A Boatload of New Experiences

Goggles made his third appearance (read about the first and second) at our local HJ series this past weekend. There's something very appealing to me about these shows. I have no expectations of performance, they're ten minutes away, and there are always some new experiences to be had. And since there are no expectations it is easy to make them positive experiences. This show ended up having waayyyyyy more than the intended number of new experiences though, but he was such a trooper. 

We had a lesson on Monday that week and then Goggles pulled one of his week old shoes off on Wednesday. 

Hopped on bareback to hunt for it. He was good, but I still failed at finding it.

Which meant that Thursday we trekked back down to JT's to get it put back on. Schedules being what they are, he ended up staying the night there. Friday morning I picked him and his four shoes up and we headed up to the Alachua County Equestrian Center. I'd heavily debated entering the hunters in order to be in the covered, but I'm glad I didn't since they ended up moving the jumpers in there. I was all gung ho about hunters until I realized I couldn't use the running martingale. But the arena change meant that EVERYONE was schooling in the covered Friday before they ran the equitation divisions starting at five. We got there around 1030 and he ate hay on the trailer while I went and got my number. 

Another nice oak to park under

I tacked him up and headed in where four other horses were already schooling. He was actually better in the traffic than Ben is historically and couldn't have cared less about the stuff in the arena. He wanted to counter bend and examine everything outside the arena, but I managed to talk him in to straightness and sometimes inside flexion. The arena filled up with six other horses and then we were at the max number of horses they let in at one time. 

Walking around like a civilized beasty 

Then we jumped, and he was just super. In my lesson Monday, JT and I discussed how Goggles was much more willing to take a correct spot off the ground vs Ben fitting in roughly ten strides in the last twelve feet before a fence. So I needed to be okay with the actual correct distances instead of holding him to a chip. I also took the message from our stadium warm up at the last POP show and since he was being soft, I stayed up and off his back and soft for several strides after each fence. We trotted and cantered in to the lines and got the right number of strides down them. He bucked after one particularly gappy spot, but still came back to me in time to make the turn to the next line in a balanced fashion. The jumps were probably still 2'-2'3", but I didn't figure another 3" the next day was going to be a huge difference. One group of riders had exited to wait till fences went up to go back in and school again. But he was so good and it was hot even in the covered, so we called it a day. 

Carrots for the bestest pony

And post hosing grazing

Then he loaded up smoothly, again

And ate hay in front of the fan

He definitely expressed his feelings about the prior 24 hours when I got him home. He went for a good gallop around his field and chased Ben a bit before settling down for lunch. 

Saturday I went to get him around 11. He and Ben were both laying down. Ben has let me hang out with him before, but the one time I saw Goggles laying down he got up when I reached the gate to his field. I think Ben letting me hang with him gave Goggles confidence because he stayed laying down and we cuddled in the sweaty sand for a few. 

Ben flat out in the hot sand. How is that comfy dude? 

Such a sweeite

Hi handsome kid! 

After he got up, I bathed him and then fed him lunch before loading him up (again) and heading to the show grounds. I left Ben in a stall with some hay so he wasn't lonely without Goggles. The barn owner said when Goggles was gone Thursday night Ben had gone around whinying in the most pathetic way. He definitely has pathetic down to a T, that one. 

Once we arrived, I had about two hours before the my classes would start, so I left Goggles to eat hay on the trailer in the shade and went to learn the courses. 

I had started tacking up when they were starting the 2' division. There were 6 riders x3 courses each, so I assumed (hahaha) that we'd have about 45-60 minutes from the time they started to when they started the 2'6" division. The "projected for entertainment value only" schedule online agreed. He started out warm up with a pretty big hump in his back, wanting to look at everything outside of the ring and be reactive to everything in the ring. To be fair, there were beach themed decorations in the barn outside the warm up ring and that did include large beach balls. There were also children on electric scooters zipping around. All stuff he needs to get used to, but it was a lot. Like other shows though, once I pointed him at the jumps he was actually pretty business like. So we jumped a few jumps and then went to check the ring. There were only two ponies with riders left standing around outside the ring for the 2' division and one pony with the rider standing nearby. Seemed close to the course change, yes? So we went to park under an awning by the warm up ring that also had a nice large fan in it. He didn't so much want to park under the cover outside of the arena, so this was a good compromise. While the last mounted kid was finishing up, it started raining. Once it started raining he was pretty content to turn his butt to the wind and stay under the cover. 

