Your Turn: Trading spaces

Event rider Victoria Smith sent us this story of her f0ray into the world of hunters via a local schooling show. Was it inside-outside-inside-outside or outside-inside-outside-inside… eh, who cares!

From Victoria:

I have been dying to take Rascal to a show for a while now, so my trainer offered to fill the empty spot on her trailer with Rascal to go to a local schooling hunter-jumper show. Now, I honestly know nothing about the hunter-jumper world, but I figured, what the heck?! Could be fun and good exposure for Rascal!

First, I had no idea how long it would take to get to the classes I was doing, so I did A LOT of waiting! But I used the time to familiarize Rascal with the environment, which was great since he needs that badly. Suprisingly he was calm and not screaming at every horse that walked by.

I decided to drop my 2’6″ class (because honestly, I was tired of waiting!) So I did the 2′ as a warm up and the 2’3″. When I faxed my entry on Wednesday, I thought that the hunter rounds would be like stadium jumping, so I put down that I wanted two rounds of 2’3″ and one round of 2’6″. Well, after watching all the classes, I sure felt stupid when I realized you can’t do two rounds of the same class!! That was my first oopsie! So anyway, my first 2′ round was fantastic (we actually got 1st! I was so proud of my boy!), the second round… not so much. I didn’t realize that you had a different course to learn until the horse before me was midway through! Sooooo, I barely read through the course drawing and headed in… and forgot my course! Number 2, oopsie!

My 2’3″ class comes up and I enter and start doing the second course that I had forgotten previously… well, obviously I now know that I can’t do that. Heck, I thought I could do whichever course I wanted to first! So, eliminated again! Number 3, oopsie!! The next part of the class went great, Rascal was a rock star and showed everyone that HE knew what to do, it was his silly mom who didn’t know!

I’m sure all the experienced hunter people thought that my whole fiasco was hilarious! Personally, I found it quite funny too! Regardless, Rascal didn’t hit a rail once, and was so so good for each of the rounds, even the ones we got eliminated in. I guess that’s what happens when you decide to try a difference discipline three days before a show!  I’m sure some people would be mad if they were in my shoes, but always remember, schooling shows are for fun and to help you and your horse gain some experience. I am looking forward to doing an eventing schooling show soon–at least I will know the rules and maybe I can remember the course!!

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