professional hunter pace jockeys!

Are you all ready for some photo spam? I hope so haha, bc it's coming. As I mentioned a few times already, my friends and I spent the last few weeks preparing for our annual Labor Day hunter pace / paper chase tradition at Tranquility Manor Farms.

obviously i had to jack the stirrups way up for pictures haha. pc Austen Gage

This year we went with a "race horse + jockeys" theme after being inspired by shamelessly stealing the idea from Sarah haha.

misty early race day morning!

The forecast had looked iffy all week, but somehow we got lucky. Like sure it was muggy and humid, but basically pretty reasonably dry out. And the ground was in good shape too!

Birdie and Marley lookin sharp!

Our group is always pretty widely varied - usually a mixture of seasoned horses (like Isabel in past years, or Charlie now) and very green or inexperienced horses. This time around we had a couple training level event horses, mixed with a horse who was getting her first real outing under saddle, and another horse who has basically been sitting for ages.

CALM DOWN, CHARLIE!

The general rule we tend to go by is to ride to the lowest/greenest level in the group, whether that means for the horse or rider. On this particular day tho, all the riders had a fair amount of experience and knew their horses well -- so mostly it boiled down to ensuring each of the horses was doing good and feeling happy.

Marley was a good little nugget for her first real outing under saddle

Everyone was pretty chill at the trailer (except for one oopsie moment resulting in a temporarily loose mare fancy prancing around the grounds.... whoops!) and we all had a lot of fun oohing and aahing over everyone's outfits as we slowly tacked up.

Brita and Bella stayed true to form in bright pink and blue!

It was cool to see how each rider had planned too -- Rachael and I had regular saddle towels with DIY'd numbers glued on (or safety pinned, in Rachael's case haha). Janelle and Brita had gone full fledged DIY with their saddle blankets, complete with silky finish (and awesome teal trim on Janelle's!). Kaitlyn had hot pink body paint on Kiss's rump, and Anna was actually dressed in full head to tail legit gear that she uses with her actual hurdles horse.

SOMEBODY GIVE THIS HORSE A XANAX STAT

Same story with bridles and other pieces of tack. A couple of us had picked up some fun new pieces like Charlie's new browband and reins that are 100% getting moved to his hackamore after this lol. Kaitlyn had a whole new hot pink bridle, and Rachael picked up some blinkers (tho she took the eye pieces off). And Brita covered her normal hackamore in fun ribbons, plus had excellent electrical tape on her boots.

Birdie's blinkers were killer haha

All in all, even tho we were all dressed kinda differently, it really felt like the look pulled together haha. Like maybe not convincing as super serious real life jockeys or whatever lol, but definitely the right "impression," especially when all together in a group.

assembling the group!

Which like, that's half the battle, right?? Haha..... gotta do it for the pictures or else what's the point?!? It was also really cool to see that almost every other group on the grounds was dressed in matching outfits to some degree. Mostly just nice tan or white pants with matching barn polos or something.

does charlie look excited?!? lol.... pc Austen Gage

But a couple other groups dressed up really cute too: like a mother-daughter duo dressed in head to toe purple (literally the horses wore purple hoof polish!) complete with ribbons in the manes and tails. Very cute!

Kaitlyn and Kiss went full throttle pink, complete with hand painted butt numbers haha. Anna and Penny in the back right actually wore full on legit gear, including her own real silks!

The ride itself was basically exactly what you would imagine: about 2.5-3 miles across Tranquility's cross country fields and wooded trails. We entered the adult novice option class: jumps optional and probably a slower speed. I don't think the class really matters tho, except that the optimum times are different between each class.

waiting to hit the course!

A couple of the horses in our group wouldn't be jumping, but that's nbd - none of the jumps are mandatory and everything can be gotten around, as you'll see in the helmet cam.

an impressive combined 17 years of racing experience among this group of veteran OTTBs! (not including Bella, who never made it to the track)

Tho for Charlie, I knew I wanted to jump some stuff haha. Not like, a ton. And not being like crazy serious about schooling or whatever. But I wanted to go out there and have some fun. Mission accomplished!

most of the ride was open fields but there were some fun trail portions too

After leaving the start gates we trotted immediately over some small brush fences into the arena, which only slightly confused Charlie haha, cantered around in there before jumping out a coop into the next arena, then out the gate and across the driveway into the first cross country field!!

weeeeeee brick wall!!

