More XC Schooling

Another great day for Freddie Mac and his cross country adventures. He managed to jump every single jump at Dove Hill, on the very first try! And not only that, he did it with a purpose. He was so much straighter today, locking his ears onto the jump and then sailing over and landing like he knew exactly what he was doing. I think the high light of his school was jumping the coffin, full blown log 3 strides ditch 1 angled stride to a skinny log on the way out. Fred made it look simple! In his next outing, he is going with his "big brother" Morris to a facility that has a water jump, and we will see what Freddie thinks about that!
Morris is really happy to hear that he will be going cross country schooling soon, that is for sure. The footing is hopefully a little better now that we have had some rain, unfortunately we have been really ring-bound with Morris hoping to keep his feet happy in softer going. However, we leave next week on Wednesday for Millbrook and thus are going to have to get out and gallop somewhere and take a splash in a water jump! Freddie will be shocked to know that his grand finale jumps are mere warm-ups for Morris; but the baby has to start somewhere ha ha ha. Morris had a super lesson with Linda yesterday. She will be gone for the next couple of weeks judging a bunch of Championships in Europe, and boy did she hand out some homework. Morris hadn't worked that hard since coming back from his post-Bromont holiday and I was really pleased with how he felt. A few little position tweaks for both Morris and I and by the end of the lesson he was really floating around in the trot. Lara was there right next to Linda and has been trained sufficiently to be my eyes on the ground (Linda gave her permission to yell at me in her absence). I am sure that by the time Linda gets back we will have completed our assignments and be ready for more!

It is looking like a pretty fun fall season is shaping up...entered Freddie and Morris to take the big trip out to Richland (Michigan) at the end of August. Freddie might even be able to do the YEH tests out there, we will wait and see how he goes in the water over the weekend. And then Morris heads out to the AECs and hopefully Lara's horse gets his final qualifier and gets to make the trip as well. Should be a lot of fun. Freddie will be running at the Marlborough Horse Trials, which is really close to Kaleidescape (30 minutes away, tops) and I hope that everyone will be able to come out and tell him how wonderful he is!

Have fun watching the video from cross country today, courtesy of Lara who sometimes couldn't decide whether to watch at times in real time or thru the camera lens lol.