Aspen Farms Chams: XC Day

Always and forever hanging on.

Also known as: day of down. So many jumps. All going down. Aspen, you are a cruel mistress. At least, your training course designer is. I wanted a challenging xc course because A: it is championships and B: I like to see what Bacon and I are capable of. I may be whiny in person when we do the course walk, I may be getting ulcers and not able to sleep the night before, but I secretly like it.

Your first view from the start box is just this sea of jumps. Beautiful, creative, jumps. Everywhere. But your ass better be paying attention, because you have ONE jump, and it's coming up fairly quickly because being in the champ division, you have a shorter optimum time than the regular division by almost 20 seconds, plus more jump combos and a slightly more difficult course. I was unphased by this hanging log thing. Next was a table, whatevs. I was more distracted by the giant toads in the muddy creek bed that we gallop past on the way there. Three is this giant saw, which friend E says, always rides awkwardly (she was right) to a sharp right hand turn to a giant open-y table to a tree tunnel. Alrighty then.

Water drop!

I started to be phased. The table had a little bit of a drop to the back of it, but not too bad. Next, you gallop through the tree tunnel, out of nowhere comes a jump on the right, and then a left to a small drop leading to your half coffin. A nice easy trakhener, up and down a hill, then up again to a "sushi" jump, and sharp left hander to a stupid water drop. This is where I start to ulcer up. The water is turquoise. It looks weird. I hate drops. But, there was no combo or anything, so that was easier.

You put your right hand in and wiggle it all about.

Then it was slightly up a hill to jump a roll top down a steep hill and and right turn to jump down this GIANT DROP OF DOOM. This is where I threw a little bit of a fit. The only other show I have down that had a down drop was Camelot and that looked like a baby drop compared to this thing. My friend reminded me of the prelim one I had schooled there, but I still pouted as we moved on. There was a maxed out steeplechase, a nice easy roll top before jumping into the back water with another jump out. A mad dash until you came to another downhill jump, and then a very vertical tall brush jump with a few different line choices to a corner. I chose to go straight, which meant I trust Bacon to not just run out to the right, and Bacon would have to really jump the corner at an angle. Up the hill the pick which side of the "whale tale" you wanted to jump leading you to the epic ship. Which had another damn drop on the back. And lastly, a maxed out table with brush on the back, to make sure you never quit riding.

This makes it looks so small. Lame.

I walked the course twice, and should have walked it once more. Bacon was dead quiet while I tacked her up, but the second I got on, she knew what was up. Warm up was insane, and we just did our best to keep away from collisions. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication between the start box crew and the warm up gate and while I was originally told I had two minutes until I had to head over, the lady quickly changed her tune and said "HEAD OVER NOW. PLEASE TROT." So I did, while trying not to run over oblivious children in my way as she screamed at them to move. When I got over to the start box, they were already counting me down from the 30 second mark, so I slapped on the helmet cam and watch and headed on out.

Everything was going well. Bacon was a little strong and leaving long (her favorite) but feeling happy out there. As usual. We came to the water drop and she took a tiny peek but lept off nicely. I got so excited about that, that I took a sharp left hand turn out of the water instead of guiding her to the right of the pedestrian tape. Of course, I didn't know this until I was facing the intermediate drop combination. "Where the hell is it?" I got a little flustered, then noticed the Kerrits sign plastered on my rolltop jump and drunkenly made my way to the correct spot. I had learned that this combination caused a lot of issues in the spring because people rode it too fast, so I slowed our tempo and guided us to the doom. Guess what. It rode like cake. I like out a WOO! and told Bacon to GO! for our gallop stretch because I knew I had caused us some time up there.

She gleefully took that challenge. And almost hit a tree while I re-grabbed my rein. I'm glad homegirl trusts me enough but I wish there was enough common sense to not run into trees. We soared over the steeplechase. Easy peazy over the roll top. She was totally game towards the water, then took a hard gawk at it last second and went right in. I got her in super deep to the vertical brush, but she saved us over that and went straight to the corner, never even thinking there was an option to run out. Good mare. Again, I got her in deep to the whale tail, but she sailed over the ship and took a long ass spot to the giant table, kicking her hind legs out to not touch the brush on the way out.

Don't touch it!

I was so pleased with her. She made it feel easy. I was so worried about it and fretted for nothing. I always do and my husband never knows why. That's her calling. If I ask her, she will go. My getting us lost cost us 2.8 times penalties, but that's all good. Normally after xc, I move up quite a few places, but like I had mentioned, this was a great group of horses and riders. There was only one refusal out of the whole group. Which bummed me out, because Open Training Champs had 11 stops, mostly at the water drop. But that just made me more proud of my awesome mare. Apparently Eventing Nation thought my helmet cam was funny too, and decided to share it, so you can enjoy it there if you would like.

A better look at this dumb bank.

The next day was show jumping. Which might be my least favorite/most stressful. I was not looking forward to that, given our last couple of rounds.