Success is best after prolonged failure.
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| Hi. I'm awesome. |
You know the music at the end of The Lion King, when Simba dramatically walks up a rock and then makes a lot of synchronized noise? I’ve been feeling like that all week.
Last weekend Surya and I went to our fifth event, and our fourth at Beginner Novice. If you recall from previous episodes of Eventing is Hard Dammit, we were eliminated at our first three BN competitions due to disagreements regarding direction of travel during the jump phases. I arrived at Flora Lea very nervous. Our goal was to 'not get eliminated'.
The event looked easy when we walked the course. No combinations on cross-country, nothing less than a 6-stride in show-jumping. Which of course increased the pressure to do well. Oh well.
Happily, at each subsequent show, I’ve felt less nervous before dressage. After the first two, I realized that dressage with Surya is almost entirely dependent on the work we’ve put in beforehand. I simply go in and warm up exactly as we do at home. This time, my trainer told me to sit the trot in warm up, as I’ve recently had more success with getting her to bend and engage sitting than posting. Two minutes before going in, I asked “should I just sit the test?” “If you think she will spook at the judge’s box less.” I gulped a little, since I just figured out how to sit the trot without losing my stirrups two weeks ago, but sat back and went for it.
We got a 34.5! That put us 7th. So far, our dressage scores show an encouraging trend:
Fairhill: 46.0
Flora Lea: 40.5
New Jersey Horse Park: 38.6
Carousel: 38.1
Flora Lea: 34.5
Evidently we improve by at least 0.5 points per week. Hopefully we can keep it up!
When we got back to the trailer Surya loaded herself on to take advantage of the shade, and I sat down to stare dramatically into the middle distance while gathering my concentration for the jumping showdown. When I went to tack Surya up for jumping, she was not her usual sleepy self, but stood with her ears pricked forward and all four feet on the ground.
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| Soon. |
I went into show jumping determined the repeat the round we had at Carousel. Surya had other ideas. Instead of uncertainly trotting the first jump, she took up a canter at the start flags and powered straight over every line. We had one rail down at the second jump, because I saw a long distance but held to make sure she went over. I needn’t have bothered. She was committed.
When we walked to the start box Surya knew what was coming. She jigged into the square, and stood with her whole body tensed in anticipation of running. I let her go; she locked onto the first log and exploded into action. She did not look at a single jump. For the first time, she and I wanted the exact same thing. She took me to every question and landed running. But she wasn’t running away. Before the water we made a wide-turn, and I asked her to slow to trot. “Hey-ohhhh”… she came right back.
We did the second half of the course faster. Up the hill to brush, over a table. Across a ditch she regarded as terrain. The tempo of her feet pulled us toward the end. She launched herself over the last rolltop and galloped through the finish flags.
Run, Surya. It felt like flying. It felt like freedom.
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| A sign I saw driving home from the barn. It was oddly appropriate. |
