As promised, here is puppy-pic-poluted post numero dos! Bentley is a 3 month old Shorkie (Shih Tzu X Yorkie) mix that belongs to one of my best friends. I just loved his little expressions and all that fluff! So glad we were able to snap a few photos of this little guy- and I’ll be seeing him again when I return to take my friend’s engagement photos next month! Hooray, more Bentley!
Have a great weekend!
So now you’ve read the run down of our first and second days at our first real hunter/jumper show, and you’re probably sitting on the edge of your seat with anticipation wondering, “what now? Will they make the jump (pun intended) to hunter/jumper land permanently? *gasp*”.
Let me end your pretend anxiety and say, probably not. However, I was thoroughly surprised to find that I did not see evidence of many stereotypes I had in my head of the hunter/jumper crowd, and that I would certainly be willing to enter a hunter/jumper show again, if only for a day rather than the weekend-long shebang.
Here are the overall Pro’s and Con’s I experienced over the weekend. In hopes that I won’t offend any hunters out there, keep in mind that this is a first real H/J experience for someone who has only done Dressage and Eventing for the last 10 years.
The Pro’s:
Warm up
These trainers have obviously taken the time to school their students in proper warm-up ring etiquette, and it showed. Calling fences or inside/outside, as well as staying out of the way when standing, were all observed. Considering that I was warming up with people mostly half my age (yay 2’6″ classes!), this was all the more impressive. I feel like at any typical event I am the lone voice in the warm up arena and have been known to yell at more than one person for not calling out their warm-up fences. So, eventers, let’s get our act together.
No snobbery
I’ll be honest, I fully expected to see a bit of hunter/jumper princessness while I was here. Instead, I saw a lot of down-to-earth people and comraderie amongst the competitors.
Adding/scratching classes is awesome
Especially for people who can’t make up their minds (*cough* like myself, Sunday morning), this was a great feature to the show. The downside of course being that nothing can be scheduled down to the minute like at an event, but it still comes in handy.
part of our badly abuse class-sheet
Legit Jumper Courses
This was pretty cool to see. The level of difficulty was exactly what was expected, and I thought it was still fair throughout the different heights. It might have been neat to ride through a triple combination, but that’s about all that was missing from the courses. Thumbs up from me!
Footing
Also known as water/drag all the things! These people mean business about footing, and the water trucks and tractors came and went so much they had it down to a science.
Turnout
All the pretty ponies, and all the pretty people! And even though I am fond of wearing my Ugly Boots and Ugly Pants to horse shows, it was kind of nice to pretend to be part of the fancy crowd all weekend.
The Ugly Boots (shown here) came along for the trip, luckily the Ugly Pants (also shown here) stayed at home
No timers
Obviously for the hunter classes, there’s no obnoxious buzzer sending you on your merry way. Not gonna lie, at the end of day 2, this was something Foster and I were seriously appreciating. Thank you, hunter gods, for not asking us to be relaxed and fast. Thank you.
The Con’s:
The Wait
I know you were expecting this. Waiting around with no schedule sucks. To be fair, I understand why (note my earlier comment about scratching classes), but there is definitely something to be said for knowing exactly when you are going, and being able to plan your day accordingly.
Inconsistent Judging
Maybe it’s my uneducated eye, but I could not find rhyme or reason between the different judges. And really, I’m talking about flat classes. Where I thought I saw a relaxed ‘hunter-type’ with big strides, swinging movement, and relaxed demeanor, the horse that was clenching it’s jaw and avoiding contact by head-tilting pinned. Or in another arena, when I though a horse and rider produced a nice outline/frame, the horse that had it’s nose to the sky placed. I just couldn’t understand how the scoring was done, and this was a bit frustrating- adding to the mysteries of hunteryness.
The Clothes
And specifically, the rules about what’s OK and what’s not. Your boots need non-functioning laces, the saddle pad must be fitted (or non-existent, the route we went), your breeches must be knee patch, etc, etc. In the (mostly) form-follows-function world of eventing wardrobe, some of these things just made my eyes roll.
