We went with the barn that I started taking jumping lessons at, so it was me and a pack of 8-14 year old girls jumping much bigger than me! My fiance made fun of me, but I'm ok taking it slow with my greenie-beanie horse. While all the girls jumped more than we did their horses also had moments of being quite naughty, one bolted off, one kept doing the spook-spin-buck trick, one didn't want to go down the bank and showed off her rear-spin trick, and the super-star pony rolled in the first water feature (a lovely color of black with floating green algae) leaving the youngest rider forced to do a swan dive into the water! Lola, on the other hand, was an absolute star. None of these kids horses were unsafe by any means, and I was so impressed with the riders. I was still quite happy to be riding a horse that was happy in her work and eager to impress, even when trying her best to figure out where her feet go.
We schooled over tiny logs for the most part, but had fun jumping up and down banks for the first time, we had a tricky little fence that required us to go down a steep bank to cross a creek, trot up the other bank to jump a beginner novice sized log. Tricky since Lola is naturally suspicious of water. This was actually a problem for all of the horses, so we weren't the only ones that tip-toed in the first time through. She was a champ though, and she really improved each time through. This was the second water that we had schooled through.
The first time around we had to follow another horse in, but after that we started walking in with only a bit of hesitation and then trotted out. By the last water we schooled she was trotting through so nicely that I even picked up the canter and she cantered right through! I was so proud!
We cooled down by doing a some free walking to medium walk transitions in the arena where the dressage test will be set up. The whole day was such a huge success!
I feel like we're going to do really well next weekend, and I just can't wait!
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