Galway Downs Fundraiser Clinic, 2012

So on Saturday, I went out to Galway to school cross country at the fundraiser clinic!

We warmed up, and Dawkins was being pretty good. He was super spooky, which I expected since it was freezing, raining, and windy, and also getting a bit strong. Again expected- he was in the full cheek snaffle again and that made me nervous so I pulled a bit too much, making him strong.

The first thing we did on was the “bowl”- jumping first a down bank five strides to a house (preliminary) then hanging rails to the house. I got myself into some problems-the exact same ones I had at November Galway, actually- when I jumped down the bank then didn’t make a decision. Dawkins gets extremely backed off in there, which I know and should have done something about. Because of this we kept getting to the house from a horrendous distance. I finally started kicking once I got in-or once holding since he jumped in so weirdly. After that, we got good distances and he jumped well and it was all bueno (:

We did some Training/Preliminary stuff-all went pretty well, it was some of the easier preliminary stuff and Dawkins behaved. The sunken road went significantly better than it did at the show. The first time I got to the chevron super long and jumped ahead so Dawkins had to majorly save my ass and stretch his little body to not kill us both! I learned my lesson and kicked the next time so it was way way better. And now I know!

We went to the water after that, and ended up schooling a lot more than I expected there! We did the 1* line through the water- from a decent sized rolltop to a brush fence on a little mound-, the Training/training 3 day stuff, the Preliminary line, and ended with jumping a bigger drop into water than I’ve ever jumped before. Dawkins was a superstar, and jumped like a grown up pony into the water! Shocking to believe that this is the horse who jumped into water like this not long ago.

(That’s from Inavale in June of 2010, our first event together. I wish I had gotten pictures or video from schooling this weekend to compare…it’s like he’s an entirely different horse).

We then jumped the moat-first the Preliminary line which is a hanging log four bending strides to a trakehner, then the 1* line which was two bigger trakehners on a slight angle! Dawkins jumped it so well, without a second of hesitation even when I was second guessing myself.

Thennn we did another 1* line, a big ish table to a brushed chevron on a slight bending line. Again Dawkins was amazing…I was a bit nervous when I was cantering down to the chevron, but he popped over it like a total packer!

I then schooled all of the Preliminary and 1* corners…the double Preliminary corners and the 1* brush corner. I struggled significantly more with the Preliminary corners than the brush corner, but I’m feeling much better about jumping them at the show.

To end, I schooled a table to the 1* coffin! The 1* coffin at Galway is a log, downhill 2 strides to a ditch, then 2 uphill strides to another log. I didn’t really realize what it even looked like until I jumped in! It didn’t feel fabulous, but we made it through decently on the first try-which I’m feeling much better about after seeing some others schooling it.

After that, we jumped a nice little BN table, and were done!

Dawkins was so good we didn’t school on Sunday (: I’m super thrilled with how well he’s going, and although I wish I had been able to get into the Ian Stark clinic, I’m happy with what I was able to do.

3.5 days until the first show of the season, then a week and a half until Galway!