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 tried her first recognized show in July. It was quite an interesting experience; I don't know why this has been such a weird year, but sadly it has! I signed up to ride Training 2 and 3, paying the little extra to have T3 count as a qualifying score. It didn't really matter since we cannot do enough rated shows this year to qualify for a USDF award, as I want to do horse trials and other things on weekends when the rated shows are scheduled. But I wanted it to "count" just in case because you never know lol! I didn't get any media as I went by myself. Training 2 went great! Ellie warmed up well and we had a really solid test. She was calm and rideable, and I honestly thought we had done quite well! The judge didn't agree and we scored a 62.241%, for third in a class of five. Not a terrible score, but it seemed lower than the performance. I figured it was just a difference between normally doing schooling shows and thi...