I’m behind on chronicling the adventures of the new jumper pony. Today was their first outing together to a schooling jumper show 15 minutes down the road. First round they had one stop when the pony made the (100% correct) executive decision to abort takeoff due to a miscommunication on the approach. They hopped it easily after a quick circle. Daughter wasn’t sure if she wanted to do 2 rounds at first – warm up ring got a little hairy – but emerged from the first round smiling ear-to-ear & replied “YES!!” when the trainer asked if she wanted to go again. Second round was perfect.
Doesn’t look like they made it into the top 5 rounds for their height division but they had an absolute blast. And despite a few arguments between them with daughter’s position being “No, we need rhythm & impulsion, not speed” and pony’s being “FASTEN SEATBELT, I THE GO GO PONY!!!” daughter is really making huge strides figuring out how to get ridability from the mare between the jumps. And more than one person at the rail had complimentary things to say about how cool a little mare she is.
I recorded video on daughter’s phone, I promise I will post some action shots once she pulls stills from the video. In the meantime, here’s my favorite pic of the day: 14hh mare hitching a ride to the show with another boarder’s 17.2hh OTTB gelding: