April 15th, 2024
Aaand we have our first modified since 2022 behind us now! Sophie and I had an absolute blast down at the stunning Carolina Horse Park this past weekend. This trip doubled as a visit to see our good friend Kristen who resides in Southern Pines and so graciously provided housing for me and grooming services for the spotted unicorn all weekend long. You are the BEST, Kristen!!! I also snuck in a visit to her beloved Finn while we were there, which was the cherry on top :)
We arrived Friday afternoon, and it took me a few hours to get us all set up and settled in. The permanent stabling on the property is great. I tried to put together my area in a way that was neat and organized, but definitely didn't mind that we did not have direct neighbors on either side of us, as that allowed me to take up a little bit more space. Shavings were spread, hay nets and water buckets were filled, the trailer was unloaded and picked out, and the stall card was filled in. I grabbed my dressage tack and took Sophie on a brief hack out to the dressage warm up rings after our stall was set up. She was a little bit suspicious of the painted ponies on the property, but nothing else seemed to impress her too much. She felt fantastic.
After our ride and a brief bath, Kristen met up with us. I threw Sophie her dinner and then let her have some alone time while Kristen and I course walked. The ground at the horse park is so incredibly well maintained, and it is clear that every single piece of this property is cared for. The jumps were beautifully painted and decorated, and I was feeling confident in our choice to move back up to modified after seeing the course. It had some challenging but fair questions for the level. I got to experience some true North Carolina weather during our walk too - when we started, the sun and blue sky were shining through the clouds, and about two thirds of the way through our walk, the skies opened up and severe thunderstorms overtook the park. Kristen and I hid out under a convenient tent with some other course walkers with our same unfortunate planning. You can see in the pictures below the weather difference!
Once the storm passed, we headed back to stabling and I took a few minutes to braid Sophie's mane and get her looking her very best for the next day. At this point it was close to sunset, so I refilled hay and water and gave her one last cookie before Kristen and I left for the evening.
I wanted to give a brief shout out to Kristen for being an amazing friend and hanging out with me all weekend, but also for putting together the nicest gift basket ever which was thoughtfully created by The Local Mixer. I mean just look at how cute this is!!
The next morning started with Sophie getting her breakfast at 7am, and I spent some time rehearsing my test and getting everything organized for the day ahead. Sophie kept all of her braids in overnight and just needed a quick freshening up before getting tacked. My test was scheduled for 9am on the dot, so I headed over to warm up a little after 8:30.
The warm up area is quite spacious, and they have small dividers that cut halfway down the middle of the warm up ring to essentially create two usable rings. It felt like there was plenty of space even with a bunch of horses warming up at the same time. Sophie felt super solid in the warm up, and was really moving forward into my hands and feeling fluid in changes of direction and in lateral work. I know Sophie well enough to know that it all could change the moment we step out of warm up, but I was hoping for the best.
Fortunately, I also try to prepare for the worst when it comes to the flatwork. As soon as we started making our way around Ring 2, where our test was to be performed, Sophie put her eyes, ears, brain, and everything else onto the driveway behind the trees that lined the ring. Trucks and trailers were entering and leaving, but the line of trees blocked most of the viewing of that and so all we were left with was the sound. I usually put Sophie in a 'sound proof' bonnet, but I am not sure how effective it is 😆 . I tried to remain heavy in the saddle and very workman-like to try to get her to follow suit, but she is a strong little horse. Our centerline was lovely and straight, our first lengthen trot was conservative but fine, but then it started to fall apart during our first leg yield when Sophie and I began to go to war. She was super tense and tight, and I was getting firmer and firmer with my aids to try to combat her pushiness and the rest of the test kind of stayed like that. She got away from me quite a bit in both lengthen canters, and in looking back on it I know she needed a hell of a lot more support from my outside aids that I was not providing in those movements. She ended up being so wound up towards the end that our final attempt at a lengthen trot was powerful, but not a true lengthen. I was still pretty impressed with the look of it, though! Definition of 'has talent, needs direction (from rider)' 🤣 . We saluted and left the ring on a score of 41.2 and slid humbly into last place.
We had about three hours between leaving the sandbox and heading to the start box, so Kristen and I went to walk some of cross country one more time. There were a few lines to jumps that I wanted to solidify my plans for - and obsessing over this shot Kristen took that highlights my favorite KMA white competition breeches 🥰
We had so much time that I actually was able to find it in me to eat some lunch before jumping. It's a rarity to find me eating at a show until I'm done for the day, but there was so much time and the food truck on site was too good to pass up. If you've been to Carolina Horse Park, you've probably eaten at 'Roasted and Toasted' - SO. GOOD!!!!
Following lunch, we packed up all of my dressage tack and took out everything for cross country. The footing was great even with the bit of rain that had fallen the night before, so I opted for smaller studs. Sophie stood quietly while she was studded and tacked, and it wasn't long before we started our walk over to cross country warm up.
I was a bit early, so I took a few minutes to just walk around the warm up and watch a few riders before me head out on course. The whole park is just so stunning, so there was a lot to look at and appreciate while I waited. I didn't spend a ton of time warming up, as Sophie and I had a great schooling a few days before our trip and I knew she was ready. We jumped a small log, a larger table, and then angled over a mid-size house in the same way we would be angling fences 6A and B on our course. We were definitely ready!
On our way over to the start, I saw a woman holding a very handsome corgi. I considered that a sign of good luck :)
3...2..1 Have a good ride!