AFTER the other two finished, the one kid got BACK ON the pony and very, very leisurely started their second trip after about ten minutes of sitting around with an empty ring. FINALLLY, about two hours after the division of six riders had started, the division finished and they set for the 2'6". Man do I hate not having ride times. 

It was raining pretty seriously at this point, but we popped back into the uncovered warm up ring and jumped a vertical and then an oxer. He was pretty nappy going in and bucked a lot in protest at having to get rained on as I put him back in the warm up ring, but again was business-like about the jumps. We headed up to the ring and they said they would let us do one trip around and then two warm up fences in the ring before starting our round. 

We popped down the outside six stride line for our warm up line and then were preparing to start when the skies absolutely opened up. It was raining sideways INTO the arena and the planks from the jumps were blowing out of the cups. They let the other two riders who were in the 2'6" division into the covered and then we all stood around for 15-20 minutes. I dismounted after about 5 minutes and we stood there during the deluge. He kept all his marbles together really, really well for that part in spite of the crashing thunder and flashes of lightning. The video does a pretty good job of capturing it. Eventually it let up so the other two riders exited the ring. At this point Goggles half reared since he had been ABANDONED by his new friends in the empty arena. I took him out, walked him over the flowing rivers in the sand and got mounted up. He stepped right over and into the water without a single pause, GOOD BOY! We then headed back in to start our first course. This was about 2.5 hours after I had first gotten on him. 

I'll break down what went poorly in another post, mostly to do with my riding, but overall I am SO SO PROUD of him. I am positive we had not jumped an entire 2'6" course before and he stepped right up and did it three times at a show. He did not think twice about any of the jumps and marched down the lines. There was A LOT of bucking. But he was tight over his back and had every reason to be, the whole day was a huge ask of him from start to finish. 

When I thought that the jumps looked big our first go round, I pointed him at them and told him to do his job, and he did, and a damn good one at that. He got more rideable each round and was such a good baby horse. Each time we go some place he gets easier and easier to regulate. His emotions are still highest with regards to other horses, but even that has improved by leaps and bounds from where we started. 

Jumping out of the three stride looking like there's a lot more scope in there

The video is our two warm up jumps, the pause for the deluge, and then the three courses in order. The angle wasn't the best for grabbing screen shots from, but I'm super grateful to have video at all! I'm hoping there will be some pro pics although he wasn't jumping the best, so I don't have high high hopes. 

We did our first two courses basically back to back, then went back in for the third after one other person went. As soon as we finished, I jumped off and untacked him. He got loads of carrots and a hose and then we headed the ten minute ride home. We hit a few more bands of the storm on the way home, I love pulling with the 250 when there is standing water on the road. I can feel things slide a bit, but the truck never moves, thank goodness. 

He was very happy to be home and immediately flung himself into the dirt to roll on both sides. Then he went for a good gallop around his field and harassed Ben into playing with him a little bit. He had Sunday off, but was still happy to see me and marched right up to the gate when I went to check on him. I'm glad he didn't decide I was zero fun after the long day the day before. 

Huge shout out to my friend for being our horse show mom. She brought him a bucket of water, fixed my number when it tore through (cardboard + rain + sweat = tearing paper products), brought me a cool bottle of water, videoed us, and hung out the whole time even through the torrential rain. She even set the warm up fences for us IN the downpour. We met way back when I first moved to Gainesville and have stayed friends since then as we've both moved around some. It was fun to be back at a show with her. She got someone from her barn to snag this picture before the downpour. The perspective on this makes the 8 inch difference between Goggles and her mare look even bigger.