After Margaret and I had such a fun time at the fall hunter pace, we opted to go again this spring! This time, while I rode Rejoice again, Margaret rode her horse Jester and had a friend ride Ladyhawke. All Kennebec Morgans!! Jester and Rejoice have the same dam and Jester and Lady share the same sire. Unfortunately instead of a lovely late spring day, we had one of the first intensely hot and humid days of the year. It was definitely a bummer, but the ride was mostly in the shade of the woods and we had a great time! most of the fences were 3' coops but we found a small log and this hay to jump haha Until we didn't. 😑 We brought along a third friend who rode Margaret's older mare, Ladyhawke. She's a good rider but hasn't known Ladyhawke for very long and didn't realize how much of a cranky boss mare she could be at times. She kicked Jester right in the front leg just about halfway through the ride, and while the cut itself ended up not being a big deal in the...
Ellie and I competed in our fourth and final SMDA dressage show this past Saturday. I will be honest, I choose to do this fourth one in order to gain our final year end scores, so I choose to ride Intro B and C again. After showing at Training 1 back in August, I knew I wanted to move up, but I also realized that if I just did one more SMDA show at Intro, I could be eligible for awards. It seemed silly not to qualify, as we have worked too hard this year not to. But I also wanted the opportunity to ride Training 1 again in a show environment, instead of having to wait until next spring. Because SMDA does not allow riders to compete at Training level if they are also riding Intro A or B, I had to asked permission to ride "HC", which is an abbreviation for hor concours, the French phrase that means riding without actually competing for a ribbon. Thankfully, the board gave me permission and I signed up for all three tests. It did not seem like two litt...