Well tomorrow I’m going to my first show since last year, July 12th to be exact, so one day off a year.
Have had so many setbacks since then, in the last show, Melody was refusing fences which she never does, unless of course she wants to screw with my head. At this show she was crashing into fences, not exactly the best way to refuse. Well anyway we found out she had severe back problems, she now has a chiropractor, then she went and put her leg in a hole in September and was knocked out of work until winter, then when I was supposed to show in April, something happened and I had a demi-falling out with my trainer, so my horse is now at the Milne’s where I work, though my trainer and I have mended fences and I ship over to her farm once a week for a lesson.
Anyway, so I’m nervous, which I haven’t really been since my first year of showing about seven years ago, it’s not even showing, it’s that we are going to the same place we went at the last show where we had such a terrible time, and I just don’t know what Melody is going to do, she still likes to refuse occasionally, though now I think it is just to mess with my mind.
Good luck! I’m sure it’ll be fine (though I know how nerve wracking it can be, I don’t think I’d want to go back to the scenes of my worst shows). Just remember to not tense up to make her nervous!
We schooled over some warm-up fences and she was great, no refusals, just wonderful, then we let her walk around while they were setting up the course then about 15 minutes before I went in to the first class we were going to take her over some fences again, so we trotted up to a vertical, and let’s just say I did a nosedive into the fence, though I only had the breath knocked out of me. After that she was good, then in our first class she refused the first fence just to play with my head, then she jump the first three jumps, but was refusing to do anything I ASKED her to do, so I was trying to rate her to the fourth fence but she decided that I wanted her to refuse, so she did. We were excused from the ring, two refusals is now the elimination rule.
We had a little war in the warm-up ring after that, but then she was wonderful over the fences in the warm-up. Right before I went in my trainer had me canter a fence three times and then I went in and she was amazing, pulling me to fences, but still leaving me enough control. She refused once at a once stride where the first fence was a very strange plank jump where the planks are arched, except upside down, which made it look like the one stride was one big jump, I took her back to it though and she did it fine.
Our third course was the best, we had two knock-downs, but she was getting careless, and tired. We didn’t have any refusals!
So yea it was a mixed bag of a day, though it ended up being a good day.
Here we go again, I was supposed to show again this thursday, rode Melody on saturday and sunday she was really good, I go to bring her in from the field on monday…she’s lame. Dr. Milne was in a good mood so I had him look at her, turns out it was a haematoma in her foot, so she’s going to be lame for about 10 days Dr. Milne said, then probably another weeks I guess after before it heals and she can get a shoe put on. Argh!
On a good note, I got some nice pictures from a friend who is a professional photographer;
Thanks, she is quite the looker, though I never tell her, she has to much of an attitude problem.
I’ve jumped her up to 3’3", the show height was supposedly 2’6" - 2’9" though most looked about 2’ 6" though I was jumping about 3’ in the warm-up ring so that might have something to do with it.
Don’t know what her limit on jumping is yet, she jumps 3’3" with ease, during one winter she was running around in the outdoor ring and there were a bunch of snow banks, she jumped one that was 4’ high and 4’ wide from a standstill, so I have no idea how high she can go. Might never find out if she keeps on injuring herself!
