Back At It!

Ben and I have had a fairly good run playing in the jumpers thus far this spring/summer but I am over the jumper thing a bit faster than I thought I would be and I'm ready to go back to eventing. There's only so many hours I can sit on my horse at the in-gate waiting for my classes to start...

Not to mention that the big A rated hunter/jumper shows get rather expensive very quickly!

For the most part, I'm just going back to the basics with Ben and "re-starting" him in eventing like he's a baby first being introduced. We've already begun this journey by going on a little xc school last week where he was an absolute star, jumping everything beautifully, and didn't look at a thing!

He jumped two different ditches like a pro the first time he was presented and genuinely seemed to be having a blast. I had a blast too, it's been a while since I actually galloped and jumped cross country!

Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C61frFW1QQ&list=UUnF-_dbEwqUY6MCsRqmAo4Q&index=1

In about a month I'm going to take him to do the baby division at a local schooling event, which is listed at 2'3", but it's really just logs on the ground for xc. The goal is to just pass through all the flags and cross the finish line. He can quite literally step over every fence.

Then if all is well there, we'll go to the Lyme Horse Trials on August 17th, which is where we just went schooling and jumped all the Novice fences and where he's jumped awesomely for the past two years at their event, and we'll do the Novice. After that, I have no plans, as I'll just see what's happening.

Additionally, I am going to take my trainer's horse Beginner Novice at the Lyme Horse Trials as well. Dressage is not his strong suit but he LOVES to jump, and it is more or less a given that he'll jump clean so I'm really excited to take him too.

On Sunday, Ben and I are off to a little Novice combined test just to get back in the dressage ring because we haven't been since May. His dressage work has been coming along really nicely and I'm really happy with where he is right now. He seems very happy overall right now!