June 19, 2011 Hunterpace

The hunterpace took place this past Sunday, and I waited to post hoping that the other photographer on site would post the pictures, but he hasn't yet, and so I'm going to go ahead and post.

What a great hunterpace it was! It was an absolute blast. All but the last picture are by  Lydia, and I love them :)

Jenny picked Daisy and I up at our house at 9am. We were on the grounds less than a half hour later. The weather was perfect! About 70-75 degrees, not buggy on the trail.  

I was pretty excited to wear a pinny. ;)

We rode in the hunter division, which is described as being ridden at the gait that the terrain calls for, mostly trotting and cantering. We ended up trotting and cantering all of the places with open flat or uphill fields, and walking only in the wooded areas and downhill paths.

I had switched Daisy's snaffle out for a kimberwick, and I'm happy to say she completely respected it this time, unlike our first hunterpace. There were jumps spread out throughout the course. I remember jumping 13 of them, although there might have been more. There were lots of log jumps, and then some more interesting ones. The second one we did was a stone wall. The last time we jumped a stone wall, we took three tries to do it decently, the first time over Daisy had literally crawled her way over it (haha; our first cross country schoooling). This time, she jumped it perfectly! The logs on course were nice; not small jumps at all, but tall and wide. We jumped the majority of them, and I was thrilled with how she handled them. She never refused the entire time, and she didn't knock a hoof anywhere either.

The pic below is of the first jump, taken by photographer Bill Gamble. I think he probably got one more mid-air over the jump, except Skyler (Jenny's mare) was probably blocking us because she freaked out a bit :P oh well. 

On jump in particular was my favorite. It was a tire jump, with lots of different sized tires. The sides of the jump were just a jumble of rusty metal tractor parts. Apparently people chose not to jump it because if their horse were to duck out, they could injure themselves on the tractor parts. I didn't think that far however; I just thought it looked like fun, so Daisy and I jumped it. She was great! She didn't spook at any of it at all, and it was relatively big and such a blast to go over. Gosh, I can't make it up, she's just good at cross country :)

Jenny's mare Sklyer gave us both a pleasant surprise with how well she handled everything. She took everything like an old pro, even went first in front of Daisy to cross a wide stream of water. She kept up with our gallops and was just really good :) It was great to have Jenny along.

Oh, and best of all ---- we placed fourth out of thirty in the division! WHOOT! :)

Until later,

Dressage, Conditioning, Summer, Homeschooling, Thoroughbreds. . .

Much good has been going on on my life of late. . .
Tuesday was my last day of school; now I only have state exams the next two weeks (Only two left now). I've decided to home school next year, so the last day was bittersweet. This was Daisy and I when I got home.

My cats are basically the most adorable things you will ever see. This his Gronemeyer:

With his sister Genevieve, lounging together on our patio table this morning.

And then there's Miss Daisy, chest-deep in grass for an hour or two a day, depending on how bad the deer flies are. Nom, nom. . .

We've been riding over to Pony Club mounted meetings every week, which have been fun. We've worked on flat work and jumping. The last two weeks we practiced in a dressage ring. This past Wednesday was amazing! I remember to wear spurs and Daisy's dressage felt absolutely wonderful. It probably didn't look that great from the outside, but as I rode I could feel how awesome it was. Our instructor had me focus on sitting up straighter at the trot and canter, and boy. . . as soon as I fixed myself, Daisy's canter was much lighter and less forehandy. Funny how that works ;)


Tomorrow we're riding in our first off farm event of the year! I wasn't sure if we'd be doing anything until county fair, but our PC group is hosting a hunterpace as a fundraiser, and Jenny agreed to take me along and ride in it with me! We trail cleared last week and it looks like it's going to be a great time. I'm so excited! I rode 5.2 miles with Daisy yesterday to prep and she was marvelous. It was the first time doing the 'long' block this year, but she was full of energy, so we did lots of trotting and cantering (in her easy boots) and it was just grand :) 


I'm going to be showing Ladd at fair next year! I'm going to try to get out and ride him more often from now on. He's a 17hh TB that I was riding last summer already; he's a riot :) 


Until later,

Pony Club Clinic - Sunday May 22, 2011

I officially joined Pony Club two weeks ago. My best friend Lydia is part of a pony club which holds some of the mounted meetings at a farm a mile down the road from me.

With monetary support from my parents (Thank you :) ) I joined the club!

The first event I took part in was a jump position clinic yesterday with instructor Karen Marcotte.

It was my first time seriously jumping Daisy in only a snaffle, and well. . .

It was interesting.

We warmed up a bit over trot poles, then each person schooled over a course of 8 jumps twice. I was in the "green" horse lesson, and boy am I glad considering the shenanigans Daisy allowed herself once we started jumping.

I like to call the picture below "The Flash". She was relatively lazy during warm up. It didn't last long. As soon as we started jumping, she was off like a rocket. Our first jump was a biggish vertical with a box underneath, and it was the one jump I was thinking she'd have trouble with. I was right, but not in the way I thought she'd have trouble.

She took off coming up to it, and by the time she got there she was flat out galloping without any sort of brakes and she launched herself over it. To be honest, that first jump was a complete blast, but totally out of control. It was moderately embarrassing, however it was so much fun I don't really care about how much of a fool we made ourselves.

I didn't really think Daisy would refuse any jumps, because she rarely does. She refused this jump though. I don't have any pictures of the other side of it, but it is painted white on the other side with bright neon green horses stamped on it. Plus, the way the pieces were set up, the jump had a tiny bit of depth and I think that added together made her stop. It was not a real whole-hearted refusal though. If I had had leg on her as I should have, I think I could have kicked her over. Instead, we circled (*choke*. I HATE circling before a jump! It teaches them the wrong thing and I know it. I would have rather kicked her over from a standstill like I always do, but I wasn't sure if that's frowned upon :P) and she backed up and refused for a couple steps, but then

I got her over.

The rest of the course was just as the beginning, not quite as bad, just very quick. She didn't jump flat though, I'll say that. The thing with jumping is that, no matter how terrible it goes, it's still a blast :)

This is my friend Lydia on her TB/Percheron cross Bella.

This is from our second time through the course. Daisy was a bit slower, but still speedier than she should have been. We didn't really work on my position because we were trying to edit hers :P. The instructor made a good point that I shouldn't stop giving her leg simply because she's racing already. She encouraged me to maintain leg pressure so that we could keep in a rhythm, and that Daisy would eventually learn that it would be easier to go slower since I would be forcing her to keep a steady rhythm either way. It makes sense.

We looked pretty silly racing through the course, which makes me think I need to go back to a kimberwicke for jumping in the future. I'll talk to my instructor about it.

Overall, I had a great time, and my mom took great pictures :)

Next event is a mounted meeting Wednesday afternoon. Should be fun :)