Galway was a great first Novice event for us and really showed me where our strengths and weaknesses are and things to focus on for the spring.

We arrived early Friday morning, Galway was offering practice schooling rounds in both dressage and stadium. It was a good thing we got there early, as it was, the available practice rounds were almost all taken by the time I got up to the table, after waiting over 45 minutes in a surprisingly long line.  I knew I wanted to do a schooling stadium round and was tempted to also do a practice dressage test, looking back, I probably should have done a practice dressage test, in my jumping saddle and timed things to go straight from there to the stadium ring for a practice stadium round. We had a good warm up, he was supple and pretty relaxed, but as soon as he went in the ring he was very spooky.  He hadn't been in a stadium ring since last summer, so I think all the bright colors and panels and flowers were quite a sight for him.  Although my goal is to jump a light soft round with a relaxed, attentive, and confident little mustang, the bottom line is you have to jump the jumps you're pointed at, and we did that, and I was proud of him for being brave.

Dressage went well, he was quiet in the warm up and soft and supple, and we worked lightly on the haunches in half halts to encourage more swing and engagement. When we went up into the ring though Phinn had a whole new view to consider and he was very stiff necked as we came around the ring to say good morning to the judge. I should have done another circle before going in, I never got back the softness we had in warm up, which will be our goal for the spring. However he put in an accurate obedient test and we ended up in the middle of the pack when the scores were posted. Several places above me were separated by .2 points, so I knew that we were competitive, even though I want more from him in the ring and know he can show more as well.

Stadium was later in the afternoon on Saturday, so after a quick break for lunch we tacked back up, put studs in for the grass, and went down to show jumping. There were quite a few people having rails, and we were no exception. There was a lot to look at and Phinn was exceptionally spooky to the first fence which honestly surprised me as he'd jumped it the day before.  Looking back I let him suck behind my leg as he was so spooky, I mistakenly thought I was giving him a chance to look and assess as he approached each fence, but what I ended up doing was losing the impulsion he needed to jump well. So we dropped several uncharacteristic rails which I found really disappointing, but it was a good learning experience for us both.

Cross country walked well, it was straightforward and we had jumped all but two of the fences during our schoolings. He warmed up very well and I made sure he was in front of my leg as we approached each fence so all I had to do was guide and support him.  He was nervous leaving the box and jumped the first few fences with gusto and was eating up the ground at a much faster pace than the 350mpm assigned for the optimum time. He settled nicely by fence 6 and was jumping beautifully out of stride in a light uphill contact, I was thrilled with him!  Unfortunately as I approached fence 15 I over heard the announcer say that I had missed fence 13! I couldn't believe it. I've never done that in my life. Phinn finished beautifully and I couldn't have asked for a better first novice cross country round for him, but we were unfortunately eliminated. 

So with our first Novice event under our belts, I know where we stand in our training and have a set of small goals for us this spring.  At the moment Phinn's spookiness is creating tension and inattentiveness and I want to be able to work him through that.  I believe that he will likely always be spooky and suspicious of new surroundings but I think he will gain nothing but more confidence as I am able to expose him to new places and he gets several more shows under his belt.  I want to be able to achieve softness and supple engagement in our dressage tests. I want to have clean stadium rounds with a forward thinking ride. And I'd love to have more cross country rounds like we just had at Galway, with better piloting of course and a newly required mental counting of all our fences to make sure we jump them all!

We had a great lesson with Hawley the week after the show, working on poles (no one can ever work on poles enough!) and it was a great reminder of the deceptive simplicity of pole based exercises. We were also lucky enough to work on the same exercise she had worked on earlier during the Canadian team training session - several fences set in a circular fashion so that you could jump in, canter 5-6 strides and jump out, or circle inside the fences and then jump any one of the fences out. It was a great exercise to keep the both the horses and riders thinking, and using the circles to keep emphasizing the quality of the canter rather than getting sucked into focusing on just jumping the jumps.

We headed to the SCEC Hunter Jumper show this weekend to jump in the grass jumper ring and give Phinn a chance to get more exposure to the show environment. It was a great experience for us both and I'm really glad we did it. We did 2 classes which let us jump just enough fences that Phinn started to settle in and accept my request to move forward into a contact and stay in front of my leg with a normal size stride rather than his itty bitty "I'm spooking, I don't want to go forward" stride. I'm pleased to say that all our rails stayed up and even more importantly I achieved my goal of having a ridable horse in the show jumping ring!

We're entered at Twin Rivers at the end of the month and I'm excited the spring season has started!