Darcy's First Oxer
Dad came out to the barn with me yesterday to watch my jumping lesson on Darcy. He hadn't seen me ride Darcy in 4 years, even though they only live 40 minutes away. Riding Traveler is the exception, he's glad to come out and take pictures of his grandkids (my nephews) getting ponied around and I've been known to quickly jump on Traveler on those occasions to make sure everything is a-okay before letting the kiddies get up.
Naturally, I wanted to impress him. He's the first to interrupt a conversation to ask "Did you sell those horses yet?"
"... No, Dad. I'm not going to sell them."
"Well if you sold them you could save yourself a lot of money."
"... okay. But then I'd be miserable, and my horses would be good as dead. No one except a meat buyer wants an arthritic 21 year old or a green 9 year old with a bucking habit."
"At least you'd save that money."
ARGH!
Dad was cringing when I bought Darcy as a emaciated untrained 5 year old. He offered to shoot Darcy and Traveler for me when I asked him for a loan to ship them home from college. Not the best history.
So figuring a Dressage lesson would be way too boring I dragged Dad out to jumping day. Currently the barn only has two sets of standards so we've been stuck doing verticals and bounces. Today we introduced one-strides and oxers.
It was quite windy and the previous lessons had issues with the horses spooking at branches scraping against the wall of the arena. Darcy in his level-headed goodness couldn't care less about the noises. His issue was with the one strides. After a few train wrecks and then one successful go through Erin shortened it to a bounce which he was much happier with.
Darcy is extremely flexible and is quite content trotting over anything he can so Erin cranked the second jump up to 2'6" (our current record) and that woke him up a bit (he was trotting the 2'3" verticals). After a few sucessful times over she made us a 2'3" oxer. Darcy breezed over it twice and we called it a day.
I'm so proud of my project pony. He's finally coming together. We've only been working with Erin since May and he's carrying himself so much better and fussing a lot less.
I look odd here but whatever.
Canterkins.
2'3" bounce.
2'3" oxer. Good job Big D.
These are the only ones he sent.
Naturally, I wanted to impress him. He's the first to interrupt a conversation to ask "Did you sell those horses yet?"
"... No, Dad. I'm not going to sell them."
"Well if you sold them you could save yourself a lot of money."
"... okay. But then I'd be miserable, and my horses would be good as dead. No one except a meat buyer wants an arthritic 21 year old or a green 9 year old with a bucking habit."
"At least you'd save that money."
ARGH!
Dad was cringing when I bought Darcy as a emaciated untrained 5 year old. He offered to shoot Darcy and Traveler for me when I asked him for a loan to ship them home from college. Not the best history.
So figuring a Dressage lesson would be way too boring I dragged Dad out to jumping day. Currently the barn only has two sets of standards so we've been stuck doing verticals and bounces. Today we introduced one-strides and oxers.
It was quite windy and the previous lessons had issues with the horses spooking at branches scraping against the wall of the arena. Darcy in his level-headed goodness couldn't care less about the noises. His issue was with the one strides. After a few train wrecks and then one successful go through Erin shortened it to a bounce which he was much happier with.
Darcy is extremely flexible and is quite content trotting over anything he can so Erin cranked the second jump up to 2'6" (our current record) and that woke him up a bit (he was trotting the 2'3" verticals). After a few sucessful times over she made us a 2'3" oxer. Darcy breezed over it twice and we called it a day.
I'm so proud of my project pony. He's finally coming together. We've only been working with Erin since May and he's carrying himself so much better and fussing a lot less.
I look odd here but whatever.
Canterkins.
2'3" bounce.
2'3" oxer. Good job Big D.
These are the only ones he sent.