Surprise! We went to a horse show. Cinder is finally feeling good enough that I asked my trainer her thoughts of doing a couple classes at the last MDTE show of year. We were in first place for the 2'3" hunters, and in third in the 2', for the circuit awards and as much as I hate being that person, I wanted to point chase. Trainer M thought a few classes would be doable, so off we went.
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| Medal Finals participants got these nice glasses and having my morning coffee in them at work reminds me why I have to have a job to pay for these horse shows |
To back things up, Cinder was cleared for jumping only two weeks ago. We had been doing a lot of pole work at the walk, and when we started trotting and cantering poles/cavaletti Cinder was quite enthused. Like, I was getting left behind and slightly run away with when we did a line of four trot poles and the first day we started cantering the 1' cavaletti I almost asked for a bigger bit. It was more funny and exciting that Cinder was so obviously happy to be back "jumping" than scary, but I did pull the ammy card and have Trainer M do the first official jumps back on her. But she was a perfect lady and jumped like she's been jumping all summer and didn't have a five month break.
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| quick, pre-lesson power nap |
Since I hadn't been planning on showing until the last minute, I had scheduled a dental for Peebs and agreed to feed dinner at his barn the day before the show. Trainer M had space in her trailer so she hauled Cinder and schooled her Friday at show without me. I know that's a fairly common occurrence in h/j land, but it felt so indulgent to me to just show up Saturday to the show and have my horse and tack all set up. I got a report that Cinder was foot perfect on Friday, and was even an emotional support horse to another of M's clients whose horse was melting down in the arena while schooling.
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| hot mare morning walk |
We decided to have Trainer M take Cin in a 2' class to see how she'd do, then have me do a 2'3" round. Cinder warmed up well. She was moving beautifully and hopped over the warm up fences with no problems. M's round went well, minus one corner when she went to rebalance and Cin tried to break to the trot, but they pulled out the win. M hopped off and Cin got a little break while I finished getting ready.
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| Spoiler alert |
I got on and did a quick walk/trot/canter and jumped like three warm up fences. M had told me the outside lines rode well, but the diagonal line was a little long and that I needed to make sure she was in front of my leg and that I had enough pace to make the six. So of course in our round I saw the waiting, quiet distance to the in of the line and then proceeded to sit there like a sack of potatoes and not make a decision of moving her up or holding for the add. God bless this horse for making the decision for me and getting down the line in a long six. Other than that the round was really nice. She landed all of her leads, we nailed the other lines and found nice distances to the other fences. There were only two in the class and we won.
With those two rounds we were able to win year end circuit champion in both the 2' and 2'3" hunter divisions. Cinder won two nice leather halters with engraved champion nameplates. Honestly though, the halters were just icing on the cake at that point. Just getting to jump and show my horse again was amazing, and that she felt so good and was so professional and perfect plus winning two championships made the last five months of vet bills and rehab hell worth it.
