Week of January 23: First Horse Shows of the Year

Posted by pvos on Jan 24, 2012 in Training Journal | Comments Off

Well it’s official – the first horse shows of 2012 are under our belt!

First trip out was at a local show here in Middleburg, Virginia. Foxchase holds both hunter and jumper shows throughout the year and for some reason we mostly kept missing them. But Paige noticed that a Jumper show was being held on January 14th and saw it as the perfect opportunity to get the greenies out to see the world a bit before the first rated show of the year.

Morning arrived and it was very, very cold and very, very dark but off we went. Paige took Kaz and her own new horse Corey, a just turned 9 year old, sweet, solid, brave hunk of a horse who has never ever been to a show. Luckily on top of being brave and handsome he has an A+ brain because when we got there we found ourselves in the midst of QUITE a few ponies. Kaz was remarkable but of course – he’s been to two shows in his life so that made him officially the old pro of the group. Paige took him in the indoor and he jumped around like he’d been doing it his whole life. Clean and fast! Then Corey went in and over-jumped everything, apparently offended by the Hopeful Jumper fence heights. With that we head home – by then it had warmed up to 23 degrees.

A few days later Paige packed the trailer for the first rated show of the season, Stonewall Country Horse Show held at the Virginia Horse Center. This time it was Promise, out to try his hand at the 2nd year Pre-Greens, and the now worldly Kaz and Corey ready to rock the Hopeful Jumper division (.80 meters or 2’6″ ). Promise knocked the cobwebs off after a couple of months of not showing and rocked around his new height with ease. And the excited report on Kaz came in over the phone from Paige: “He was brave! And honest! And quiet!” Apparently both Kaz and Corey were mildly offended by the height of the fences so they will be moved up for the next Stonewall show coming up in February.

So an excellent start to 2012. Now trailers are being packed for the Aiken-bound horses who leave in a week. And once they leave, the new batch (Pele, Stanley, and Seattle) will be started up in earnest.