Where I last left off,  I had a really good pre-show lesson which is actually not a common occurrence. I remember back to showing Subi as well as showing IHSA and regularly the last lesson before a show would usually suck. Regularly things would either suck from the start or they’d be going ok and then we’d push it until magically they’d suck. So, last lesson was sort of an anomaly for not sucking. Either that or the other obvious answer. Ranger is just perfect.

Unlike last show where pleasure pony and horse were combined, we were separate this time around. Of course, my division sort of fell apart after anyway after some scratches and some less than ideal schooling. Nonetheless, we still had slightly larger jumps which definitely made things a little easier. The course was pretty simple. Outside line, around to inside single, inside broken line, to outside line. Unlike last time around, Ranger WASN’T flying and we decided that, thanks to the slightly larger fences, we were going to ask him to leave out the stride rather than holding for the 6. So, the goal was FORWARD the entire time (he was  doing the add for his cross rail courses and 2ft courses with his 2 kids earlier).

Schooling went really well, better than our actual course (I screwed up the turn to the third line and which resulted in an ugly chip… and we were just holding the canter rather than simple changes in our actual course as requested by trainer so some cross cantering/lead issues) but since I’m willing to post the video evidence, you can tell its 1000x better than the last course.

Thanks to class size, we came away with a second and I made it my mission to win the hacks. After all, Ranger is the epitome of a pleasure horse and managed to pin well in a much larger class (2nds) last time around. As it turned out, there were only 2 of us hacking so my goal became not to do anything stupid and to win the damn classes.

And that we did. Well, we almost did something stupid, as I was trotting around on loose reins and Ranger did think about leaving the ring for a moment, but other than that! Thankfully he’s reliable, has great downward transitions, trots around on a loose rein, etc. I love this guy!

Hacks are boring, but my husband was a good sport and actually recorded stuff…

Needless to say, it was a successful day and we walked out with a second, 2 firsts, and champion. Thank you again Ranger for carting my butt around.

Goals this week were to once again: 1. Not Die and 2. Remember My Course. 3. (NEW) Remember How to Ride. Over all? Success!