Tia has continued to be a little star - she is still hacking out beautifully, and her flatwork is coming on leaps and bounds. Plenty of lungeing in the chambon is starting to build up her topline, and the huge amounts of grass in the field are building up her waistline!
Today was the first show she has been to - aside from point-to-pointing .. so quite an exciting occasion for her. It's about 40 minutes hack from my yard, so we headed over quietly and got there right at opening time so that it wouldn't be too hectic to start with. She knew something was going on right away from the loudspeakers though! Aside from being unable to stand still for more than half a mili-second, she did actually behave very well - so long as we kept walking, she generally had the correct amount of legs attached to the floor at the right time! Snuck into the warm-up ring while no-one else was in there, popped a couple of crosspoles, then headed out again to walk around and around and around.
My main intention was to go for a look around and see how she reacted - but I had a look at the courses, and decided we would actually have a go at the 1'6" - the first time I have done a 1'6" in about, oooh, 12 years or so! However, she has probably only seen showjumps two or three times in her life, and has never attempted a course, so I think quite sensible to attempt a tiny height to start with.
I was very impressed! She had no qualms about leaving other horses to go into the ring, and then happily popped around the course, wasn't worried by little fillers, was very forwards but not strong... stayed straight through the doubles, no problem with the one-stride double even though we haven't done one before. She jumped clear in the first phase, and then just tapped a pole in the jump-off phase.
Since that was so tiny and easy, we entered the next class - a whopping 2' D) and managed an identical performance of just rolling one pole in the jump off.
Next time we will probably go straight in at 2'3" after a bit more SJ practice at home, as she was obviously completely unconcerned at this height, and needs a bit more fence to put in a nicer jump. Hopefully we will manage to stand still for a few more seconds at a time next time around too
So some photos...
Today was the first show she has been to - aside from point-to-pointing .. so quite an exciting occasion for her. It's about 40 minutes hack from my yard, so we headed over quietly and got there right at opening time so that it wouldn't be too hectic to start with. She knew something was going on right away from the loudspeakers though! Aside from being unable to stand still for more than half a mili-second, she did actually behave very well - so long as we kept walking, she generally had the correct amount of legs attached to the floor at the right time! Snuck into the warm-up ring while no-one else was in there, popped a couple of crosspoles, then headed out again to walk around and around and around.
My main intention was to go for a look around and see how she reacted - but I had a look at the courses, and decided we would actually have a go at the 1'6" - the first time I have done a 1'6" in about, oooh, 12 years or so! However, she has probably only seen showjumps two or three times in her life, and has never attempted a course, so I think quite sensible to attempt a tiny height to start with.
I was very impressed! She had no qualms about leaving other horses to go into the ring, and then happily popped around the course, wasn't worried by little fillers, was very forwards but not strong... stayed straight through the doubles, no problem with the one-stride double even though we haven't done one before. She jumped clear in the first phase, and then just tapped a pole in the jump-off phase.
Since that was so tiny and easy, we entered the next class - a whopping 2' D) and managed an identical performance of just rolling one pole in the jump off.
Next time we will probably go straight in at 2'3" after a bit more SJ practice at home, as she was obviously completely unconcerned at this height, and needs a bit more fence to put in a nicer jump. Hopefully we will manage to stand still for a few more seconds at a time next time around too
So some photos...