April Indoor B Show Recap

So I’m alive and mostly recovered from tax season! I’m not sure I would recommend transitioning straight from working long hours to horse showing but it was a fun weekend regardless of my level of tired being high.

I did my normal lesson the Tuesday before the show and jumped (yes on the tax deadline!). Maestro was a bit sluggish overall but a good sport as usual. I flatted the boy outside on Wednesday since the weather was above 40 and it wasn’t raining, lol. Since I was off work on Friday (yay 4 day work weeks coming back) I headed out around lunch time to school for the show. We flatted outside then headed indoors to jump everything. Amazingly we got the ring to ourselves. A certain pony was again a bit sluggish (I think he’s over indoor season too) but we did manage to get around with the strides. We struggled a bit doing a roll back to the right and lead changes were a bit lacking in my second course so trainer and I decided to do spurs again for this show.

He is trying to learn how to pose for photos

Saturday rolled around and I had to get up early because my equitation on the flat class was going towards the beginning of the day and 2 hours before my over fences. Maestro seems to be starting to understand flat classes and this judge was doing the fastest flat classes ever so we were in and out with our 2nd place in record time. Our resident barn equitation queen was in my flat class so I’ll take a 2nd to her happily. I told her my goal was to beat her on the flat and she joked maybe some day if she picked up the wrong lead or something, lol.

Probably wondering how long til he gets more cookies from his dad who is taking the picture

For our warm up class over fences we made a plan to let him add in the first line (it started on a single) if need be then try to get the strides the rest of the course. He was moving well to the first line so I got the strides but then I chipped the in of the diagonal heading away from home so I just let him add there before finishing the other outside line on the strides. We had one hunter round to do which went well although a little tense and we got third in it. Video of that round below. Our equitation over fences class has to be the best feeling course of our careers so far from my view. He was soft but responsive all around and we picked up a 1st there.

We then had a small break before our medal class and evidently my pony was just not awake when we went back in. We got around but he missed several lead changes (after not missing any earlier) and I struggled to get him moving to get down the lines although we were successful. I was happy he pulled it together partway through and tried for me but I will remember to make sure he’s more awake in the future. It obviously wasn’t what we are capable of and we did not get called back in the top 4 for testing.

Sunday the lines were set up such that the outside lines were away from home in all the courses so I knew I needed to step up and get the pony moving right away. We planned to add up the first line in the warm up then strides the rest of the way and it worked out exactly as planned. I then did my two hunter courses back to back right away while we were hot. We got 2nd and 3rd in our hunter trips. He got all his changes and strides but was diving a bit in the corners on me. I was just so happy with him. We came back in the hack class which lasted one lap each way and actually won it. I was quite surprised because he just isn’t quite as relaxed in the class as his normal way of going but I’ll take it.

We were very close to getting reserve – we actually had the same points as the person who got reserve but she had a 1st over fences while mine was on the flat.

Just being a cute pony

Really such a great weekend and so happy with the improvement over last month. Our next show is early June and outside. So ready to escape jumping in the indoor!