Rarely am I at a complete loss for words. I make my living off of word craft, but
Saturday’s cross country schooling has left my speechless, in a very, very good
way. Unfortunately, like so many others,
when I’m left speechless, I simply ramble on, so prepare yourself.
Saturday was interesting.
We had absolutely perfect weather.
Rains earlier in the week made the footing superb. Nutmeg and I were accompanied by my husband
piloting Mr. Admiral Nelson around for a nice hack. It is spring, so of course Nutmeg is in
heat. Thankfully once we get to work,
she seems to forget she possesses mare parts.
We were also joined by my long time coach that we only seem to see at
shows these days. We made special
arrangements just to school with her and I’m so glad. We needed boots on the ground confidence.
I am so blessed with Nutmeg.
She doesn’t need to see every fence.
She is almost stupidly uncaring about life in general and that means we
need to be a little extra careful when the jumps ask quick questions and
challenge our adjustability. So Saturday,
we took some time to school “the questions.”
After being completely unimpressed by a training cabin, we
had a marvelous ride down the hill and over a rampy drop. We schooled the novice and training ditches
without batting an eye. Then we got a
little greedy and tried the prelim question of a ditch, two strides up a bank,
one stride over a skinny chevron. That
was unfair of me. Deep down I knew she
wasn’t ready, but I couldn’t help giving into the “we will try it and see”
attitude. Usually you can break a puzzle
down into manageable pieces, but we just couldn’t get the job done. It was a difficult question requiring a great
deal of power from the hind end, not our strong suit yet. The good news is, now we have something to
work toward and a little unfinished business.
Next we moved onto the corner. Lesson number two to be learned: just because
you’ve done it before, don’t take it for granted. Since we’d just been having run out
difficulties at the skinny chevron, I rode a little farther in from the point
of the corner than I usually would. We
banked the dang thing. Most bizarre
feeling ever. It probably didn’t help
that we had just been schooling a bank and this particular corner was filled in
with dirt and grass. I truly think she
just mis-read the question. We tried
again and she did much better although she pulled a “classic Irish” move and
pushed off the bank with her hind legs.
Again, a bit of an interesting feeling as we suddenly had after burners
mid-air. Third time was the charm. I have to say, as bad as it looked, I couldn’t
help but be so pleased with Nutmeg. It
wasn’t that long ago that she was all uncoordinated legs and we would have had
a terrible accident. She really is
learning a lot about using her body and getting us out of sticky
situations. She may grow a fifth leg
yet.
We schooled the training bank with no problems. She had a little hesitation at the drop on
the prelim bank and rolled the log a bit.
I didn’t realize that bit and was going to school it once more to
confirm. Thankfully my boots on the
ground waved me off and we avoided potential trouble.
 |
| There it sits looking all innocent, but in real life, believe me, it's huge! |
Next, it was time to face down the trakehner. This thing is a beast. I have an unnatural fear of it. Just up the tree line sits a jump at which I have
bad history. Maybe I’m afraid that
history will trickle down hill. Anyway,
this was the question I most wanted to tackle.
Nutmeg has never refused a trakehner, but we’ve had some very sticky
rides. It was time to beat down the
beast and lay new hoof prints for future attempts. Not much can make me shake in my boots, but I’ll
freely admit it took every bit of mental fortitude to gallop at that
sucker. The first time I didn’t have
quite enough mental fortitude and Nutmeg knew it. But we didn’t die. We didn’t slide into the hole never to emerge
again. We just stopped and then we tried
again. We did it! Boy did she over jump, but she went and it
wasn’t that bad. I peeked on the way
over though, shame on me, and so we did it again. Pure perfection! I’m not joking. That was THE FEELING. I’ve jumped so many things I think I’ve grown
laissez-faire, but that was amazing. I
just cannot put it into words. I wanted
so badly to quit right then and there.
To show Nutmeg what an amazing girl she is and we almost did, but we had
one more question we needed to put to bed.
Water has never been an issue, thankfully, but dropping into
water tends to catch Miss Nutmeg off guard.
I’m glad we schooled the log into the water because it did catch us off
guard the first time. The second time,
we landed quite flat footed creating an awkward few strides. The third time was aces. We did a downhill log before presenting to
the water. The jump itself may not have
rivalled our effort over the trakehner, but the balance and lightness that I felt
on the way down the hill to the water was awe-inspiring. This is Nutmeg, the gangly tank that used to
drag me around. Now we are cantering and
jumping downhill in balance and self-carriage.
I wanted to shout from the roof tops!
When we do thing often enough, we tend to become complacent
and take them forgranted. Saturday was
such a wonderful reminder on many levels.
This is too dangerous of a sport to take anything forgranted. We have to ride every step. On the other hand, what these horses give to
us, what our partnerships produce, is so incredible. It has been a long while since riding has
checked my balance, had me quaking in my boots and yet left me feeling like I
was on top of the world. We may not have
been able to answer that one little prelim question, but I now know, that with
a little more work, we can do it. I’ve
always questioned my confidence to make that leap, but with this horse and can
now see the possibility. Thank you to my
support crew and to that magnificent red mare for showing me a Fresh Confident
Perspective. Next stop, THE MOON!
