Little Fish - Big Pond

It is Sunday morning as I sit on my couch and write about Friday... not that I was avoiding writing but I did feel a bit tired after riding all day Friday, battling the elements of the Thunderstorm on the way home, and then waking up early Saturday to ride for six and half hours at the Radnor Races. This morning just feels like a better place to start.

We got to the St. Christopher's show grounds in Quentin, PA around 7:30a.m. which gave the horses plenty of time to relax on the truck, and gave me time to make my entries. I had brought Ganowe for the Meter 1.20 and the Welcome Stake, Judge Beautiful for the Meter 1.20, and the first timer, La Grange for the 5 Year Old Jumpers. As it turned out, like it always seems to, all of my classes on all three horses seemed to be lined up back to back and I was pretty much jumping off of one and going in with another.

I ended up taking La Grange in a Meter.95 to let him see the jumps, and the ring, and the big sign at the end of the ring that flashed his name across it. He had a double clean trip, not fast enough to win, but a great effort for his first ever time in the horse show ring. La Grange is a young Thoroughbred that we started fox hunting two seasons ago. After a few times out I fell in love with him, and I knew he was very special.

There are not many 3 year olds that you can hunt the hounds off of, whip off of, take down a busy highway, walk down train tracks to stop hounds, out ride at Winterthur, Willowdale, Radnor, Plumsted, Fair Hill, etc... As impressive as his fox hunting and out riding abilities have been he had started to show some talent for jumping, however, he was only 3 years old. He had to sit on the 'back burner' so to speak and just grow up and be a horse.

As a 5 year old, La Grange made a lot of development changes in his body, he started to fill out, he started to put on muscle and fill out a lot more in his neck, and just over all started to really look good, so, I decided now should be the time he gets a little more in gear for another shift in his career change, show jumping! No sooner, and when I say that I mean about one week, did I talk to Jimmy about showing La Grange, did we have his USEF number, and papers lined up to start the Young Jumper Division, and our entries were in for our first show at St.Christopher's.

We cantered straight into the ring in our first class, the buzzer went off and we put down our first clean trip, went into the jump off and put in another clean trip. In the 5 Year Old Class we did have a rail at the 10b combination, and did not make it to the jump off but I was able to ask him to turn a little more, wait a little more, and basically just ride him around the course as if he knew exactly what he was doing. All in all I was ecstatic on his performance. Later that day I entered him for Devon in the 5 Year Old Class. He will be showing after Junior Weekend on Tuesday and Wednesday, in the Gold Ring at 9 a.m. Nothing like jumping right in there with the best of them!

Now onto the Meter 1.20 class with Ganowe and JB, both were fantastic. Both jumped wonderful. I hadn't jumped JB since February? and I hadn't shown her since October... I'm definitely not recommending this strategy for everyone, but that's just how it worked out for her. I ride her every single day besides Saturdays and Sundays, so don't worry, she was/is fit! I decided in the last two weeks to show her in my own hackamore/sidepull contraption which really seemed to benefit her jumping performance. I was absolutely please with her mindset, her jumping, and the overall way that she felt in the speed class. She is really a confident animal. Ganowe also felt great, he jumped beautiful, and I was able to ask for some trickier turns, and just see what he had in him before I took him in the Welcome Stake later that afternoon.

In the Welcome Stake I went 14th out of 20 horses, in the schooling ring Ganowe felt great, but when I went in the ring, landed off my first fence I thought something was a little funny, I headed for fence two, my mind more focused on how the horse took each step then sitting up and riding the tall vertical in front of me, and we had it down. Rider error!!! Haha (only today is it really a 'haha').
In the landing off fence two he still felt soft and I went on to fence three knowing full well Jimmy was right in front of me and would have told me to pull up if he saw something really wrong. I do have to add this in, Jimmy is an amazing rider, but he is not just an amazing rider, he knows how to watch a horse. He knows what is going on, he knows how they feel. I do trust everything that he sees in the horse, even though sometimes I wish he would get on and feel what I feel in the horse.
After the landing at fence three I knew everything was fine and I went on and rode my course. Horse felt great after that. From fence one to three I was mentally not there. I ended up disappointed in my ride because of that. I had a very specific plan for the course I had wanted to ride, but it didn't happen and I had to improvise.

Improvising happens A LOT in the jumper ring, but what it taught me was to never loose your game and never loose your focus. Its not that I wanted to ignore what the horse felt like, but my reaction time needed to be a lot quicker and faster. After that class I was happy to look back and think about how far I have come with Ganowe. I haven't had him a year yet and He's been a phenomenal horse, and a great team player. I appreciate him, Jeremiah, JB, Alice, and Baggie for all they have done for me in the last three years. I hope what I've learned from them, from Jimmy, and from Mom-mom with help be bring La Grange along to the champion I know he will be.

Next show, Blue Rock!