Contessa - Pine Top Feb ‘21

Hello, Club Contessa. Contessa and I went out to the Pinetop Horse Trials at the mighty Thompson Georgia on Friday, yesterday, and she was really good. This is our first sort of proper event for the year. And she was amped up, sort of been trying to slowly but surely get her a bit settled up, settled down for the season. She started our first event of the year. Very, very excited. And yeah, for this competition, she was still excited, a little bit better, but it's still very, very fired up. She was quite energized, a little bit spooky and excited to be out competing again. She's a very smart horse. I've been take. I took her to the, the dressage show and I've taken her to two jumping shows and she's behaved really, really well at all of them. And as soon as she's at a, at a horse trial or eventing competition, she knows it. And I find her so much more fired up and edgy and nervous at these, the events, rather. You know, you'd think that she'd be like this at the dressau show and the jumping shows, but she, she knows when there's cross country. I'm not sure if she can see the jumps or if she hears the loudspeakers or something, but she, she definitely is a little bit more on edge saying that. I feel like we got through this trot work really, really well. The, the canter and the walk wasn't so good, but I'm not too worried about it, to be quite honest. My biggest goal, to be, to be fair, is to get through these first couple events unscathed, which means just getting through them without injuring her and sort of getting her back in the swing of things and not getting too obsessed about a, a perfect result, because I, I feel like I don't want to force it just yet. We. We know that she's a great horse and I, I know when it really counts. I can work her a bit harder and get her a little bit more settled. Please stand still, Contessa. That's what I was thinking. I think she was spooky. There was a tractor. You can't see it behind there. That made her a little bit nervous and unfortunately, like stable view, she got a little bit antsy in the walk here again, when it's a real important competition, I'll be able to have her a bit more relaxed and get through this walk unscathed. She was brilliant in the show jumping as well. Again, she's a little bit fiery and feisty, but she's such a good jumper. She's careful, scopey. She, she really jumped well. And in cross country she was brilliant. I intentionally went very, very slow on her. I'm just terrified of re injuring her at the moment. So I went around like an old lady. I think I had 18 time penalties. But the good news is she, her legs look clean this morning. She trots up perfect. So, you know, I do think being cautious is the right way of going at the moment. Even though you, you're not very competitive on the result board. Unfortunately, she was one of the last horses to go in the intermediate. There's 50 or 60 horses in the intermediate and the landings on some of the jumps were a bit chopped up. We did a nice flying change there. That wasn't asked for, by the way. Been working on the flying changes. So unfortunately we're supposed to go canter walk canter. So I was, yeah, nervous as hell. Sometimes when you go towards the end of the class, the, there's sort of the holes at the landing of the jumps are a bit chopped up and she did buckle and trip after one of the big oxes and I was like, oh, please don't hurt yourself here. But she, like I said, she's very sound this morning and looks good. So I think we've got through this okay. I've had a, a new vet sort of helping us with the horses and we did some treatments and therapies to her, her neck. I feel like in the dressage obviously she gets strong and a little bit anxious, but we did a treatment to her neck to see if she could stay a little bit more relaxed through her spine there. But again, I think our biggest challenge is tension. So I think her next start is going to be the advanced event here in two weeks time. I mean Pinetop, it's a pretty crummy event to be quite honest, except for the cross country. The dressage and show jumping is a bit primitive. But the cross country course is brilliant. It's designed by Derek DeGrazio. It's beautiful footing, nice big track, nice open course and I love taking the upper level horses here just because I feel like the cross country gives them a good experience. Sadly, we're so busy on Friday with all the intermediate horses, we didn't get much or we didn't get any cross country footage. But she was, she was great. She was keen. I had to hold her back at a number of jumps. She was getting a little bit gung ho, but she's, she hasn't forgotten a thing. And you know my game plan from here would be in advance. That Pinetop in two weeks. Then I'll bring her back to Pennsylvania. A couple weeks later we'll go to Carolina International, do the advance there and then three or four weeks after that. Fairhill's got a four star short. Get through that. And then our main goal is the spring three day event at Tryon. The four star long there. My biggest goal, guys, is just to keep her in one piece this early part of the spring. I feel like she's one of the most talented horses I've got. I've just got to keep her legs in good shape.