This is an exciting week for the long suffering horse audience who reads this blog (with its total lack of horse content for quite some time). I met bloggers! I went to a FEI World Cup event! My horse is on his way to California! We’ll talk about all of this soon, but today there are more pressing matters. Y’all – we need to talk about this coat. Karl Cook. He’s a jumper rider. After an amazing effort in the…
Yesterday I bragged profusely about my great horse show. Sorry about that, but today I’ll get into the more nitty gritty detail for those of you that like those kind of posts. As previously discussed, I decided to enter the 2’3″ and 2’6″ jumpers instead of the 2’6″ and 2’9″ heights we had been previously showing at. I stepped back because it’d been almost a year since I showed at all (April 2016), and it had been a year and…
Something very weird happened to me at the show this weekend. I’ve been showing for over 15 years, and the following has never happened: I signed up classes appropriate for my horse and my riding level. I brought a well trained, seasoned horse to the horse show. I listened to what my trainer said, didn’t go off course and rode competitively… and I pinned well in every class. Not only did I pin well, but I picked one of my two divisions…
We’ve been having massive rain in Austin lately, so my lesson on Sunday was my first one since the disappointing horse show. I’d be lying if I said I was super excited to be lessoning again. My brain had already prepared itself for life with a baby hunter, and had lost a lot of my gumption for the 2’6″-2’9″ jumpers with my changeless wonder horse. My trainer had setup a mock hunter derby course to prepare for the horse show…
I have a little bug that I can’t kill. It’s not entirely unlike a virus. It doesn’t respond to antibiotics (or in my case, reason) and it has lived int he ecosystem of my brain for quite some time – dormant and waiting. I still want to do the hunters. I know, I know. My horse loves the jumpers, you say. We’ve done well in the jumpers, you add. Much progress has been made! All of this is true, but…
For Sunday, I decided to give myself a little more ring time by signing up for the 2’6″ Equitation medal. I had competed in this class once last year, and enjoy it because it’s the toughest course for the height at our local show series. Adding this class meant that I had to get up early on Sunday to come school in the outside ring before the show started. My trainer seemed to think that schooling the jumps would be necessary…
I’m writing this post on Sunday evening with Pascale passed out on the couch next to me. We are both very tired from a long weekend of horse showing. This weekend was one of those “learning experiences” shows for me, and while I did not take home any satin to hang in the new apartment I did really enjoy myself. I think I posted something on Instagram to this effect, but I’ve never had so much fun losing before. Simon was…
Inspired by Hello My Olivia, I decided to post a picture of Simon and I from our last show on Judge My Ride. I won’t lie, I was pretty impressed with my lower leg in some of the pictures from this show… so I was curious what kind of feedback I might get. Below is the picture and comment I posted (typo and all). Pictured is my 9y/o 16.2hh OTTB and I in an Intro Jumper class at our local…