You know what @4horses and @DiamondJubilee you can see a happy horse. They are so much fun to train. Trainable because they enjoy working for you, they want to participate and interact. Sometimes I want to say I see it as play together. My daughter has had that connection with all our homebreds.
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I love how excited and supportive your coach is.
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She is the best. I’m so lucky to have her!
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Just over 3 full months of under saddle training and we have had 3 lessons now. Just a handful of times jumping, but we have been working a lot on ground poles and cantering over just the little flower boxes for confidence.
Had the dentist put the other week as he was getting head fussy (new) and he had some sharp points and cheek ulcers. Much better now that the sharp points are gone and recheck in 6 months. Had a chiro appt last week as well to see if anything is amiss but all was good on that front!
Taking it day by day but he’s getting a tad braver in the ring (is terrified of the corners with stuff in them but we are working on it) but is oddly super brave jumping. Does not say no and has been jumping some small stuff with flowers and so far so good. Just lots of time, practise and praise. I need to work on not pulling the inside rein to turn! He tends to get fussy then as he does not like to have much contact, so is something I really need to work on.
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You are SUCH a lovely rider. Loving these updates!
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@c0608524 - wow, thank you so much. I never really thought of myself as a lovely rider at all. Honestly. I know I can be sticky and try my best, but I always feel so stiff and hesitant due to always riding so many greenies, and as much as I want to be trusting and soft, I have a hard time doing it. I love watching soft riders that have more trust and flow than I do, and I try to emulate them. But I’ll take the compliment, it means a lot to me <3
We are just planning our very first hunter schooling show mid April. Its the mighty 18" division, but we’ve only jumped a handful of times, never worked on changes (no where near that) so I’m just hoping for a nice, relaxed “show”. Its a tad far for me so we are planning on making a trip of it and staying at my brothers for one night (as he is 15mins from the show grounds - I’m 2hr away) and then moving in on the Saturday night to the showgrounds and showing Sunday early. Schooling is at 7-8am and our division is bright an early at 8am (I usually like to go first in).
Still cool here in Ontario (its actually snowing today - boo!!) so the show is all indoors. They have 3 indoor arenas that are all attached and the main show one is nice and bright and is 100 x 250’, so nice and big. Nice bright indoor stalls as well 
We will bring out our big LQ trailer and hope the weather will co operate! Its been in storage since November of last year so it will be its first trip this year.
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I’m in Ontario too - but pretty far south so no snow for us right now.
Good luck at your show! Sounds like an awesome venue for a field trip. 18” is my goal for this year. We did cross rails last year and my very non-horsey husband teased me that I was “going to steal all the ribbons from the children”. Jokes on him - they kicked my butt!
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Ha ha! Kids always kick my ass as well! They are gutsy and great little riders so I have no problems with “handing” my ribbons over
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I love seeing updates in this thread, what a lovely pony and you are so clearly doing your best to do right by him. As a fellow adult ammie contesting the mighty sub 2’6 heights, good luck beating those danged kids 
At least they look so cute with their ribbons!
My old lease horse is the spookiest thing I ever sat on, but he never EVER spooked at a jump. Unfortunately I think some of them are just like that…
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I also aspire to keep it 3’ and below. I’m very happy with 2’6" - 2’9" but would love to perhaps try 3’ one day in the future. We shall see though. I’m happy toting around at 18" on greenies any day and love watching kids on their ponies.
We actually jumped our very first boxes yesterday with pretty much no batting of the eye - but the corner we have to ride into after the jump, look, spook and turn lol! At least we got one nice change out of it ha ha! But 0 hesitation or look at the “brick” boxes with flowers…
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We were unable to go to a schooling show this past weekend as we had snow and rain on the Friday (show was on Sunday but we were going to move in for a couple of days to decompress and school) and I was unable to get our big trailer out of its winter spot. Boo!!
But I did sign up for a summer series of shows and the first one is the end of this month. We are going to attempt a 2’ open division and the puddle hunters which is 18” and no oxers, and a 2’ derby. It goes from Wednesday to Saturday so we will stable there and I will know more of where we are by the time we school around on Wednesday. I will scratch from the show if it’s too much for him and just toodle around with him. We don’t have changes as I haven’t schooled them (but he has offered them to me a couple of times) so I have no plans on placing (the show is huge and is known to have 150 entries in the 2’ division), I just want a happy and forward pony that plops around in the ring. I’ll be super happy then!
