Notes From Around the Arena
May 28th- June 3rd, 2013
The NVEC English Show in Napa.
Most of you know Melissa Kalember, she does our equine body work. She is also a rated judge and is currently working toward her Large R cetification. She is also our advanced level trainer, working with Clair and Myself. She is preparing us for the next level of english show with emphasis on jumping. So we have another show circut we ride with Melissa. We used the NVEC show as part of the training for this next level.
NVEC - Napa Valley Equestrian Center in Napa, is a nice place right in town.
They are a show barn training riders to ride the A and B circut. We had a great time and it was lots of fun.
We met brignt and early which was grey and a threat of rain. We had a lesson in the main arena over the big jumps at 6:45 in the morning.
We were only jumping 2 foot but for me they might as well have been 3 or even 4 feet. Yikes.
I rode Tikkun at this, understanding this is his arena, being a former 3 day eventer and a pretty good one at that.
As Clair said "you are not in any danger of hitting anything, except maybe the moon".
We put a lot into getting this horse feeling good and he was thrilled to be in the show ring. And he turned on the jump power. He did not get the memo that i am a beginner to this type of riding. I hung in there, litterly. We had a fast first round and i kept landing in a heap which allowed him to pick up more speed, and with 8 fences you can imagine, we were flying. We did not place out of the 12 riders in our division in the first of our three classes. The Second class was a little better as far as i was able to sit up sooner and check him back a little better. We even had like 3 really nice jumps. The final line was two fences toward the gate and he got pretty fast and we rapidly were over the two and on the rail so I pretty much ripped him into a turn and his front end lost footing and he slipped and started to go down, but somehow after smashing my helmet and glasses on the flat side of his neck we popped up together, and a few large circles later i put myself back together and got him to the trot. He is a lot of horse. We actually placed 5th of our 12 rider group. With 12 riders we had plenty of time to recover. I stopped shaking, his hart rate settled, then my body started to cramp up and show me that i am just not fit enough to do what we needed. So for our final class Melissa agreed to set us up to finish with a few good jumps. We selected 3 jumps that we could do nicely, went in and did those three. We were called off course and excused. It was great. After almost falling down we were able to have the final memory be more about those three good jumps. Tikkukn was so enjoyable he seemed to like his bath, he stood quietly and even kept his head do so i could wash his face.
Clair and Pharaoh were amazing.
They rode several classes, Jumping beautifuly in the first series at 2 foot. Placing in the top 3. And then dominating the flat classes winning eq, hunt seat, and pleasure, and on to the 2ft 3in class holding their place very nicly. Clair and Melissa have worked hard to learn an outside rein collection on Pharaoh and he was perfect. Clair ended up with the reserve Champion for our division.
Congratulations!
Most of you know Melissa Kalember, she does our equine body work. She is also a rated judge and is currently working toward her Large R cetification. She is also our advanced level trainer, working with Clair and Myself. She is preparing us for the next level of english show with emphasis on jumping. So we have another show circut we ride with Melissa. We used the NVEC show as part of the training for this next level.
NVEC - Napa Valley Equestrian Center in Napa, is a nice place right in town.
They are a show barn training riders to ride the A and B circut. We had a great time and it was lots of fun.
We met brignt and early which was grey and a threat of rain. We had a lesson in the main arena over the big jumps at 6:45 in the morning.
We were only jumping 2 foot but for me they might as well have been 3 or even 4 feet. Yikes.
I rode Tikkun at this, understanding this is his arena, being a former 3 day eventer and a pretty good one at that.
As Clair said "you are not in any danger of hitting anything, except maybe the moon".
We put a lot into getting this horse feeling good and he was thrilled to be in the show ring. And he turned on the jump power. He did not get the memo that i am a beginner to this type of riding. I hung in there, litterly. We had a fast first round and i kept landing in a heap which allowed him to pick up more speed, and with 8 fences you can imagine, we were flying. We did not place out of the 12 riders in our division in the first of our three classes. The Second class was a little better as far as i was able to sit up sooner and check him back a little better. We even had like 3 really nice jumps. The final line was two fences toward the gate and he got pretty fast and we rapidly were over the two and on the rail so I pretty much ripped him into a turn and his front end lost footing and he slipped and started to go down, but somehow after smashing my helmet and glasses on the flat side of his neck we popped up together, and a few large circles later i put myself back together and got him to the trot. He is a lot of horse. We actually placed 5th of our 12 rider group. With 12 riders we had plenty of time to recover. I stopped shaking, his hart rate settled, then my body started to cramp up and show me that i am just not fit enough to do what we needed. So for our final class Melissa agreed to set us up to finish with a few good jumps. We selected 3 jumps that we could do nicely, went in and did those three. We were called off course and excused. It was great. After almost falling down we were able to have the final memory be more about those three good jumps. Tikkukn was so enjoyable he seemed to like his bath, he stood quietly and even kept his head do so i could wash his face.
Clair and Pharaoh were amazing.
They rode several classes, Jumping beautifuly in the first series at 2 foot. Placing in the top 3. And then dominating the flat classes winning eq, hunt seat, and pleasure, and on to the 2ft 3in class holding their place very nicly. Clair and Melissa have worked hard to learn an outside rein collection on Pharaoh and he was perfect. Clair ended up with the reserve Champion for our division.
Congratulations!
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