Caifornia Trip Recap, or, I'm finally home!!!

Actually I've been home for about a week after my super-successful California "tour" with the boys.  I was unable to update the blog during the third week in Rancho Murieta, California, but that show also exceeded my expectations for success.  Victor finished second in both the GP and GP freestyle and successfully broke the 70% barrier in his freestyle.  After his rocky start in San Juan, Bolero won all three of his Third level tests, with two scores over 70%.  What a way to end the trip!!

Personally I was totally burned out by the last show and it has taken me almost a week to fully recover.  I'd been going pretty much non-stop in dressage and horse-related activities since mid-January.  All the intense build-up training for the boys for the shows, riding in several clinics, organizing one clinic, teaching a couple clinics in Portland, running my training business, competing in four different CDIs in California, and driving back and forth from Idaho to Southern California twice, yeah that's about enough for a couple months.

The travel required is draining, not least from the long hours of driving but the inevitable stress of it all.  I made one trip to Burbank and back in February (15 hours each way), then turned around 3 weeks later and drove first to San Juan (17 hours), then to Rancho Murieta (10 hours), then home to Boise (11 hours).  Generally the drives were smooth and stress-free although I overheated the transmission slightly on my truck coming down the Grapevine (the stretch of I-5 just north of Los Angeles, which is a pretty nasty hill) on the way to Rancho Murieta.  Although it turned out not to be a big problem (however I did get the tranny serviced the next day in Sacramento), it was very stressful and just added one more thing to worry about with the trip.  Not only do I want to keep my horses healthy and happy, I want the same for the truck! 

I've had several questions about where I'm going to be going from here.  The rest of this year is going to be predominantly a learning/growing year for both Victor and Bolero as the big year is next year (the Olympic year).  So I will be entering some National shows with the idea of perfecting some details in Victor's work, and maximizing his strengths.  Although he has some weaknesses from the perspective of what the modern-day judges want to see, he has more than enough strengths to make up for it.  I hate to pick away at things he finds difficult if I can just improve things he's already good at but could get even better at.  So naturally I'm also going to put time/money into getting some more training, as that is always necessary to get improve.  Likely I will also have to re-evaluate my freestyle choreography to make it a little more difficult for next year. 

For Bolero I want to get him more comfortable in show environments, and me more comfortable at dealing with his silliness.  I also want to push for FEI for next year (PSG/I-1) and get him a solid start on the piaffe and passage.  I think he's at the point where he can really be pushed.  Keep in mind this is a horse who did not have a confirmed flying change until late last year (late 8 year old), which is pretty late by the standards of most top riders.  He will be a world-class horse but getting him there is going to take some work.  GP horses are not born, they are made.

There is some question about the Festival of Champions, as Victor amazingly managed to be ranked 23rd in the nation (at least currently) in his debut year at GP.  The top 15 will be invited to Festival, which will be held in Wellington, Fl, this December.  If finances were no problem I would go if invited.  However it is a very long and expensive trip (and not a good month for cross-country traveling, I hate driving anywhere over the mountains in the winter!), and at this point I think it is smarter to invest that in training and local competitions and put it towards my CDI qualifiers for next year.  I'm still a little up-in-the-air about it though, as it is an important competition and a good place to test the waters for next year.

So the goal for next year is to try for the Team with Victor.  It is a big, big goal, and will be difficult.  All the top riders will be out in force with their GP horses and those that don't have one will likely find some sponsor to buy them one.  Frankly I'd be thrilled to even make it to the Selection Trials (assuming that's how they're going to do it, they seem to change their minds all the time about the selection procedures for these big events!).  I'd love to be able to do a CDI on Bolero next year but that might be pushing it too much.  It'll depend on how he handles the training.

Right now I'm just recovering from my trip and getting my business back going again.  The boys are rearing to go though so they will be going back to work tomorrow (plus I have a clinic the following week anyway, so they need to get back going again).  They survived the trip much better than I did!