good outing

Placed second at the UNH Horse Trials today riding at Training level. I didn't think our Dressage test was that good, but it was good enough to have us in 4th after that phase. I can't imagine what the scores will be when we finally do a good test. We had one bobble in Stadium Jumping, as evident in the video, but otherwise I thought well done. He was looking at the spectators instead of the jumps, and I did seriously wonder if we were going to crash, but he did pick his legs up. No penalties, so, certainly good enough. Cross Country, which, alas, could not be videoed, was 90% made of awesome. Jumps 2 and 3 I didn't ride forward enough to and had ugly close distances. I could have gone a smidge faster overall, resulting in 1.8 time penalties. But the 5 drops on the course? No Problem. Last year, we had problems keeping impulsion through up-banks, and today's up/one stride/down 5 strides to jump rode perfectly. Sue (Berril, my current favorite instructor) is right, slipping the reins is better than landing on his neck. Last year, dying of exhaustion 2/3 of the way around; today, rode the last as strongly as the first. Gym and running for the win. One thing I noticed today, aside from riding well for the most part, is that Skip wasn't over jumping on X/C. The jumps felt smooth and small. All of the combinations went really well: Ditch to house, Log to drop, house to jump/drop into water. I am most pleased with how we negotiated the water. Despite it being over 2/3 of the way around, I did not land on his neck splashing in. I stayed back and up, slipped my reins, and kicked forward as soon as we landed. With only 5 pretty straightforward questions left, I was feeling pretty pleased at that point.  Yes, I was breathing hard when we got to the end, but I wasn't dying by a long shot. Skip hardly noticed the effort. He was ready to go do it again by the time we got back to the trailer. Oh, the Training 3-day beckons... next year. Along with Preliminary.