So, I completed Loudon Hunt horse trials on Sunday with Oh So. We were in training amateur, although he qualifies for training horse too. I thought our dressage was pretty good for him, except for his usual head flipping going into canter. But we got a 43. I thought the judge was a little harsh. Oh well. I did experiment with my dressage warm up. I did about 25 minutes, instead of an hour trying to “work him down”. He gets so tense, but I think if I do a shorter warm up, it gives him less time to get tense.

The show jumping course was very nice and flowing. A stark contrast to past courses at Morven. There was a 2-stride and a 1-stride, but no triple. We got a little short to fence 3, so it screwed up the distance to 4, but he got out of it because he’s so scopey. We had the last rail down. It came up so fast after a combination, and he got a little long and flat to it. We also had a random single time fault.

Oh So was raring to go on cross country. He settled right into a good rhythm after the first fence. There was a step up to a one stride and then a huge table. He did all those well. There was also a roll top, left turn to two steps down. He sort of lept off the second bank, but he’s still learning. I came in a little slow to the fence before the water. He got a four stride instead of a three because he landed short over the first log. I think he was just surprised by the water and all of the other fences near it. He also went a little bit left, but I corrected him and he stepped over the log into the water and out over another log. We finished a few seconds over time because I sort of lost momentum after the water jump.

Overall, the event was a great first training of the season. On to Lexington, my favorite event of the year!

Here is a link to my photos at GRC.

Here is my video-