On a good note, I had a great lesson on Friday and jumped a few jumps with a bit of size. Again he never batted an eye and he has a huge canter stride. Working on packaging it a bit so we make the lines look a little smoother.
Here are a few videos and I apologize for the sound. Please turn it off first lol. I don’t know how to download them without sound. It was his first time jumping the picket fence and my coach and I were both so proud of him jumping it without a look or hesitation. I only tried to jump over my coach a few times (more outside leg and rein on the greenies! One day I’ll learn and remember that. It gets grilled into me, but I still pull the inside rein…).
We worked on some canter grid poles as well which was great for the both of us. Me to just leave him alone and let him figure it all out.
He really has been going under saddle for 4 months now (he was backed in October but had a couple of months off due to bad weather at home. I brought him to the indoor mid December). I started cantering him mid Feb under saddle and then started over fences in March. He will be 5 this year so has that going for him as he’s quite balanced for a greenie.
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I love him! He looks like he is totally digging his new profession.
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I love seeing the progress you two have made! He is a stylish jumper and so cute to boot.
At my first ‘away’ show I wanted to sign up for the 18" division. I was so worried my horse would be a spook. In our last lesson at home my trainer made fun of me (in a kindly way) and I got embarrassed because she was right. We did the 2’3" and it was not only good, my horse went so much better having to focus on a small jump instead of a miniscule one. He got better the higher the jumps went. Of course I was too chicken to do more than 2’6" at shows when he easily did 3 at home. It’s funny how big a couple extra inches can look in a fence! My friend jumped him 4’ in a class. He probably could have gone higher, he was a very talented horse with a not talented and very chicken rider.
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@Spudsmyguy - his last profession was living in a field unhandled and as a potential stallion until he turned 3.5 years old. So I hope he is happier living with some buddies and being handled even though he is now gelded ha ha!
@Aussie_2020 - I hope to move up but he hasn’t really been off property and has only been ridden for about 4 months now, so I don’t want to push it - he is very wiggly and green, especially to the left. His go to if he really needs to see something is break down to a lower gait, so nothing terrible - it could be a lot worse, but will go from a canter to trot with head up and balky. He just needs some more confidence and miles but I have a feeling we will be moving up to the 2’3" adult division in June. That’s my goal at least! We will see what he says 
And I hear you about 3", it can make a huge difference!! I’m happy to bop around 2’6" - 2’9" - no complaints here!
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I was able to stay over at a beautiful farm over the weekend and I had my coach come up one of the days to school us. I can’t believe how far we’ve come, but we still have a long way to go. But he is the most honest boy, will jump anything that is in front of him and tries so hard! I still need to stop pulling on my inside rein to turn, I know I shouldn’t be doing it but I find it the most difficult thing to let go.
We tried our very first “derby” with some bending lines and roll backs but the file was too long to attach. Some things to work on but I was very pleased with the both of us! Now I feel more ready for our show in less thank 2 weeks. All the scary stuff!
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Haven’t really started to work much on changes yet, but we will get there.
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Wow, wow, wow! What a nice boy!
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He’s terrible—I’ll make the sacrifice and take him off your hands!
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We made it to our first horse show this past week. Huge entries (450 horses and divisions with 30-50 horses in them) and we were split between the indoor arena for the greenies, and the outdoor to do my adult eq on the flat and the 2’ derby.
Pony was amazing and literally acted like she’s been doing this for years (even though it’s only been 2 months ha ha). I didn’t ask for changes, I just wanted him to go forward, be happy and have a positive experience.
He’s never ridden in a crowd so when our adult eq had 44 horses in it, I thought, oh boy, here we go! They did split it in half so 22 in the ring at a time, and he was a super star. He was never nervous with the crowd and trucked along like an old pro.
The weather was miserable pretty much the whole time with it just being above the freezing mark on derby day, cool, cloudy and windy. But he held himself together and I couldn’t be more proud! We ended up 6th and 8th in a couple of classes. Not expecting anything and was just so pleased how he handled himself! Some chip ins here and there and had to skip for the hind lead a few times, but boy was he a star! My coach was thrilled as well. I literally schooled in every ring there, even the main jumper stadium ring so he could get out and about and he handled it all so, so well.
We moved in on Thursday and stayed until Saturday, showing in a few classes each day. We did the 2’ open, puddle hunters (18”) adult eq on the flat and a 2’ derby (1 round). All hunter divisions are just 2 over fences and 1 hack so perfect for a young/greenie.
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I tried to download an over fences class but the files were too big and I’m not sure on how to make them smaller!
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