Hunter Derby

I have been quite busy the past few days so have neglected to update on my hunter derby experience. 

We waited all day and finally at about 3:30 I got on to prepare for the low sporting hunter division. I had to do one other hunter class in order to compete in the derby, so this was my chosen class. It turned out to be quite large. Dan knocked a rail down but other than that jumped well. No ribbon but thats ok. 

By the time they finished that division they made the decision to move the qualified hunter class to the end of the day as it was getting late and there were about 32 people to compete in the 3' hunter derby. I was slated second to last to jump in the derby, so we waited some more and I watched trying to figure out how to ride this course to do well. There were a lot of really nice horses jumping and scoring well. the highest score was an 82 I think. 

The way they run the derby's is in a 2 round format. The first round everyone rides and then the top 12 are asked back to do a handy round. Unfortunately when i went the cut off score to make the second round was a 74 and we just missed it scoring a 72. I was hoping to make top 12 but Dan jumped well and we had a great round so I was still happy to have gotten that score. It was a fun experience! 

Today we shipped up the short distance to the Fidelity. Dan will go in the first class tomorrow, the 1.05-1.10 meter class and then again later in the day in the child/adult class. The mare I have arrives tomorrow and not sure if she will show tomorrow or not. 

Will try to update each day... 

hurry up and wait.

Today I took Dan in two jumper classes at the show. I went over this morning to find out where they were in the order of classes as i was trying to avoid having to be there all day. They told me my class was going to be coming up very soon as they only had 8 or 9 in the low schooling class before my class. I ran home and got Dan ready faster than ever and flew over there. Turns out there were a lot more than 8 or 9 rides in the low schooling and there was another low child/adult class before mine. So after rushing and even beginning to warm up, we had to sit and wait. It was a good long time before we ended up jumping.

The warm up areas at jumper shows are very difficult to navigate when you are there alone. It seems that people "claim" a jump for their warm up with a coach or groom. It is much different than an event where we are given a cross-rail, verticle, and oxer set at height and can only be jumped in one direction. Having no one there to help me today i would just sneak in when people were done and just deal with what ever was set up. It wasn't perfect, but got the job done.

The first class we did was only a .95 meter class so it was very small and i figured would be a good warm up. Dan went around really well jumping nicely without any spooking however, i was slightly over the time allowed. No jump off round but still finished 4th!

The next class was the high adult/child jumper and was suppose to be set at 1.10 meter but definitely looked more like 1 meter, so i was slightly disappointed. I wanted to get a feel for how Dan jumped over a solid 1.10 course as he has been schooling that great at home. Although small he jumped around even better than the first and I kept moving so we were in the time allowed. The jump off was good too, i tried to motor along but i was the first rider in the ring so did not get to see anyone else go before hand. I finished with a moderate time and at the end of a large class we took home a pink ribbon. A very good day over-all!

My goal was solely to jump clean and have Dan leave the rails up, and we accomplished that!

Tomorrow is hunter derby day. We jump late in the day as it is the 2nd to final class of the day. We will strive for rhythm and clean changes! Goal is to make it to the second round!

warm ups

Well, the first large difference between an Event and a Hunter/Jumper show is the warm-up's. At an event the first time we enter the ring for show jumping or head out on the xc course is in actual competition. No opportunity for the horses to see the jumps before the event begins.

At this hunter/jumper show today they had warm-ups, where you could go and jump around in most of the rings. For a spooky horse like Dan it is quite useful, not that he will remember the jumps come Sat, but maybe it will help with the spooking a little. I didn't jump around in any of the jumper rings, just over the outside course which will be used for the hunter derby come saturday. Dan jumped great, not to much spooking, just need to work on a more hunter-like round.

Its been a while since i've been in the hunter ring, but i think i did an ok job pretending. A few minor adjustments for Saturday and as long as we don't get overly excited like we did today we should do ok i think. No coaching this weekend as Jeanne is at HITS for million dollar week, so Dan and I are going it alone.

Tomorrow we go in the jumper ring for 2 classes...goal....to leave all the rails up!

A New Adventure...

I will be spending at least the next year engulfed in the world of Show jumping. I will be working for Jeanne Hobbs in NC and am very excited as she has great knowledge and experience in the sport, competing at the Grand Prix level. Now I will most likely still throw a few events in the mix and an occasional dressage show for Dans training. However, the majority of my time will be spent learning all I can about show jumping from Jeanne.

Follow along with me as I learn the in's and out's of an unfamiliar discipline. Having been purely Eventing now for about 10 years it will be a fun and interesting learning experience. 

First show.. The Myopia Horse Show/Putnam Boston Jumper Classic this week. Dan will be doing his first hunter derby, we'll see how it goes...