WILLIAM WOODS WINTER FUN SHOW:
Awesome! Coco and I showed in jumpers on Friday night. We were fairly late getting to the show groungs, but Coco needed a bath. Kris had told me that if I got there early enough, I should have plenty of time to bathe him and wait for him to dry while everything got started. Let's just say, by the time we started showing, my horse looked like he had Cushings! I was seriously debating starting a fund for my jumping saddlebred with cushings.
Anyways, we were doing Novice Jumper Rider and Novice Jumper Horse, as well as the Jumping Pairs Relay with Jackie. Our first class, we had a weird turn to one jump and I sat too early, causing us to knock a rail- from that point forward, we went balls to the wall and just had fun. We won our next three classes, getting 39 seconds in our first power and speed round and 38 seconds in the second, beating our nearest competition by at least 4 seconds! In the Jumping Pairs Relay, Jackie and Yankee and Coco and I were going crazy! We were doing really well and then I was getting to a jump too quickly, and had to circle before I could take it so that I wouldn't mess up the order of jumps. We called everything out and went really fast, but ended up with a 2nd- I'm wondering if they penalized us for my circle... :/ Either way, we did fabulously on Friday night and Coco was VERY proud of himself, as he should be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdExjZ3Bhdc
On Saturday, we showed in the low hunter division. We used the Pelham bit and Coco was like a completely different horse. He was actually a hunter! It was really odd for me. We didn't place very well. We got a 6th in one of the over fences classes and 4th in an equitation on the flat class. I'm going to go ahead and blame saddlebred discrimination! :p
On Sunday, Coco's kid rode him. Mackena is the girl who will be leasing him while I'm in Chicago. He was a fireball... even with the Pelham. I think he would have been fine with me riding him, but Mackena is 60 lbs of child and he knows he can get away with more when she's riding him. He was a total nutcase, actually doing decent on his transitions and standing in lineup, but he will still acting kind of crazy. They didn't end up placing in anything they did that day. Coco was such a butt for the hunter hack class. Coco would not stop circling because he didn't want to leave his buddies in the lineup while he did the line of jumps... it broke my heart when I was standing next to the arena and Mackena looked at me with tears in her eyes because of how stupid Coco was acting. I told her to beat him up and that made her get tough and get him over the fences. They probably could have done really well in that class, too. Oh, well, I guess it was a good learning experience for her about how horses can be immensely different in the show ring as compared to the familiarity of home.
DEPRESSION
I am going to Chicago for 3 months and cannot take my horse with me. Board in Chicago is wicked expensive and Coco is already established at CEC and likes his home and buddies so I would feel terrible pulling him away from that for such a relatively short period of time. Mackena and Kyra, two girls from the barn and their parents, have decided to lease Coco for April-June. They have been really gracious in their willingness to help me with my bills- they are paying for all of Coco's board and all of his farrier appointments. I couldn't be happier with my choice to allow them to lease him. They are incredible. I'm just sad about the whole situation. It's so hard to leave my horse for such a long time- he's my best friend, and has been since I got him in 2009. I've never been away from him for longer than a week. It'll certainly be interesting to see how I handle all of this... I will attempt to keep everyone updated.
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