Feeling sneaky riding in Full-seats that don’t look like Full-Seats!
Confusing class descriptions
Again, totally based on my ignorance as an eventer, but seriously- who comes up with these names? Even checking the state’s Hunter-Jumper Association doesn’t immediately describe what a Special Hunter was, and asking multiple people about the difference between Special Hunter and Pre-Green Hunter didn’t seem to clear up the difference. So. much. confusion.
Photography
It was pretty amazing to see how much more expensive the photography was at this C rated show than it is at any event. And sure, maybe it’s because the clientele are willing to pay that prices, in which case, good for the photographer. But hot damn, that’s a lot of money! Maybe I’m just bitter because they got 4 photos of me, and they were some of the worst photos I have seen in my life. I watched the videos, I know our level of awkwardness wasn’t quite that bad. Maybe next time, Mr. Photographer.
Foster and one of our 2 4th place ribbons!
Overall Take-away
When it really comes down to it, this weekend was a wonderful opportunity to get in the jump arena in a low-pressure kind of way. I was able to somewhat successfully implement and learn a new technique, expose Foster to new types of fences, and take in a lot of knowledge about a new discipline. I learned a lot about what my horse can handle, and where his fitness limits are, which, though frustrating at the time, is really useful in preparing for future competitions. So all-in-all, this was a good experience and I’ll be keeping an eye on the hunter/jumper calendar next year in case another opportunity comes up to visit hunter/jumper land again!
Tonight, we return to the world of dressage with another lesson with Eliza. Until next time, hunter/jumper land!
So, having already established that poor baby Foster was almost debilitated with exhaustion from the day before, I had to come up with a new game plan for Day 2 of our Hunter/Jumper experience. The original plan was to do a couple more jumper classes, but I knew ‘go fast’ and ‘jump big’ were not tools in our tool box that day, so a change of plan was needed.
Foster naps in his stall
At first, after much discussion, we decided to do 2’9″ Schooling Hunters, and be damned that we would be up against professionals. Not like we were going to place anyways. Then there were concerns that we wouldn’t have time to get ready, and switched to Adult Amateurs. I got on and soon saw that there was no waking up Foster enough to do the 2’9″ fences (that ring also was the one decked out in astro-turf, filler galore). So I scratched again. I suppose there’s something to be said for being able to swap classes, even if you’re driving yourself absolutely bonkers over it all (I despise wishy-washyness, even in myself).
Another day of hunters! Also, tents. We like tents.
The final decision was that it would be best for him if we took it all the way back to 2’6″ and do the Special Hunter division. Our first flat class, yay!
Cue the waiting around, and getting hot and bothered about hearing that our arena was being held for 30 minutes at a time. But finally, our time came.
I was relatively pleased with our first round, in that at least we weren’t moving at a complete snail’s pace (though admittedly, still pretty slow), and we got about half our leads (the video chopped off the first half). My friend C had just shared with me a wonderful trick that I decided to implement- Step, Lift, Look. So for trying out something new for the first time in a show arena, I was pretty OK with that! Otherwise, obviously, we got in pretty darn deep to a couple fences, but whatevs, we had a mulligan another round coming up!
Round 2 made me really happy. We got all but one of our leads, and I am debating tattooing Step, Lift, Look on my body. One deepish distance that resulted in him jumping totally over his shoulder again, but I’ll take it! Who knows, maybe my horse could do the hunter thing.
Last came the flat round. Since I came off of our second round huffing like a grampus (seriously, I was as winded as when I come off XC! Not pretty!), I was just kind of going to let him poke around wherever he felt comfortable. So we loped around, and earned ourselves a pretty little 4th place ribbon for our efforts.
After that, I took poor pony back to his stall to cover him in liniment from head to toe, and bubble wrapped him for the ride home. Since then, he’s had two days to chill and recuperate, and tonight he’ll get a nice stretchy walk/trot session and lots of carrots and pats from me.
Next up, I’ll share with you my eventer’s perspective on the whole show, and would I do it again. Until tomorrow!
