making it happen - 3' in the show ring

The jumper show this weekend was a total blast - we had a lot of fun and managed to get done exactly what I wanted to get done.

plus we got some satin!!

I can totally understand why people love this discipline - the courses were super fun, and the general atmosphere was quite enjoyable. But wow, standing around waiting for our classes kinda sucked. Ride times ppl. They are awesome.

the in-and-out rode super well every time

I signed up for four classes - the optimum time and timed course with jump off for both the 2'6" and 3' divisions. Tho we ended up having a rail in the timed 2'6" course and therefore not doing the jump off, and I scratched from the second 3' class bc Isabel had been phenomenal and we were ready to go home after 3hrs in the tack (ugh).

she's such a good girl!

I also got on a little earlier than I intended bc of misunderstanding where they were in the classes... but it was fine. We warmed up briefly in the cross country field - testing the 'whoa' and 'go' in our canter and jumping the typical three warm up fences that you see at events (cross rail, vertical and oxer). Aside from a super gappy first attempt at the vertical, everything went smoothly and we consigned ourselves to waiting (and waiting).

hunting the next fence

I managed to get my number in for 3rd in the order of go - kinda my favorite place to be. A couple opportunities to see the course ridden, but not so much time to start getting antsy. Perfect.

The optimum time course rode really well imo - and was very similar to a typical stadium course. Lots of bending lines and short approaches. Much nicer than the actual stadium round I rode here at the event earlier this summer haha.

some of the trainers were referring to this as the 'McDonalds' fence haha

Our first 2'6" trip went pretty well for us. We were a little under-powered to jump 2 and ended up fitting in one-too-many strides to jump 3, but I think I fixed it well enough to finish the course out nicely.

the swedish oxer caused a bit of grief - we had a rail here in one of our 2'6" classes

The timed class was next, with the jump off round jumped separately after all riders had finished their trips. We had a rail at the swedish oxer (when I forgot to steer... oops) but otherwise it was a nice round. Sadly this one wasn't on video.

liver pool is nbd

Then we waited around FOREVER for the 2'6" division to wrap (I skipped out on the speed class - we weren't going for time or ribbons or points or anything, and two pleasant 2'6" trips were enough) before heading in for a trip around the 2'9"-3' course.

do we look happy?

Again, I thought everything rode really nicely. We were a little snug into jump 1, and I didn't balance early enough down the 8a-b in-and-out bending to the liverpool, and we only just barely fit the 5 in (then almost fell on our faces in the corner haha)... Plus we had a very unfortunate rail at 4 when Izzy rolled it with a hind leg... But really I was quite satisfied with the course and opted to finish with that.

video here

Izzy certainly had it in her to do another course... but eh, she was good and I was happy. Plus I was kinda tired of waiting around by that point and it was starting to really get hot out.

smile for the camera!

And, perhaps more importantly - we'd already achieved my objective for the day. I wanted to jump around a 3' course (tho technically this was a 2'9"-3' combined class) to see how I felt about it. Isabel was obviously fine - we already knew she can do it no problem. But what about me?

oh wait - she just wanted the tree

I had been a little concerned that the jumps would somehow look bigger in the show ring. That the atmosphere and fill would build them up to look and feel different from our schooling. But actually it was fine. No different. The jumps looked right and rode fine.

'mmm delishus treeees' - isabel

Sure, we still made mistakes - but they're the same mistakes I always make. Not related to being scared or freaked out or anything, just typical mistakes that I can make over jumps of any size. And this makes me feel REALLY good.

mare was very ready to go home

Plus, even better - we managed to snag a couple ribbons for our efforts. 5th place in the 2'6" optimum time class (somewhat astounding bc I have no idea how the rules work and it was a big class) and 4th in the 3' optimum time (a function of there only being 5 total riders in that division).

pretty pretty ribbons!!

So yea, a good day. It would have been more fun if I had friends there riding with me (we were showing solo), but everyone was super friendly and we had fun chatting with all the other riders. I would definitely do a show like this again just to get that mileage and experience - but probably not for a while bc the next two weekends will find us back in action at actual horse trials!!!