On to the Jumping!

You know how much I love dressage, and you know how much Morris has improved in his dressage in his time with me.....however this Friday morning about all I can say is now we get to go jump! I was the last ride of the day yesterday, and the scores had been close all day long and I was very optimistic about a good performance in my pre-ride when Morris was feeling great. The girls had him absolutely sparkling, I have never seen him look so brilliant. And then it got dark, very cold, and half way thru my warm up for the real ride it just started pouring. POURING! Morris was not a fan, that`s about all I can say. He was grumpy, ears back, flicking his head, back tight and not really floating around like a ballerina. He kept it together in the arena fairly well, made no mistakes and executed all of the technical aspects of the test correctly, just didn`t flow enough to get a winning score. So I am sitting on a 62.4 which puts me exactly 10 points from 4th and with cross country time faults I can be in the top ten by Saturday afternoon. I walked the course yesterday when it stopped raining - about 30 minutes after I finished my ride, thank you - and it looks very well suited towards Morris. Terrain and fitness are going to play a huge part as there are a lot of slow long hill climbs with some pretty big questions. Both waters are tough, big jumps and drops on the way in. One jump in the middle of the water, the first water has a very very skinny brush on the way out, not even an inch to spare in your steering. There are several ditch and walls, ditches, a huge trakehner is there waiting for you at the 3rd which is quite early on. Some good angled questions, a couple of big galloping tables....certainly a lot of room to separate the pack after the dressage! I am heading out again today to walk it twice more, once with a meter wheel so I can memorize my minute markers and keep good track of my time along the course. I think that David O`Connor is taking a group of us out sometime this afternoon and I am interested in what he has to say. I am very interested to see how it is going to ride!
Will have photos and details to follow!