Heroes and Almost Heroes

The thing about having a blog is that you have to report the bad along with the good. It's called honesty, or something. Luckily, thanks to my super student Kerry, I have some good to report along with my own bad.

First, Kerry's good. She ran around Seneca Valley's Novice cross country course with mad determination - and she was well rewarded with a 3rd place finish! This year has had its ups and downs for Kerry, who only competed at her first recognized event this spring - ticking off success at Beginner Novice and promptly moving up to Novice. It was all a little too easy at first, and then, as happens to most of us, Kerry came upon a few bumps - or puddles! Atticus started to think he might be smarter than Kerry, and maybe this whole "into the water" thing needed some extra thinking. And coming from hunter land, Kerry wasn't prepared for how to deal with the little princess fretting over getting his twinkle toes wet! A couple of weeks ago, we did some XC schooling at Loch Moy, and we pinned down Kerry's placement and timing of the bat to Mr. Twinkle Toes rump. Let me just tell you that Mr. Twinkle Toes did a full on cannon ball into Seneca's water this weekend, and he had a smile on his face! Problem sorted.

While Kerry was a hero, I was almost a hero - and almost isn't good enough. Seneca was death by a thousand paper cuts for me. But there were glimmers of glory - 2 fantastic warm ups and a hell of a jumping horse! And I was almost having fun in show jumping! So what the heck happened - why the big E??? I jacked it up with just 2 jumps left. We hit some difficult distances, we cross-cantered the triplebar - but it was working out and Katchi was jumping fantastically!! Except for the combinations. Those damn combinations. We survived the first one - vertical to vertical, one stride. It was ugly, but we survived. The triple was not as forgiving. Oxer-one stride-oxer-2 strides-vertical. With a stop at the vertical and then, on our second try, we picked up a stop at the second oxer, and our day was done. What a terrible end to one of our very best rounds. So, what went wrong?? I went wrong. I've gone over it and over it in my head, and watched the video 1,000 times (THANK YOU DIANE!), and I totally jacked it up - twice. I keep suckering myself into riding into combinations with full determination to collect, prepare, balance, pick, pick, pick - but that's all wrong. Katchi needs to gallop a triple like a triple bar. When will I figure that out and make it happen on course?!?! S...L...O...W ...learner. At best, it was ugly and embarrassing. At worst, it was almost dangerous. I have to get over myself and GALLOP those damn combinations. No more pussy footing around. Problem sorted??

Next time, I'm gonna be the hero Katchi knows I can be and needs me to be!