Poplar Here We Come!

This week has been busy so far! Homework (200+ pages of Love Medicine....yay. Not) is calling my name, but I really don't feel like getting off the couch!

I left yesterday at 12 to make the 3-hour trek to Franklin. I've never driven that far alone, and I told my mom to take some Ulcerguard because she was so nervous my car and I were going to be flattened like a pancakes by a semi on I-40. I survived*! And gained even more appreciation for my parents; the interstate is very boring.

Jump Lesson
He got picked up and trailered down the street to Bill's ring to jump so we could do the grid set up (Crossrail-Bounce-Vertical-One Stride-Vertical-Two Stride-Oxer).

We were jumping out of the more forward stride again today which worked out very well. My position is stronger than it was at the beginning of the year, and I feel less of a need to go snail's pace in order to feel in balance. I do think I will need to continue to be careful about my organization after the fence (i.e. Keep riding the canter and think about where I'm going in order to do it well) on course, but we were doing fine Sunday and today.

We did a lot of angled lines today! I planned on taking pictures but never got a chance. I haven't done much of that with Ti, but that's where his experience comes in to play! He knows what he's doing and takes care of me. We did a Coop-Forward 3-stride-Angle Vertical, Angle Vertical-steady 3-stride-vertical, and a Angle Vertical-5? Strides-Angle Oxer. We pieced that together with the two outside lines and had some really great, forward rides. One of my favorite parts of the lesson was when I did the forward 3-stride (and got a little long but right out of stride to the Vertical) and then came right back and easily did the very steady 5 stride in the 4-stride line.

Good boy! :)

Dressage
I changed tack quickly and had Bill hop for 5 minutes to get a quick tune up. He said his canter was straighter, and I was happy because I have worked on counter canter every single ride to get him straighter again (and myself straighter of course). Then I got on for 10 minutes and really got a supple, bendy, forward trot and canter. And we were straight!

So I'm very excited about Poplar, and I think I'm much more prepared and riding better than our first event there in January (which was also our first event in 7 months!). So off we go tomorrow morning at 8am!

*However, my poor car still got a beating. My superior reversing/driving skillz led me to scrape some of the paint off the front right side of it backing out of a garage. Today, I almost missed/kind of did miss the turn to the barn Tiamo is stabled at. How did I fix this? A mini off roading adventure by slamming to a stop, off the road (the drop ended up being much bigger than anticipated), and through grass. Except somehow my car ended up in neutral and...just yeah it wasn't my brightest moment. So far there haven't been any visible damages from it (yet).