Horse Show Results

Now that the crazy weekend is finally over I've got a little time to update and let everyone know how it went. Saturday at the show was a "C" rated hunter show in which I showed a school horse named Cruz. In his 7 years at the school, Cruz has never once shown in a horse show ever fences. He's kind of a spook...although he's not really afraid of the jumps so much as he just gets tense in the atmosphere of the show. He schooled FANTASTIC Friday night and Saturday morning and then we got around our first trip over fences with one stop to a single oxer (literally we just met it in a half stride...there was no distance at all.) The second trip he was super nervous going to the ring again and as we came down a diagonal someone flung open one of the doors in the corner of the ring and Cruz just had a spaz moment where he literally just stopped and spun. Completely out of the blue...one minute I was on his back and the next minute I was standing next to him holding the reins. I was mad for about 2.5 seconds until he realized what he had done and he dropped his head and his ears flopped sideways. I just had to laugh...he looked so dejected as if to say "I didn't mean it...really..." Out in the warm up ring I got back on and jumper some more jumps to set his mind straight. He was a perfect angel. M wanted to put  him into another class to improve his attitude, but there was nothing else I was eligible for that was at a height he could handle (ex: the Adult Amie's were too high for him...he maxes out around 2'9" and the only other thing lower was a Limit Rider 2ft class and I'm above limit rider and not eligible to compete in that) Oh well. He did try really hard to be good...I mean, it was his FIRST horse show! It could have gone a whole lot worse!

Sunday was jumper day with Johnny. I hauled him over Saturday night after the course change and we schooled the jumps. The ring was like a mad house but it didn't seem to faze him at all. We schooled at the 2'3"-2'6" height even though we were only doing 2'. I didn't actually mean to school him that high...the jumps really didn't look that big until the next day when I was working jump crew after I showed and was moving some boxes going "Omg we JUMPED these??" Anyway, Johnny schooled like a totaly champ despite his ADD in the warm up ring. He even landed his right lead canter and kept going all the way around the ring on it...perfectly balanced! Sunday morning K hauled him over and I elected not to school him again. In hind sight, I probably should have, but I wanted to see how he would handle the whole situation. This was his first jumper show ever and his first REAL course. Like Cruz, Johnny kind of loses it in the show ring. He's super quiet and focused in schooling and then falls apart a little when he's in the ring by himself. We had stops in both rounds but he jumped on the second attempt and really did try his best! I was very pleased with him overall...the jumps were scary and there were some wicked jumper turns! At least now we know what we need to work on!

Here are a few video stills of Johnny jumping:

Not too shabby...I've got pictures of Cruz coming soon!

Peace.Love.Ponies.