I started with a steady canter over fence one, and then picked it up a bit over fences 2 and 3, of which were good gallop fences. Fence 4 was a wedge that Sophie saw one more step than I did to it, but she padded off the ground and hopped over it smartly. After a gallop table at fence 5, we headed into the woods, down a hill and abruptly came to the angled houses at 6A and B. Sophie is catty and smart about jumping fences at any angle, but she was wholly distracted by the volunteer's car that was near the jumps. A little bit of 'Sophie do we see it?!' and an abundance of leg and Sophie saw the jump almost as we were on top of it and she clambered over it and put in 4 punchy strides between the jumps where there should have been 3. I kicked on and we tackled the corner at 7 with ease. We hopped up a bank at 8 and were presented with the first water complex, which Sophie pushed through confidently. We turned back into the woods and I slowed our roll quite a bit to a sunken road exercise and a trakehner. The stickiness at the first set of fences in the woods early on provided me the information that Sophie was finding the environment impressive, so I didn't want to risk rushing and causing a run out due to not seeing a jump ahead of time. It worked out in our favor, and Sophie completed all the jumps in the woods properly. We even had a half coffin with probably the most impressive ditch I've seen in a minute, but Sophie didn't think so and popped over it like it was a ground pole.
The second water complex offered a bit more to look at than the first, so I once again slowed our roll way down to make sure she stayed on task. She ended up hauling me over the jump into the water, and rode the wedge out of the water like a proper event horse. I didn't do a great job of picking a line out of the woods (there are SO many trees), so we had a wiggly line into our last field but she still locked on to our last two jumps like a pro. We crossed through the flags with a lot of 'good girl' and 'you're the best horse ever' exclamations leaving my mouth. A spectator passed us as we came to a walk and asked if we had fun, to which I said 'Always. Everything with this horse is fun. I could be watching this horse stand in her field and I'd be having fun!' 🤣
The good girl received a bunch of her favorite cookies and got a good hose down. Once again she proved that her fitness level was up there - she had barely broken a sweat! I gave her a few minutes to just hang out in her stall and drink and eat while I started cleaning up my cross country tack. Then she got her icing time in our favorite Drew Boots while Kristen and I shared videos and pictures from our round.
The course was challenging enough that the standings were shuffled quite a bit after cross country. I was not even remotely surprised to see the 10 time penalties added to our score. The time for modified is more challenging than training, this time was clearly a bit tight as only one rider managed to finish within the optimum time, and I purposefully kept us slow at a few combinations to risk time instead of risking a run out. It worked out in our favor, and I think if we came to this venue again we'd be ready to really push it. Between now and our next outing, we will work a little on pacing (and continue working on our flatwork, as always!).
Before we left the park for the day, Kristen and I took a trip over to the vendors that were set up for the weekend. While we were discussing my ride, a lovely volunteer overheard us and asked if I was the rider on the spotted horse. She told me that while she was fence judging the modified rounds, the radios were full of volunteers discussing how 'number 236's horse has a ton of sweat on their neck, we might have to say something'. They were keeping concerned eyes on us until someone realized that the 'sweat' was actually just the markings on her neck 🤣. We laughed and I expressed how glad I was to not have been accidentally pulled up for that!!!
Our day ended around 2pm, so Sophie got the afternoon to just relax and be left alone while Kristen and I did normal people things like go out to dinner. The Southern Pines area is so nice, and it was a gorgeous weekend to be down there.
Sophie got her dinner at night check, and we looked forward to jumping the colorful sticks the next day.
Sunday was another gorgeous day at the park, and after taking Sophie on a little hand walk around stabling, we spent the morning loading what we could back into the trailer for the trip home. Sophie fell in love with the boy stalled behind her that weekend, so she spent the morning obsessing over every move he made.
My jump round was scheduled for 10:20ish, so I made my way to warm up around 10. Show jumping has historically been Sophie's strongest phase, so I never spend too much time in the warm up. Kristen so kindly helped set fences for me, and we popped over a few verticals and oxers to get us feeling ready for the ring. We actually had two uncharacteristic stops in the warm up, but to no surprise they were first from me riding like a maniac, and then second from Sophie telling me she wasn't confident in what I was doing after the first one. The third and fourth pops over that jump were effortless and as if the stops didn't happen - but you know what they say, a bad warm up often leads to a successful show, and that held true for us that day. We were one of only two combinations to finish show jumping with a double clear! I could tell that Sophie felt a bit tired from the weekend and all the travel, as she wasn't pulling me towards the fences as strong as she usually does, but she picked up all four of those long legs with ease over the picturesque Carolina Horse Park course. We put in a very methodical, evenly paced round. It was a huge improvement from the chaotic round we had at Morven a few weeks ago. A very nice volunteer complimented our ride on our way out of the ring ❤️
Our jumping efforts moved us from dead last all the way up to 5th at the end of the weekend!! Like I've said before, finishing on a number alone is huge, and bringing home a ribbon is a massive added bonus. I am so happy Sophie got rewarded for her work.
At some point we will get the flatwork to a place where we can start in a better position, but I am just thrilled with the results from this weekend. A very impressive venue didn't rattle us too much, and Sophie was clearly prepared for the move back up. Huge thank you to Jacqui for helping us with some proper schooling to prep for this! I am grateful for every ride behind those ears, and I am once again looking forward to what's next. Another MER in the books 🙌 And once again a huge shout out to Kristen for being an amazing photographer, videographer, groom, and friend ♥️
K
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