OHC Jump-a-Round

So Peebs' big adventure a week and a half ago was to haul down to a local show facility and participate in their free schooling day. I was waiting to do the recap to see if the photographer got any pics of us, but when he finally posted his photos after a week, we weren't in any. Boo. So you'll have to make due with blurry screenshots from my phone.

Peebs was good, just very distracted and wanting to look everywhere

The main goal of the schooling day was to get out and jump somewhere else, especially for A and Scottie who came with us. A can get nervous riding somewhere new and Scottie can feed off of her, so Peebs and I were moral support. We spent a long while just walking around the indoor schooling arena getting A comfortable before making our way outside to jump the course.

This facility has an open outdoor sand arena next to a small xc course. The Jump-a-Round course included both, but since neither A nor I have a xc vest, we could only do the stadium course. Which was fine. The way the day worked was that you warmed up then added your name to the list and waited to jump your round. It was slightly disorganized as some people were jumping much bigger and then the fences had to be reset if the next person was jumping smaller. My trainer came with us, so she was able to reset fences for me, and in her sneaky way claimed "There was only time to make some of them smaller; you can do it." when I said they still looked big.

We had a stop at this fence going the other direction but he's obviously not concerned about it this way

Peebs had been good in warm up inside, but was super distracted by everything outside. There were horses turned out grazing, a hay field getting baled, the xc field, and who knows what else capturing his attention. The course started with a line and we trotted the first fence pretty weakly. I realized he needed more from me than he usually does at a show, so we came back to trot the second fence and I went to my crop over it. That snapped him out of his funk and the third fence rode well. Fence four, the skinny x above, was off a tight turn, with another tightish turn to another outside line after. I brought him back to the trot and his distractedness took over and he very calmly stopped at it. It felt like he just wasn't paying attention and didn't realize he was supposed to jump it. So we circled back and I rode with purpose and we made it over just fine.

The rest of the course flowed pretty well after that. I passed my trainer after fence four and heard her say to relax my arms and follow and wouldn't you know, that worked. The second outside line was an easy five, then a long approach to a single on the diagonal back to the skinny cross rail (which we trotted again but did jump on the first try) then another long approach to a single diagonal. While definitely not our best round, we did school what needed to be schooled and that was the point of the day. We could have signed up for another round, but I was tired and starting to get sunburned and since it was only the fourth jump school in three months for Peebs, I didn't want to overdue it.  I hope they have more schooling days because I will definitely go back!