Since I’m suffering from major horse-show-hangover still, my normal one-giant-huge-recap post is going to have to be broken into a few pieces.
I’ll start at the end though. At the end of this show I am so, so proud of my horse. No, we didn’t come home with arms full of ribbons, and we didn’t even go as well as we normally do. But he proved to me how much he is willing to take care of me, and try for me, and that’s something you just don’t find in a lot of horses.
OK, back to the beginning.
My schooling Thursday over the 3’3″ fences ended up being pretty craptastic. There was a ton of traffic around the jumping arena, and pairing that with the fact that I was there by myself, staring at these huge airy 3’3″ oxers meant that I started over-riding things, and we have a couple really ugly jumps. So of course in my efforts to end on a good note (we did), I spent a lot longer riding than the 25 minute ride intended. A lot longer.
No I don’t ride this hunched- rolling my shoulders to get loosened up!
Then Friday we get to the show, and I realize that hunters have a very special place in their hearts for fillers. Fillers, and in particular, astro-turf. Astro-turf boxes, astro-turf poles, and of course your run-of-the-mill roll tops were everywhere. These fences looked giant too! So, I hopped on the less than plucky pony (since he’d jumped two days in a row so far), and jumped again. Another super special ugly fence that I thought might give me a black eye, another couple to end on a good note, and we called it a night.
Foster in his hunter get up (i.e, cross country saddle with no pad) and me in the full hunter outfit- FS jods and all!
So, the Foster I got on Saturday was already super tired from my cocked-up jumping efforts the 3 days previous. This was absolutely not the way I had planned things, but there it is. So I decided to bring everything down a notch. Instead of Adult Amateurs 2’9″, we did Special Hunters 2’6″. Instead of a 3′ and 3’3″ jumper class, we did 2’9″ and 3′. I still wanted to make this a positive experience, and that seemed in the best interest of everyone.
Donning our ‘hunter’ bridle and new show shirt!
Special Hunter 2’6″ was interesting. Considering how tired we were, and that jumper classes were ahead, I was glad to see the expected outside line to diagonal pattern of a hunter course. Since we were still mastering leads over fences, I just did simple changes. Here’s how that went:
Somehow we earned ourselves a 4th place ribbon for that class, even though he jumped over his shoulder almost the entire course.
Then tired pony had to to his first jumper class. We waited around for ages, continuing to expect them to be done and moving on any minute (since when does it take 45 minutes to do 3 rounds in a jumper class? what the what?). Foster proceeded to get even more tired. It was a proper jumper course though, full of roll backs and a few related distances. We went in a little low on gas, and again, Foster jumped over his shoulder and even started bringing down poles (unusual). You’ll see in the video a few simple changes, as well as a few times when I say ‘eff it’, and stay on the wrong lead in order to keep his momentum up.
The last class of the day was our 3′ jumper class. I knew we were running on fumes, and I decided that if he started crashing fences, we would pull up. With all the waiting and not knowing how things worked, I’d been in the saddle for over 4 hours, and we were pretty ready to be done. But I did realize that he would need some more speed (especially since he did the last course at a snail’s pace). No bothering here for simple changes that would slow us down, we were just going to see how it went:
Ha. While we were moving more forward, that’s about all I can say for this video. It took everything I had with my legs to get him going, and he tried so hard to do what I was asking. I still can’t stop laughing at our almost-disastrous attempt over fence 5. Instead of jumping over and across the oxer, my poor boy jumped straight up and landed immediately on the backside of the fence, sending me sky rocketing out of the saddle as a result. Somehow though, we were able to recover and scrape through the rest of the course.
And so ended Day 1 of our hunter/jumper initiation. Foster, while absolutely exhausted by this time, saved my butt all day long. While it was some pretty shitty riding on my part, he piloted me around and did his job with a pretty good attitude. Proud does not even begin to describe how I feel for my horse.
Up next, wishy-washyness and more hunter goodness.
Ready for puppy-poluted post number one? Here ya go!
