HITS Week VII (Part 2)

You know how you just get that feeling about something?  You just know.... Yeah well I knew I would draw first in the order of go in Sunday's High Adult Jumper Classic and I did.  Perfect.  There are positives and negatives to first.  Positives: get it over with, lay down a great ride and make everyone chase you, & you don't have to watch a ton of people go and consider changing your plan from the course walk.  Negatives: EVERYONE will be watching your round, you have to hurry after the course walk to get on and warm up, you don't get to watch any rounds to see if that 6.5 stride line rode long or right on a 6, you have to wait until the very end to jump off and re-warm up your horse, etc

 

Fortunately the Children's class went first so I did the course walk with them and got to watch a bunch of rounds.  They changed it to an ab option which means you can stay in the ring and jump off if you are clean or come out and jump off at the end.  Alot of kids chose to stay in so I got to watch jump offs too.  There were a number of time faults in round 1 so I knew I would have to be efficient to each jump (keep the pace, don't lollygag in the corners and get sucked up in the big ring).  2 people also added the class which meant they had to go first!  Yay I was bumped to third.

Jump 1 was an oxer, around to jump 2 a vertical.  Left turn to 3 an oxer on the outside, seven strides to 4 the Equifit jump, and five strides to jump 5.  Poppy stared down the Equifit jump.  It had 3 or 4 individual black panels under it that apparently resembled a monster.  I rode hard and she jumped it.  Normally I will show her spooky jumps before I start the course and this one did not occur to me that she would look at it.  Jump 6 was a white plank six strides to 7abc, a combination which was a one stride to one stride.  Jump 8 to 9 was a 4 stride,roll  back to 10ab two stride.  Jumps 11 to 12 were on the outside, down the hill toward the gate. It walked in a 6.5 stride so I opted to whoa for the 7 to avoid getting flat.  We finished a nice, smoothe, clean trip well within the time allowed.  I opted to return at the end for the jump off so we had a nice 2 hour wait.  Only a few of us opted to do this.  The jump off started with jump 2, roll back tight to jump 3, a hard inside turn to jump 14, tight roll back to the two stride 10ab, then gallop to jump 11 and do 6 strides to 12.  I was worried about the turns from 2 to 3 and 3 to 14.  They were tight and both oxers.  I was slow from 2 to 3 and got deep which rang the bell in my head to speed up!  I found our gear and remembered to keep the pace out of the turns so I could ride up to the jump.  We finished great (and clean).  The initial slowness hurt but still good enough for 6th place in a large class.

Last jump in the jump off!

No video (boo for no friends available to video) but more pictures to come!  Although I was disappointed in myself for not having pace from jump 2 to 3, I fixed it and we finished up on point.  Poppy was great and jumped confidently out of the tight turns.  She did spook at the Equifit jump again before we started the course haha!  I need to figure out how to make that jump!  Overall I am beyond pleased and proud of her.  I feel like our jump offs are coming together. Tightening our turns and adding more pace (not speed---I would whoa and add versus riding up and finding the go distance) will put us out on top in the future.  Love that little mare :)