schooling elsewhere (again)

After our successful outing to ST, B and I were super pumped to try out other locations too. There's another farm FV pretty close by that does a lot of arena rentals for a very reasonable price, and pics of the indoor looked promising. So I knocked out of work early and off we went!

First tho - I wanted to give a shout-out to B who gave me this AWESOME C4 belt as a thanks for getting Wick ready for hauling out on all these adventures!! 

the purple is PERFECT!

Anyways, it was kind of funny - Isabel's field is right next to the parking lot so presumably she saw me pull out the trailer.  

spot the pony?

there she is!!

Silly girl - who could miss your adorable face hiding behind that tree?

The road to FV is one of those old, twisty, narrow deals that I didn't love towing the trailer on, but it's not too bad. There's plenty of parking at the farm tho - so no problems there! The weather was a little better than for our ST outing (ie, no wind), and the horses stood well at the trailer to get ready. 

Once inside, we were very happily pleased with the arena. It's very spacious, and the footing has these weird little rubber chunks mixed in, giving it a nice cushy feel. It seemed a little uneven in some places - but not deep. Definitely workable. 

Plus there were already lots of little jumps set up! Everything from little 12" panels and boxes to 2'-2'3"ish gates. Plus flowers and all different colors and shapes. Good experience for the horses! 

Isabel flatted really well - tho I honestly didn't ask for too much. Mostly I just wanted her feeling relaxed and moving forward nicely, but didn't demand much in terms of contact. I rode in the Bates again (which I'll continue to do while I have it on trial) and decided that I definitely don't hate it - it IS better for both Isabel and me... but nope, still not love either... le sigh. 

Then I started popping Isabel over some of the fences. We started with a tiny 12"-18" panel, then proceeded to do the full outside line from a flowery X to the panels. Next we did all the little boxes (tiny but also narrow). Isabel was jumping everything really well - continuing to find great distances and land on her leads and get the striding done fairly well for not knowing the measurements ahead of time.

There were also two gates set up - one red, one white - that were higher, maybe 2'-2'3"ish. And here's where I get in trouble. This is why I made a rule for myself over the summer that I'm not allowed to jump anything below 2' bc it makes 2' look big again to me. Ugh...

So even tho these gates are at a height that Isabel and I have competed at quite successfully, I wasn't really feeling like jumping them. Thank god for B tho - she pretty much told me to put on my big girl pants and just jump the damn things. So we did. Repeatedly, actually, and very very nicely. Some things needed fixing - like getting the right striding down the line from red gate to X (above), and she rubbed the red gate pretty hard once... but these issues were easily fixed. Good mare!! 

I'm glad we did it too, bc I just KNOW I would regret it later if we didn't... ugh this confidence game requires constant vigilance!!

Isabel is a midget next to Wick lol

We also got to play with loading the horses up at dusk for the ride home - a first for us. They were obviously fine... so that was a relief too. In any case, we're hoping to make our outings to FV a weekly thing - probably through March when the ground and weather are better and the clocks change.