Calm before the storm

Well, here we are the day before I get to kick of what will hopefully be a fantastic season of showing Ms. Roxy. I was thinking back about the last good show I had, and it was in the summer of 2008 with Ransom. I can't believe it's been 2 years! The show was only successful because he had not yet gone back into brain-completely-fried-mode about XC yet. He had a slight freakout on XC but I managed to get him pointed at the next fence and off we went. He also did not want to set foot in the SJ ring, but luckily Erin Diserio was there to give us some help getting in the ring. We were 2nd in the Novice. Here's hoping for 3 well ridden, fun phases tomorrow!

Rox was good last night, I jumped her through a gymnastic of trot poles, bounce to one stride. She was quick with her front end and only tapped a fence once. I think doing more of this type of thing will help her learn to think for herself about how to jump correctly and keep her front end snappy. At the end of the ride, Randi took down the beginning of the exercise and I jumped the vertical to vertical coming the other way off a tight turn. The first 2 times through I had her too compressed and rode 3 short strides out of the turn and she got really deep and had to pop up in the air. She was smart with her front end though and didn't touch the plank. I need to be more careful with setting her up well so I can soften the rein in the last few strides before the fence. The last time through I finally rode her up to the 2 strides out of the turn with a nice opening rein and lots of outside leg and she lengthened her stride nicely and jumped in a better arc. This put us too close to the second fence, but she was catty and got over it without touching it. Good way to end a last minute before the show jump school!