Sampson is a 3 month old German Shepherd, and the newest addition at my parent’s house. He is potentially the floppiest puppy I have ever seen, with these super expressive eyes that make you want to melt. In true GSD fashion, when he’s not wrestling the other puppy at the house, he follows my mum around like, well, a puppy. He even sleeps just outside her door, the way my GSD Drake does. Completely adorable!
Sampson does have a couple of siblings still available in Florida- if you or someone you know is interested please shoot me a message and I’ll give you the details!
Have a great weekend, guys! I’m off to a horse show!
Ugh. Just when you make plans to be a more than usual dedicated and studious rider for the week, the weather and life get all in the way. I mistakenly passed up the opportunity to ride Sunday evening on my way back into town because I felt I had been neglecting the husband, who had been cleaning the house all weekend and probably needed some respite. Instead, I told myself I would be able to ride every other day this week- shouldn’t be a problem.
You get photos of Foster’s new hobby- getting disgustingly dirty
Shouldn’t.
Monday- storms. Tuesday- storms, but I attempted to get out and ride anyways, thinking that as long as it wasn’t thundering and lightning I could attempt getting on in the covered arena. 45 minutes of heavy rain and lightning trapped us in the barn, and when we thought the lightning bit had passed, we hustled into the covered arena. I did a bit of lounging, which was successful in that Foster was super relaxed, but not so successful in that he couldn’t respond to my voice cues because it was raining so hard on the tin roof that he couldn’t hear me. Heck, I couldn’t hear me, how could he? So I hopped on and no less than 2 minutes later the biggest crack of damn lighting hit, uncomfortably close to the covered arena under which we huddled. Luckily, Foster only scooted forward about 10 feet, and didn’t hurl me into the ground a la any western movie. I dismounted and called it a night.
Night 2 of coming to the barn to find the dirty.
So, after a grand total of 5 days off, I got on Foster last night and jumped him a little bit. I think most of the jumps were 2’3″, and one 2’7″-2’9″ish oxer in the middle of the arena. Remembering my lesson with Doug, I worked on the quality of canter, waiting with my shoulders, and not staring at the damn fence. I revisited the exercise of jumping the oxer on the circle, which went really well and I was able to almost all of my leads. Approaching the fences from a straight line and getting my leads was still a little iffy, but I’m hoping to work on that again tonight.
Last night’s Foster- scrubbing the face is not fun!
Tonight’s plan- have a short jump school so as to not over-do it, but jump 3’3″ height. I really need to get my eye used to this height again, and get a feel for the pace and again, the quality of canter I need. If all goes well, I’ll be on and off again in 35 minutes and packing, packing, packing.
My packing list.. yes, red bull, wine, and cheese-its are horse show staples for me. That’s how we roll. Also, yes, I have to remind myself to pack underwear. Don’t judge.
Tomorrow, you’ll get round 1 of puppy pics and I will be on my way to hunter jumper land!
If you were expecting another lesson recap, sorry. While I was away visiting my parents it dumped rain at home and the jumping arena had standing water in it- so, no jumping lesson for me. I will be trying to reschedule that lesson, but unfortunately don’t think it’s going to happen before the show this weekend. I’m on my lonesome, but I still think I picked up enough wisdom tid-bits to see me through one or two quality jump schools. As long as I keep my head on my shoulders. Ha, easier said than done.
Lots of showers make for pretty flowers
Otherwise, it was somewhat of a long, emotional weekend, but I got to visit with people I haven’t seen in a while, and help pick out bridesmaids dresses for a wedding I’ll be in in April! It just happens to be a sexy-ish figure hugging number, so my days of fro-yo and free M&M’s are numbered.
I do, however, have lots of puppy photos to share with you this week, and next!
Until then, keep it real folks.
A friend I made during the last photo shoot.
Off this weekend, hopefully squeezing in not one but two puppy photo shoots! Puppy breath galore! And then of course another lesson!
