on a 26 dressage, a great cross country and clear show jumping. The time before that my Jojo was 2nd. He’s an amazing horse and, in that, I suppose I’ve been a bit spoiled.
This weekend we headed off to do the Advanced at Poplar and I felt very ready after our last win and the fact that I had been practicing movements for our test for the past few weeks and he really seemed to be getting quite good. His changes are not confirmed yet and not wanting to endanger his very good brain in the sandbox I had made the decision to do simple changes in my test this weekend (of which there were two). I would take my two zeros like a man, but aim to rock the rest of the test and then spend the winter solidifying the changes ready to knock it out next year.
I was lucky number 1, so down centerline I went at 8:00 a.m. ready to wow the judge after what I thought was quite a good warm up. Cantered down center line, halted at X, trotted off, turned left, extended across the short diagonal and then I hear the dreaded tinkle of that damn dressage bell, which to a rider is as offensive as those massive large Xs on America’s Got Talent. (BTW, do they sell those golden bells anywhere else in the world now other than to kindergarten classes and dressage judges?) I stopped and stared at the judge who stared back at me and fairly abruptly called out “What are you doing?” My eyes darted left and right, ‘What kind of sorcery was this?’ I pondered… I mean I know perhaps it wasn’t an extended worthy of Blueberry, but surely it was a solid 7 or 7.5? “My test?”, I answered. “Well you are doing the wrong test. Go out and if the TD is ok with it you can come back in.”
Jezus H. It may have been the tails mixed with the 80-degree weather, but more likely it was the intense panic and stress level that hit me as I started to sweat buckets as I slinked out of her ring. NEVER in 20 some odd years of competing have I EVER learned the wrong test. Not only learned it, but I had been practicing the bloody thing for WEEKS. Panic, shame, all those emotions and more hit me, but then the nausea of realizing that I had to learn a test, quite similar to the four star test, in about 10 minutes.
The crash site second time around…please excuse the leg I was suffering from PTSD.
I am a fairly cleaver girl, but learning a test like that in that short a time I really didn’t know whether to cry, throw up, withdraw, or what. Leslie pulled up the test on his phone (thank god for technology! what did we ever do before iPhones when we were idiots?) and I started saying it over and over again. I was trying so hard to focus, but then I would get to a part where I would just start nervously laughing, as it included movements in sequences that I have never before even attempted with my poor horse and the real kicker was that there were FOUR changes in this test! FOUR zeros to get excited for!
My prideful nature had begrudgingly accepted the reality of two zeros, but it was in no way prepared to endure four. It was a total disaster. The only credit I give myself is that I shockingly made it through the test with only one error (where I halted on center line) and that aside from the one error and FOUR zeros for my changes I was actually only about 10 points off the second placed person. Shocking. Good ‘ole Jojo, what a saint. I can’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking after standing like a blackpool donkey for 10 minutes while I learned the test and then being thrown into the ring and asked to do things he’s never done before. I was ever so sad that I didn’t get to perform the test I was so ready for and contemplated for a moment at the end asking the Judge if she would just like to see my walk pirouettes for fun, as they really were quite correct, but sadly not involved in the test required. I am so curious as to how my mind so firmly held the belief that I knew what test I was supposed to do for so many weeks. I have no clue how I made that mistake, but I can tell you one thing for sure…it will never happen again.
So, one would think that things could only have gotten better from there, but, sadly, no. The next day was show jumping and of all three phases that is the one I would claim as my strong suit. With all of the horses I have ridden over the past few years I have had very few rails and am quite confident and happy in that arena. Even Leslie will admit that in that arena I can rival his talents (thank you Hugh Graham for all of those years of working for you and yelling at me to canter more poles). Jojo is as well a strong show jumper so, I really wasn’t too concerned about the jumping the next day. I did maybe walk the course four times, concerned about my mental capacity from the day prior, but we went into the warm up and Jojo was jumping like a million bucks and as I trotted into the ring I felt fantab.
The jumps were very large, as we were sharing our class with the three star, but Jojo sailed over the first seven jumps like a dream – not touching a one. I was just thinking to myself how this was going swimmingly well until we cantered on up to a large square oxer with a liverpool underneath to a lovely forward distance and next thing I knew the world had changed from Medal Maclay material to bloody Apocalypse Now script. We got to take off and next thing I knew there were rails flying and my head was dangling very close to the ground and my body had gone into that ‘hold on for grim death’ mode and it was very, very messy. A complete train wreck. Poor Jojo limped around a bit, but luckily it was such a large jump it was like when I tread on Liam’s lego creations in the middle of the night and the star wars ship that took me an engineering degree and two hours to build has been obliterated into 200 pieces and takes forever to build back up… so by the time the kids had rebuilt it he was sound again and we cantered back up to it with a bit of bile in the back of my mouth wondering if he would stop at it after that catastrophe, but, amazingly, he soared over it and we finished the course.
I have NO CLUE what happened in that moment. I watched a video of it about 10 times and still have no idea what went wrong. I know the footing isn’t great there and wondered if that had something to do with it, or if he just lost concentration for a moment or spied something that I did not… I have no clue, but it was a real pisser. Being me, I spent hours and hours contemplating what went wrong, but have finally thrown my hands up to the fact that horses are creatures too and like me on the dressage test, capable of mistakes or errors.
I scratched him from the cross country, as he clearly was sore from banging into the poles and although not lame, developed quite a good goose egg on the front of one hind. I know I made the right decision, but it sucked nonetheless.
I struggle with my emotions with the horses it is a personal flaw of mine that I have to continually work on. I get very down when things don’t go to plan and now that we are close to the end of the year I really have only one event left that I can take him to so as to not end our year on this cluster-you-know-what. So, I will have to be happy to look forward to that and then to a winter of solidifying our changes… I’d like to pretend to be excited by that…a winter of changes…but it would kind of be akin to looking forward to a root canal, but regardless I will put a smile on and learn to love the challenge.
On the upside, my baby horse Bounce has been doing great. I have loaned him to Leslie until the American Championships, as he does a great job with him and I had my hands full previously with Jojo and Chewy, but I look forward to stealing him back after the Champs. I am also looking forward to a trip to Europe soon to replace Chewy. Happily, my bad juju of the weekend didn’t seem to effect any of the others around me as Leslie did great on all three of his and our students did fantastic jobs on all of their horses.
This horse gig is a great character builder if you survive it. Like I said, I suffer with my emotional being, Leslie often tells me it is my biggest problem in life. I mean, I can easily burst into tears watching Undercover Boss or American Idol. So, it is easy for me to dive into an ugly cesspool of darkness and despair when things don’t go well. I have to yank myself up by my roots (which badly need doing BTW) and make myself open my eyes and see the joy in our students when they do well or the magic that is my husband riding across the country.
I got to take Jojo out for a long and beautiful hack today down the oak-laden roads that surround our farm. My heart just about bursts every time I sit on that creature, I just adore him so, and I thank God for it, as, to be honest, there is a lot about our profession that I just hate, but even more so now than when I was younger I am so in love and in awe of these special horses. During those 45 minutes of walking and trotting the roads, I had quite a philosophical, albeit one-sided, chat with him about how we just had to both issue forgiveness to one another for our blasphemous outing and go for the win next time out. I think he’s on board…