The start was a little hectic for our group as everyone got settled into gear.... Mostly we kinda all just bombed around that first field a little bit (in the helmet cam video) as we followed the markers. It was at this point that... it turned out all the horses were a little full of it. Or, uh, a LOT full of it in one little gray mare's case, tho I won't name any names. Ahem. Haha. (it's in the helmet cam tho and it's moderately hilarious lol).

you can't tell me this horse isn't the actual embodiment of prince charming lol. pc Austen Gage

Some of the greenies were keeping to a slower pace tho, so mostly we settled into a rhythm of horses who wanted to jump going out ahead of the rest of the group and doing whatever we were gonna do, then coming back to a walk or halt to wait for the team to regroup.

yup. so many group shots haha! pc Austen Gage

It seemed to work out pretty well for keeping the horses from losing their heads, but it definitely made for slow progress. We got passed by no less than two other teams haha. So I guess we jockeys weren't that fast after all!

helmet cam video here! 

complete with little gray mare shenanigans and at least one full out gallop with charlie....

Charlie, for his part, was honestly pretty great. Like, way too fucking strong and definitely kinda trying to run away with me. Not in a bad or mean way. Nothing dangerous and he always did eventually come to a stop, and always went in the direction I asked him to go.... But.... Yea. Dis why I don't typically jump him out in the open in a plain snaffle (not to mention no noseband or flash lol!).

Jan and Austen (plus huskies!!) met us as the finish too! and Jan finally got to meet Charlie!! she was funny bc she's so used to massive dressage warmbloods that even tho Charlie is big tall and long, he's still basically a lean TB type and thus "not really that big" haha

Ah well haha. I'm not sure it really constituted a proper "schooling" but... ya know... it didn't have to. He had fun, I had fun. And he jumped all the jompies!! Most of them pretty freakin well! And only like, a couple that were sorta kinda bad. Which I see as real progress considering they were all kinda small and Charlie's not known for being particularly respectful of small jumps haha.

charlie was happy to soak up all the attention regardless haha. he's such a ham, always happy to meet new ppl!

One notable observation: This was the first time I'd jumped him out on terrain without studs since getting him drilled and tapped last month. I had been feeling like the studs were an advantage - like there was a noticeable difference in Charlie's carriage, balance, and confidence when he had the studs in. But I also wasn't really sure if that was just like... confirmation bias or whatever.

tho it's also entirely possible that he was actually napping too lol

In this ride tho, while he never really slipped or felt backed off or not confident or whatever, I noticed that he wasn't as quick with his auto lead changes as he has been when wearing studs. Like a couple times cantering around on a circle on uneven ground in a way that I kiiiiiinda didn't like, when I would have expected him to just change his leads, but he didn't.

With the studs he's SUPER QUICK to pop lead changes all over the place. Like you pull a rein and he changes. It's nice, I like it lol. So if anything this ride without the studs was just more info that they are truly useful for the big guy. Good to know!

yup. that's charlie. he can go from all out galloping across the fields, jumping whatever's in his path, to straight up snoozin in about 30 seconds flat haha

Anyway tho, after a quick trip to the water complex (we were already so slow there didn't seem like any point in rushing back to the finish line by this point), and one last canter through the arena (and past Austen's waiting camera!!) and over a couple more jumps, the ride was finally finished!

i mean, if you can't play dress up and take selfies with your poneh, what even is the point anyway?!? lol

The ride, but not the day obvi haha. Bc if you've been following along with 'Fraidy Cat Eventing for any length of time, you already know we're big fans of the tailgate haha.

charlie likes hangin out with the crowd at the tail gate haha

I mean, let's be real: half the fun of a ride is being finished with the ride lol, and getting to sit back and relax and recount how fun it was. Or how naughty certain gray mares were lol....

tho obvi the exertions of the day caught up to him and he passed the F out on the trailer. not even shoving carrots in his face could wake him up!

I was super excited too that Austen and Jan had come to hang out too - definitely a nice surprise!! And as with any party, the more the merrier!! We certainly had no shortage of bubbly, either in terms of champagne or spiked seltzers or beer lol.

he is the most fun tho <3 <3 <3 and yea i totally sent this picture of him being a "pretend" race horse to his former track connections lol. pc Austen Gage

So it was a fun day. Charlie was quite pleased to have a lovely harem of mares all to himself for the ride lol, and all the riders also seemed to have really good days with their horses. Paper Chases and Hunter Paces are always such good opportunities to get the horses out for positive experiences. Whether they're green and needing more mileage, or more seasoned but still able to benefit from low pressure fun.

obsessed <3 pc Austen Gage

Plus I'm happy basically any time I'm able to go cantering Charlie off into the sunset haha..... Esp now that he knows how to canter across terrain without falling down and dying!

Sometimes I feel like we should forget about competing and just do hunter paces and paper chases or even like, fox hunting, forever and ever and ever. Bc these types of rides are so fun. Tho then again I know I'd eventually miss the shows too, let's be real. Hopefully we'll be able to keep up the tradition of doing at least one or two of these types of rides each year!

Do you ever like to go on rides like this? Whether it's an actual organized hunter pace, or just an informal gathering of friends for schooling and/or trail riding? Do you like riding in groups, or does it depend on what kind of activity you're doing or what horses are in the group?