Well, I’m still here, which means I survived my lesson last night with Doug Payne! (PS if you haven’t watched him Rolex helmet cam with commentary click that link- very interesting!) I’m going to go ahead and apologize for the long post, which is mostly for my own benefit to keep the lesson fresh, and the lack on pictures/video, of which I didn’t get any.
Enjoy gif’s instead
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a proper jumping lesson, and it’s been a struggle to find a trainer willing to come out to the new barn for just one student, so I was exceedingly happy when Doug offered to make the drive. I gave him a brief run-down of where we were, and after watching us warm up briefly he gave me an assessment.
Not a huge surprise here- Foster balances himself with the base of his neck, which in turn makes him a little hollow through the back and short-strided. This then causes some of our issues with getting the true ‘horse’ distances, because when I put on leg he will more likely put in more quick, short strides than lengthen.
We continued from there with a 20 meter canter circle over a pole, focusing on keeping him straight through the shoulder and getting an active, through canter. Canter poles will definitely be in our future, since as simple as the exercise sounds, we were not as successful as I would have liked! Foster was a bit dull to my leg and feeling pretty tired, and I was a little worried moving forward to the actual jumping.
Luckily, there wasn’t much cause to be concerned. Doug set up a smallish oxer on centerline, so that I would canter over it and alternate turning right and left. Foster really woke up then, and was taking really big strides after the jump which made the turn thereafter quite difficult. What was happening is that he was becoming a little on the forehand leading up to the jump, which caused him to land out of balance and quicken his stride in order to catch himself. When I sat up and properly balanced him, he landed much more softly and the turn became easier to make.
Round canter
This led us into the next exercise, jumping a decently wide 3′ oxer on a circle. The geometry of the circle helped me keep him balanced, and as long as I didn’t stare at the fence we got pretty good distances. This is also where the whole ‘weight the shoulder to get the correct lead’ idea kicked in. It is now blatantly (I guess I’m a slow learner) obvious that I have been in the habit of leaning in the direction I intend to turn, which then means he is going to land on the wrong lead because I’m essentially blocking him from picking up the lead I really want. I especially do this going left (will tell story of how my left side is absolute poop later).
When I kept my shoulders back and square to the fence, then shift my weight to the outside, we were able to land in balance and on the correct lead. Doug warned me not to put all the pressure on myself though, and to allow Foster to make mistakes, and to occasionally take down poles. He praised him for being smart enough not to make the same mistake twice, and his willingness to put in another stride for a deep distance rather than launch from the long spot as some horses are wont to do.
After a bit of this, we put together a baby course that included a 2 stride over a 3’ish vertical. I was really pleased that Doug made us revisit the circle fence again, to make sure the idea had cemented itself. Definitely still a work in progress, but I was glad that he was willing to stay a few extra minutes to make sure the lesson would stick.
Overall, here are the main takeaways:
Obviously I learned a lot, and was impressed with the attention given to both horse and rider equally. Impressed enough that I have signed up for a second lesson Sunday! Even though we won’t get a schooling ride in in between, I’m looking forward to further cementing these ideas and hopefully getting more takeaways to keep in my pocket for the show!
Not much really has been going on since my last update last week regarding my decision to attend a hunter/jumper show in a couple weeks. Basically I’m just trying to get my ducks in a row so I won’t embarrass myself once I’m there quite as much. Mostly this means tracking down tack that hasn’t been used in a while (oh, hello, plain brown bridle) and buy a whole bunch of other junk.
Plain brown bridle’s last appearance
These purchases include open front boots (because Brushing boots don’t seem necessary for straight jumpers), ratcatcher shirt for me (thank you Tack of the Day, now please send it to me in time!), and tan full seats.
Obviously not Foster’s legs.. Foster’s legs are white, in case you hadn’t noticed 🙂
And I suppose since I felt like I hadn’t spent enough money already, I have set up two lessons- another dressage lesson with Eliza for later in the month, and one with a new-to-me trainer who also happens to be an up-and-coming international eventer! This exciting event happens Wednesday, and I’m super hopeful that they like Foster and impart plenty of jumping wisdom on us. We need it!
Lesson recap to come!
Red on the Right 