Sunday, November 11, 2012

November 9th - 10:45pm

We started the day off at 6:30 to try to get all the horses ridden before the rain was suppose to start at 11:00. First ride was on Nacar with a jumping lesson. We worked over a 5 jump course that was basically a big four loop serpentine. Lots of emphasis on effective turning, pace and balance. Not an easy job on a young one like Nacar but for the most part I think I got the job done. A few jumps actually felt incredibly good where we had a good canter, found the good distance and had a strong jump with me in the correct place as well. One thing Ive been working really hard on is not jumling ahead over fences. Just staying soft, in the middle of the horse and folding. It changes the feel of the jump so at least I know when Im doing it correctly. After I hacked Uxmal around a bit with some of the best canter work Ive had with him. Soft, relaxed and balanced. Then was the highlight of the day, I was on Pastrocito and Megg was on Herodes. We warmed up and Martin asked if we were ready to jump. We said yes thinking itd be a little lesson or something. But Martin called Walter out to set the grid from earlier in the week up. We were doing a prussiance type jumping work out! Megg went first with some rubs but no rails. Pastrocito jumped cleanly though. Jumps went up. Again both Megg and I clean through. Jumps up. Again clear. Up again with the middle jump at 3'6" and the last jump at almost 3'9". Meg went through clear and I followed with Pastrocito. First two were clear but got too close to the last jump and took out the front rail. We put the last fence up to almost 4' and Megg and Herodes went through clear! Martin even grabbed the camera to take a pic of Meg standing with Herodes next to the decently sizeable oxer. Needless to say, I got a lot of abuse for loosing from the guys but honestly, I was happy with Pastrocito. Ive never seen him jump that height and he really put forth the effort. I know in the show ring it only matters who wins with no second chances but a lot of the time, Im quite content with a good try from horse and rider. Obviously I would have loved to win but we made it close to 3'9" without touching a pole. If we'd dropped one at 3' I would have been annoyed because I know I have done better with him. But for right or wrong, at that height with that horse, Ill take it and be happy.
After I got a quick hack in on Mauro before the skies positively opened up. Wind like crazy, rain going sideways, the whole nine yards. And it continued most of the afternoon. As a result, we painted flower boxes. Incredibly exciting stuff really. Got to use white and everything! The rain also meant the Nations Cup qualifier at Capricho got moved to Saturday. Sad because we'd hoped to go after finishing riding. But then Martin offered to switch having Sunday off for Saturday so we could catch a ride with Rodrigo to Haras Capricho to watch the Nations Cup class and the speed derby class. So we've got tomorrow off and Sunday on the job. Going to throw my whole week off with the days! But it will be fun to see. Going to be a good weekend though. Hung out with Rodrigo for a few hours after work which was a good way to finish a fun day. The language barrier is becoming less and less of a big deal which is fun. We can almost have conversations without someone being totally confused. Sometimes. Definitely an interesting way to learn the language!

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