First, a huge thank you to you both. This horse is simply amazing. He has been so terrific for Jordan to learn on - so nice to have a horse who knows more than the rider! and once again, so great to hear this
So, for the show, I went on ahead as the girls had testing 1/2 days at school. This was the first time they have traveled to a show without me being there to double check everything, and they "passed" with flying colors.
Keebler came off the trailer like a champ, and was happily ensconced in his stall as we waited for the farrier (he had lost a shoe at home on Friday am).
He was a bit antsy for the farrier, but that was because the automatic fly sprayer in the farrier "stall" kept hitting him on the butt every 20 minutes! That's his story and he's sticking to it
The girls had about a half hour to just ride before dark, and I sent them out to one of the fields (about 10 acres) to play. Jordan practiced going forward and bringing Keebler back, and he thought this was a terrifically fun game :) especially the forward part, no doubt. There were no courses posted (let me not get crazy again), and the show jumping course was not even done being BUILT, but that's another story
We awoke to POURING rain and a severe temp change (it was 90 when they rode on Friday, and we woke to 48degrees!). The show was delayed a bit (let's not talk about the disorganization because I will go crazy). Finally it slowed to a drizzle and a mist, and we were told to get to the start box!
Class #1 was the "hunter pace". Show organizer couldn't tell us how long the course was ("oh, over 3 miles but under 5 miles") or what the pace should be (let's just say meters per minute was not in their vocab we appreciate eventing more every time we go to another type of horse event), so we just decided to wing it. We walked (ok, Keebler LEAPED forward as Jordan mounted but then settled) to the start box (where I argued with the starter because no way in hell was I putting THREE horses in the start box at the same time), and left the start at a walk (Keebler and Bitsy were very concerned about this departure from protocol - silly people, we are supposed to gallop).
Once we found the trail , I had Jordan lead at a 250+ mpm trot . The trail was beautiful - really only wide enough for one horse, under beautiful oak canopies- and Keebler was a great trail blazer. I originally had put Keebler in front, Bitsy in middle, and Emily and her pony in the back, but after about 20 "pony running into Bitsy's butt" episodes, I put the pony in the middle. Bitsy was not as pleased, as she had been enjoying the strong trot behind Keebler, but agreed to be "rated" so that I could shout encouragement to Emily ahead of us (I love my horse). We passed a few teams on our way, which worried us a bit, but at this point I didn't care where we placed because we were having such fun!
When we came to open fields, we did a bit of canter, and then back to trot for twisty trails. Finally, we entered the XC field. Keebler was of course a star, and Jordan enjoyed the fact that there were several different fences to choose from in addition to the "posted" course. He was a little wriggly to a few fences, but I think that was the "there are 4 fences here which one?" Can we jump the bigger one?
I so enjoyed being able to go out with "my girls", and was so proud of Bitsy for giving Emily and the pony leads over fences.
The really funny thing was that the organizer thought the hunter pace was "too long to do twice" (originally I was going to go once with Emily and once with Jordan), and Bitsy and Keebler came back to regular breathing under 5 minutes. The pony took about 10 minutes. because they have eventers as riders, so are in great shape
So, that is class #1 (which we won, although we didnt know at the time and I still don't know what the optimum time was or how close to it we were!) Yeah!!
Off to do a bit of packing, stay tuned for round 2 :)
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