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Wentworth Hunter Pace - June 6, 2021

After Margaret and I had such a fun time at the fall hunter pace, we opted to go again this spring! This time, while I rode Rejoice again, Margaret rode her horse Jester and had a friend ride Ladyhawke. All Kennebec Morgans!! Jester and Rejoice have the same dam and Jester and Lady share the same sire. Unfortunately instead of a lovely late spring day, we had one of the first intensely hot and humid days of the year. It was definitely a bummer, but the ride was mostly in the shade of the woods and we had a great time!  most of the fences were 3' coops but we found a small log and this hay to jump haha Until we didn't. 😑 We brought along a third friend who rode Margaret's older mare, Ladyhawke. She's a good rider but hasn't known Ladyhawke for very long and didn't realize how much of a cranky boss mare she could be at times. She kicked Jester right in the front leg just about halfway through the ride, and while the cut itself ended up not being a big deal in the

Ever After Mustang Benefit Horse Show - October 9, 2016

Another great horse show for Miss Snappy!  This mare has earned some really solid show miles this year and I am so thankful for that.  Even though I decided to focus on dressage and eventing with her, I did attend an "open show" this past weekend.  I thought it would be fun and I've attended this show many times (it was the 10th year anniversary for them!).  This was actually the same show she went to back at the end of 2014 as her "first show experience", so it was fun to return and see how she behaved.  Rereading that old blog post made me realize that she has grown, as this time around she was happy to stand in the line-up at the end of the riding classes and she was totally calm in the in-hand class.  Again, she warmed up and behaved perfectly for everything I asked of her.  


Hanging out at the trailer
Snappy earned:
1st Adult Walk/Trot Pleasure out of 4 entries
1st Adult Walk/Trot Equitation out of 3 entries
1st Open Walk/Trot Over Fences out of 2 entries
3rd Open Walk/Trot Egg & Spoon out of 3 entries
4th Fitting & Showmanship out of 7 entries
Adult High Point Champion

We also won some really great swag with our three first place ribbons!  I had a bucket, gift bag, and tote bag FULL of neat items.




So much swag!  Baseball hat, tote bag, grooming mitt, tape measure, poultice, Leather New, Bannix, three Vetraps, Absorbine samples, tack cleaning sponges, $10 gift card to a local feed store, rain poncho, small bucket, calendar, and two random choker things. 
High Point Award sweatshirt!  It's pretty big, but how fun!  :-)
We did the same classes as two years ago, except they removed the Command Class and added Egg & Spoon instead.  And I added in the over fences class this year, as she wasn't ready to jump at a show in 2014.

I was SO EXCITED to try egg & spoon because I don't think I have done that since I was a kid LOL!  But sadly, the minute they said to remove our thumbs from the egg, I dropped the damn thing hahaha!  I should have just held it normally instead of trying to use my thumb in the first place.  Between wearing riding gloves and trying to remove my thumb and move my hand back from the egg, all while trying to steer my horse with my left hand, was a bad combo apparently hahaha!  It was over before it started.  Oh well!

I wasn't planning to do the in-hand, but I did it anyway just to see how she would act.  She was great!  We had to do a 270 degree pivot, which I have never trained her to do, so I know that bumped us down.  I just asked her to turn nicely away from me, but she didn't do a perfect pivot.
We are just to the left of center!
The three classes I really cared about (pleasure, equitation, and over fences) were the ones we won, so that was super cool!  She was perfect in our riding classes, and did not react when we ended up right behind a horse who refused to trot and started misbehaving.  I saw it begin happening as soon as we switched direction, and I figured the behavior of the horse would escalate when we were asked to trot (it did), so I was prepared and took a wide berth around the misbehaving horse.  She just kept trotting like the good mare she is. 

(And again, she beat the career walk/trot horse. I think this is this horse/rider pair's seventh year in walk/trot.  I hate to constantly bring that up, but seriously?  Once this mare can canter in public, I will move her up.  And if she is never able to canter?  I certainly won't turn her into a forever walk-trotter at horse shows.  Just a pet peeve of mine!)


She was SOOOO good! 
Awkward photo of us leaving the ring with our first place gift bag!
The jumping class was a bit worrisome.  I never know what to expect at little schooling shows like this (and usually my instinct that things will be less than stellar are correct - I'll never forget the time show management at a different show set a two stride at 2.5 strides and no one cared when I told them it wasn't set right...it was one of the most unsafe things I have ever seen, but I digress).  

There was no warm up fence, so I had to trust that Snappy would just go in and jump an entire course of eight fences with no prior heads up as to what I wanted.  Granted, the jumps were tiny, but I do like her to be thinking about what is going to happen before it does haha.  Also, the first three fences were set as a TRIPLE!  Holy moly!  I have never seen that LOL!  It was a one stride to a two stride triple combination, so not only did we not jump anything ahead of time, our first three fences were a combination.  LOL!  Again, they were tiny fences, but I just wanted her to have a good trip and I was worried I might be setting her up for failure on two counts.  I guess I shouldn't have worried at all, because she was willing to go over everything, even if she gave the first fence a OH WE ARE JUMPING NOW moment of hesitation.  





Overall, it was a fun day with nice weather, and I was out of there by 1pm!  Can't beat that!  :-)


Comments

  1. My mustang Tristan came from Ever After, thank you for supporting them! I was a volunteer there the year before they started doing this show, it's amazing that it's been ten years now.

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  2. Really??? That is super cool! Mona and her staff do a great job with the rescue and I love supporting them!

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