A few years ago I was riding a young horse who wasn’t very impressed with smaller fences. He would hurl himself with abandon at anything that wasn’t substantial and it was terrifying  an interesting experience to say the least. I had started him myself and did his first several starts at beginner novice and novice.

When it came to stepping up to training level I handed him off to a pro. He was pretty bad about ditches and I wasn’t about to be the person to take him over his first trakehner. The trainer took him around his first several competitions at training level & preliminary.

When I got the ride back I started out at training.

In my pre-show pep talk, my coach said, “You’re going to get somewhere out there on the cross country course and you’re going to realize, ‘This isn’t much fun.’ You need to move him back up to prelim as soon as possible.” 

He was right. I was hurtling towards a pretty square table in front of the water jump and the horse didn’t even peek at it. As we climbed over it with no regard to his, or my, well-being I remembered what my coach had said……………..

Oh yeah, this is definitely not fun!

This weekend reminded me of that experience!

Wonder Pony is not impressed by training level jumps………………

BUT – we have some stadium demons……..which is why we were jumping training level to begin with.

This is the face I made today entering the stadium ring………I was even saying in my head, “smile for the photos!!!!”

And in spite of my best effort this is what came out!!

We survived stadium…………

It’s a good thing there aren’t speed faults for stadium!

But he’s a cross country machine, and across the country is WAY more fun on him when the jumps are bigger.

I knew the jumps at training level wouldn’t hold him & it was going to be a bit of a wrestling match. As I left the start box I told myself, just don’t do anything that will get you yelled at when your coach sees the photos!!!

We raced skipped around the course with no delays and skated in just over the speed fault time.

OK, ok I know this drop isn’t that big…………………………

Bad Eventer has to pretend she’s jumping into the Head of the Lake every chance she can – right??!!

 TheWonderPony & I survived our first outing in a long time………..at training level. Whoop!