Have Trailer Will Travel

My birthday is around the corner and my husband got me a DREAM gift. My horses and I are mobile! Okay, maybe not Whisper (who is on pasture rest for at least a year), but Bandon and Spotlight are now free to leave the farm.

The first trip was to get me used to hauling and finally let my oldest daughter ride her pony in a show at Rivermont. Her nerves wouldn't let her do anything more than the leadline class this time and we made the most of it.

Spotlight was wonderful for his 6-year-old who beamed all the way through the ring.

Watching my crew of kids finding corners of a horse trailer to sit on so they could eat their horse show vendor hot dogs, made my year. My favorite things were all in one place on a gorgeous Spring day.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to be patient and slow with Bandon's jump training. I really want to put a jump in front of him with some height and see what he'll do under saddle when faced with something that takes more than  a larger stride to clear. For now though I know it'll benefit him long term to make it fun and keep it low pressure and simple, so that's what we're doing.

Trot poles to start.

Then we progressed to trot poles leading to a 12" crossrail.

Then 12" crossrail with one ground pole leading to it.

Bandon had extra peppermints to celebrate his 6th birthday that fell on Kentucky Derby day this year, all racehorses gain a year on New Years though May 4th is his actual foaling date. He also had a mini vacation from training as flood producing rain came to stay over the last 4 days.

Before the rain came in we progressed from trot poles leading to 12" cross rails on to 12" cross rails by themselves and in sequences of 2. He kept up more poles than he knocked down and settled his adrenaline after a few tries on jumping two in a row.

He is thriving on a loose rein and lots of praise, unfortunately he also thrives on routine and rain makes routine out of my control. I've started him on a strong hoof supplement hoping to improve his hoof walls so that losing shoes doesn't continue to also make us lose days.

In this time of low-height work, I'm also hoping to improve on my position. Bandon has the disadvantage of a rider without extensive experience jumping different horses. I've pretty much only jumped Scooter and Dollar (with any kind of consistency) in my adulthood and I know how they felt and how they jumped. Whisper I had just gotten started on before she injured her hoof last year. Bandon is an unknown to me and he's learning so he isn't consistent at all. I haven't learned to relax into him enough to go with his motion instead of guessing and getting ahead. I'll get it, eventually.