Settled In and Schooling

Man. It was a bit of a flurry today but we ended up cramming everything in and getting to the show with about an hour left of schooling time in the arenas.

Prair was totally unimpressed once she realized that she had just been here, but she was even less impressed with the ghetto fab tarp-tent-stalls.

In fact, she looked a little non-plussed about the whole setup...

Trunk & Tarp land

Anyway,  S tacked up a gelding she is retraining as a Hunter and headed straight for the ring while I unpacked a few things and then followed after her with Prair.

S's gelding is another Dressage Boy who might make it in Hunter Land.  This show is a bit of a wildcard for him since he's... never jumped a line before, let alone a course or flowerboxes.  But as soon as I walked up and saw him quietly cantering around I knew that he was going to take it all in his (very) uphill, (very) giant stride.

While S worked her boy, I warmed Prair up and was thrilled that she was totally quiet and responsive.  We headed into the main ring after about 5 minutes and popped over fences without even breaking stride.  Prair was wanting to tip on her forehand a bit, but I could. not. believe. how light she was and how soft I was able to be.  I worked on moving up a bit to the fences and getting our correct strides then hopped off and let S pilot her around a bit since Prairie's first division is Friday morning in the Pre-Greens with S up.

I bumped a couple of the fences up to 3' for S to work with, but Prair didn't really notice.  They bopped around a few times, schooled some changes and then called it good.

Prair is still a little quick and certainly doesn't have the slow, round bascule that fancy hunters should, but I just love, love, love the relaxation that she's starting to show.

It's awesome.  So rewarding.
I was so thoroughly thrilled just bombing around the ring popping over fences and feeling that Prair was 100% solid under me and wasn't threatening to explode.  I like this trend :)

I snapped a quick phone video of some os S's work just to document the loveliness.  Note Big Brown Gelding's Big, Brown Nose makes a charming cameo.  He is cute.  I sorta want him.



Now it's off to bed with a handful of Advil so I don't wake up totally crippled from moving hay bales around... (what was I saying about working out again???)