We went over our goals/show schedules/other stuff with Kelly and Lynn (barn manager) today. Soooo we got the show schedule and I've made some goals for this year!

My 2007 Show Schedule
*January 7: Dick Widger Clinic
*February 23-25: Horse and Hound (C), Rancho Murieta
*March 16-18: Pickwick Spring Preview (B), Rancho Murieta
*May 11-13: Horse and Hound Spring (B), Santa Rosa
*June 7-10: Let's Show (B), Leone's Equestrian Center
*July 17-22: Pebble Beach Festival (A/C), Pebble Beach
*July 24-29: Pebble Beach Classic I (A), Pebble Beach
*August 31-Sept. 3: Woodside Back to School Classic (A), Woodside
*September 11-16: Strides and Tides (A), Pebble Beach

Of course, I'll probably not go to ALL of those that I listed. But hopefully I'll do about 7-8 shows.

Goals for 2007
*Compete in a 3'-3'3" medals class by the end of the summer
*Have Jinx doing automatic flying lead changes by the start of the show season
*Build confidence (both my confidence in Jinx and his confidence in me)
*Develop more consistency in our courses

I went to the George Morris Clinic at Hunterville today and it was AWESOME. He's such an effective, well-spoken trainer. I learned a TON. I brought my camera but, unfortunately, the battery died during the first section. Boooo. But I got a few videos that I might post later of George riding.

Here's some stuff that I want to work on that I saw during the clinic:
-Adding a stride instead of leaving one out
-Shoulder flexion
-(Maybe) switching to a slow-twist D-ring snaffle
-Keeping a more steady contact with my hands and using half halts to keep Jinx more elevated
-Conditioning!
-My "angles"
-Opening my rein but keeping steady contact with the other rein and leg to open up for turns (especially for bending lines)
-Having a lower release
-Stopping into the fence
-More stops and backing up
-More counter-canter
-Keeping my body and position more steady
-Becoming more confident in my distances to the fences
-"Schooling" instead of just jumping (as George said, "Jumping is only a split second...you have to SCHOOL your horse, not just jump them. 99.9% of riders just ride to jump. But you have to ride the course.")
-Maybe doing some gymnastic work to help me sink into my heels, give me a way to practice my realease, and to help Jinx
-The angle for jumping and hand galloping
-Keeping the same angle when sitting trot as when walking...and a slight tilt forward for posting trot
-Keeping centered with the motion
-Letting my horse be a horse ("You're riding horses, we don't want zombies. Too often, people lunge horses to death or drug them or put ear plugs in their ears or use some kind of gadget. RIDE the horse. People like challenges, it's in their nature. So just ride the horse you have. Let a horse be a horse.")

I haven't posted in a while!

-Jinx and I moved to Shiloh on the last day of September. We are now in training with Kelly Maddox.
http://kellymaddoxtraining.com/
-Before we left Sarah's, we had a Fun Day. We only got to do a few things, but it was fun.
-Everything at Kelly's is doing GREAT. A lot of issues we've had have been completely resolved.
-We have gotten moved up to the 10:00 lesson which is up to 3'. For the last two weekends, we've been jumping about 2'9" with a 3' fence or so thrown into the mix.
-We did a small show on October 28th that was being held at Shiloh. We only did two classes...2'3" Equitation and 2'6" equitation. We got 1st in 2'3" eq and didn't place in the 2'6" because it was a big class and I got a super funky distance to one of the fences. That's ok becuase Jinx was super good!
-Kelly's been getting Jinx to do flying changes when she rides him! My goal is to have him doing autos by the end of winter...
-Lots of flexion work for Mister Jinxers. Lots of haunches in, bending work, leg yielding...he's building up nicely.
-We're working on riding him up to our hands and keeping him from dumping down like (as Kelly likes to say) an "ant eater." Haha.

Yeah, this entry was kinda jumbled...but that's ok.


This is a picture of Mister Jinx and I at the October show.

( Compare the pictures... )

( Wine Country Classic Pictures )
(Pretty much directly a cut and paste from my regular journal)

Soooo the first official day of school was today. And I'm very peeved...Sooo my workload is super heavy, I have 8 periods (none of which are easy and two of which are AP classes), and the barn is in Livermore (which is about 40 minutes away from my house...without traffic). AND the school is cracking down on the time students take off from school.

This is seriously messing up my show plans for this year...

Here are some shows that I was thinking about doing:
Leone's: August 26th-27th (definitely happening)
Strides and Tides at Pebble (I REALLY WANT TO DO THIS ONE): September 15th(no school)-17th
Woodside Fall Finale: September 28th- October 1st (this one is another one I really want to do, plus I have time off of school to make it all more flexible for this show)
H/J Clinic with Beth Nielsen in Acampo: October 21st OR a small SAHJA schooling show on the 22nd
Let's Show (Halloween Show) at Rancho Murieta: October 25th-29th (DURING SPIRIT WEEK, WTF! I really, really want to go to this one. I've had to miss it every year so far, dammit!!)
Starr Vaughn: November 4th
There's a H/J and Equitation Judges Clinic on November 11th that sounds awesome. But do you have to be a judge to attend? I'm not sure.
*There really aren't any other November/December shows (even though I want to show during my school breaks) that I can find...so maybe I'll find some more clinics or something to go to?? I also want to take Jinxers cross country schooling and on trail rides during this time*

...Then Indio starts on January 24th (I think?) this year and goes until March 12th (with a break from February 15th-20th). Ok, sooooo this is pretty much my last year to do Indio until I'm done with college. And I really, really, really want to take Jinx to it SO BADLY. And I want to go for about a week. HOWEVER...The best week for me to go, the week when I have a ton of days off, is the week that it's on break.

Bitchassho. This SUCKS. I know that I won't be able to go to some of these shows for numerous other reasons...and now school is definitely getting in the way. And even when I *do* take a few days off for shows, I'm going to get soooo behind with my work.

I'm very frustrated right now.

( Show update )
We have another show next weekend. I'm really excited. It'll be our third weekend in a row of showing. We're making up for Sarah skipping all the July shows that I wanted to go to.

I'm really happy about Jinx. He's being such a good guy. If we ever do something badly at a show (or even during a lesson), it's almost always my fault...Sure, he goes off into "Baby La-la Land" sometimes. But he's such a good boy that it doesn't even matter to me. I'm really excited to see how we'll continue to progress through the rest of this season and into next year.

He's proved himself through the whole time that I've had him. But the Wine Country Classic is the most he's shined. I'm glad he was able to show me that he's worth all our hard work.

At this rate, we'll DEFINITELY be jumping in the big hunter arena (and placing well) by the beginning of next season (not doing big stuff, but probably 2'9" or 3'). And Sarah thinks that if he still feels good through October, that we'll take him in the 2'6" classes at the Halloween Show at Rancho Murieta. Perhaps they'll have some small medal classes that I can enter (they're usually 2'9" or higher...but ya never know). I'm juiced.