Warm Up Survival

I was so proud.

I lunged The Serial Killer before dressage and he was super calm.

The calm before the storm???

He even warmed up nicely……a little too nicely……

He was definitely NOT his normal self.

As I was circling the dressage arena I decided I better ask for a canter depart….

JUST IN CASE.

Sure enough he gave me a pretty big buck, and I commented to the judge as we passed the judge box “……. we’re OFF TO THE RACES!!”

His test turned out to be uneventful and I finished dressage very proud of the baby horse for staying in the ring and saving the bucking for outside it.

Good Boy.

What happened next…………………..could only be called……….

a perfect storm.

Because I was riding 2 horses in the same division I was the first and last rider. TSK was the last horse in the division and the FABULOUS Bad Event Groom…

….met me in the warm up so we could swap horses.

Are they Plotting & Scheming????

Baby SeaBiscuit had been ESPECIALLY bad on course (see “Bad Eventer & The Black Stallion” for the details.)

I had amazingly survived the day with a number (ah hem…..120.9), and he had managed to give me a black eye!

Definitely a Bad Eventer moment

TSK had been so quiet the entire show so far, I wasn’t concerned……. I handed off Baby Seabiscuit and straight away hopped on The Serial Killer…….

That lasted about 60 seconds, when he took issue with a horse cantering passed him and….

EXPLODED.

Boy was I in trouble. We were the last to go with the junior division next. The pony riders were gathering…….

The Serial Killer took great issue with the 17 ponies that were swarming warm up galloping every different direction, pig tails flying, coaches yelling……

It was more than his little baby brain could handle.

I saved my life and did a bit of an emergency dismount. My trusty groom had ~~been dragged off~~ returned to the barn with Baby Seabiscuit and I didn’t have a lunge line. There was no time to retrieve one…….I undid one side of my reins and lunged him in a tiny circle for several minutes, while he bucked and reared and kicked and in general dragged me around being crazy.

With about 6 minutes to spare I climbed back on and every single time a pony went passed him he had a bucking fit.

We started to have a bit of a cheering section as sympathetic spectators said words of encouragement like,

“Way to hang on!”

“You’re really sticking with him!”

“He’s lovely when he’s not bucking!”

I tried unsuccessfully to give him away.

I couldn’t jump anything because I was fairly certain he would promptly buck me off scaring some one’s pony rider and possibly getting them dumped too. There had already been a couple near disasters……..

I seriously considered withdrawing.

I already had a black eye, and I wasn’t willing to get dumped at Beginner Novice. Would it be better to run away and try again another day?????

Then I decided if I could just get him AWAY from the warm up battlefield we might be ok. If he couldn’t survive the first couple 2′ fences without a warm up jump, then he was definitely not going to be an event horse.

So we left the start box, and he never looked back.