Show Report: Dixie Cup 2015

Shadow Rider Photo by Courtney Huguley
Shadow Rider
Photo by Courtney Huguley

April 30-May 2, 2015
Georgia International Horse Park
Conyers, GA, USA
Dixie Cup Horse Show on Facebook

Saturday, May 2, 2015
With Alvin Ailey
301 Aca. Equitation WTC Adult, 1st of 1
302 Aca. Show. WTC Adult, 1st of 1
317 Aca. WTC Championship, 3rd of 3
Thank you to the Wamble family for the awesome Alvin.

Show Photographer Casey McBride. In the Championship, black horse, blue helmet. (Note all entrants in this class wearing helmets! I’d estimate three-quarters of the entrants in most classes had helmets.) Photo rant. Lately, I have been hearing less about folks downloading without paying. Either social media protocol is getting better, the photographers have given up, or I am not listening in the right places.

As for me, I didn’t ride as well as I would have liked. Perhaps 50% of what I was getting in my lessons. Do I count that as progress? Ha! I want it all and I want it immediately, regardless of how reasonable I tried to sound previously [Show Today]. Plus, it’s hard for me to sit chilly when my horse is in a mood to ease on down the highway, particularly as I have a tendency to careen around the ring myself.

It may not have mattered. In the solo classes, I got blues for reaching the finish line. After the championship class, the feeling around the barn was that I was not going to beat the adorable children no matter how well I rode. If true, that’s okay. There are other times when being the old fart works in my favor.

As far as getting control of my nerves, the day was a complete bust. I had mantras. They didn’t make a dent. I brought articles to read over. I never picked them up. I took advantage of being the only entry in my class to run a comparative diagnostic on why I was still anxious. No dice. The only thing that has ever succeeded in keeping my head together at a horse show is the distraction of having a horse to get ready.

Onward!

Take-Away Message

Day One Nice to see you again.
Day One
Nice to see you again.

Milton continues to transform back into the lovely horse I met in Lexington [Logistics: Shipping]. His ears are up. His coat is glossy. His topline is less hunched. He lets us pick out his back feet without attempting to kick. It’s amazing how good life is when you don’t ache all over [Clean Cups!]. Oddly, none of his symptoms or behaviors were ever digestive. He continued to eat and poop with alacrity. But enough about him. Let’s talk about me. What have I learned?

That I am not an idiot.

GIVEN: I don’t know everything about horses. I will never know everything about horses. I will continue to make mistakes. I need to own my mistakes, rather than blame the horse, the weather, or the unkind fates.

HOWEVER: I have been doing this a long time. I have been fortunate to have been around horses regularly since the late 70s. I have had daily responsibility for my horses since 1992. I need to own that as well.

THEREFORE: if I am having that much trouble coping with a horse, there is a reason external to hapless inability on my part.

Would the timeline would have changed had I not been wallowing my own inadequacies? Perhaps we would have been more aggressive. Perhaps not. Either way, I would have been much less miserable.

Now I need to remember. And believe.

Text Art: K is for Kopertox(R)

letter 2015 K

For those who haven’t enjoyed sticky, green hands: “Recommended as an aid in treating horses and ponies with thrush due to organisms susceptible to copper naphthenate.” Zoetis US: KOPERTOX®

For the rest of us, did you know “Shake well before use”? News to me. ibid.

Alphabet 2015
J is for Jump
I is for Irons
H is for Hay
G is for Green Grass
F is for Feed
E is for Eventing
D is for Dressage
C is for Caesar
B is for Boot
A Is For Appaloosa

Show Today: Embrace the Day, Dixie Cup 2015

dc11banner
The Dixie Cup
April 30-May 2, 2015
Georgia International Horse Park
Conyers, GA, USA

Sport Psych
When Tim Price and Wesko knocked down a pole in the final phase of the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, the mistake cost them $56,000. That was the difference between first and second place. Can you imagine the pressure?

Karen (Lende) O’Connor, the USEF color commentator this year, has won three times at Rolex, including the CCI**** in 1999 with Prince Panache [Wiki: Rolex KTD]. On Sunday’s livestream, she said you have to “Embrace it.”

My motto for today:

Embrace the Nerves

I’ll let you know how it goes.

More on the subject:
Finally Farm: Revisiting the Psychology of Riding
Horse Collaborative: Understanding the Mental Skills of Highly Successful Riders
Horse Junkies United: 5 Tips to Improve Your Mental Game for the Show Ring, presented by The Clothes Horse

Technical Considerations: Position
At the last show [Report], I lost control of my shoulders. I drooped. I flopped. I pitched forward with abandon. [Photo series: Dueling Disciplines]

At my next lesson, I had a crop shoved down the back of jodphurs and another laid across my forearms. The first reminded me to sit straight. The second insisted that I lift my hands, my arms, and therefore my shoulders. I felt like a fool. But it worked. Is it possible that maybe, finally, I understand what to do with the upper six inches of my torso?

I can achieve the correct position at a halt and under controlled conditions, i.e. on Bingo in the round pen at home. The next step is to maintain my form on different horses, when I need to adjust the horse, and/or as I get tired. Perfect isn’t going to happen right away. Today, I’m hoping for “Decent effort.”

Technical Considerations: Traffic Management
Despite my less than stellar showing, I did improve on looking where I was going in the show ring [Counting]. Unfortunately, I started looking in the MIDDLE of the curve and as I started down the long side, exactly what I would do if I were looking for a jump out of a corner. I need to look BEFORE the curve, so that I can plan a path around the other competitors.

State of the Blog: A Matter of Record

End of the month commentary on blogging.
List of previous SotB

The blog has been around long enough to serve as a repository for things forgotten. That can be good and bad.

The Bad
Part of stylin’ in the saddle seat show ring is to cut the end of the arena at a crisp, 90o turn, instead of following the curve of the track. This is called a diamond. I know this. I have been diamonding for three show seasons. However, this spring I hear that the point of a diamond is traffic management, ‘If you’re just going to get covered up, why do it at all?’ 

Well, hell. Why hadn’t someone told me this? I was randomly tossing diamonds whenever I had a clear shot. I thought the point was to impress the judge. I had no idea that other people where involved. No idea at all. It was never mentioned in my presence. Not once. I’m sure of it.

In Boot Camp Begins posted after my first lesson on diamonding, I wrote:

Riders use it to get clear of other horses.

Oh.

The Good (or passably consoling)
Hindsight is useful for thumping myself about the head and shoulders. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn’t I see that something was wrong? Lather, rinse, repeat.

In So What Am I Going To Do? posted in November of last year, I wrote:

We think Milton might have something very mildly amiss.

It wasn’t mild – poor guy – and we took far too long to figure it out, but at least we noticed.
~~~
Gratuitous Pasture Sunset

sunset 4 28 15

Pondering Wrist Position

A common riding admonition is to keep a straight line from elbow to bit. Okay. What is straight?

wrist

If I look down at my hands while riding, A is the one that appears straight. B feels straight. The answer, at least for saddle seat, is C. (A if driving.) When I combine this wrist position with the elevated hand position, I feel as if I about to poke myself in the chest, if not the eye.

Update: Here I am considering the axis that would consitute cocking the hand up or down while holding the reins. As far as the in/out axis, the back of the wrist should be flat in relation to the forearm (not popped out as pictured in A). Not sure about driving.
~~~
Gratuitous Photobomb

wrist paw Blue wm