Hey there everyone! I am pleased to say that I am back from the Millbrook Horse Trails with two newly made advanced horses!
I was thrilled on a whole with Catch A Star and Cambalda’s perfomances this weekend. Though there are some things I need to work on—as always—both horses were respectively fifth in their respective advanced divisions.
Poor Cambalda had to do dressage in the pouring rain and, to be honest with you, I was merely going through the motions the best I could in the ring. But then he was unreal cross-country and show-jumped really well. Other than misreading fence 4A, which was a vertical going into the in-and-out, he cleared all the jumps by a foot. He almost jumped too impressively, and I got 3 time penalties in the show jumping, but I was very pleased.
Catch A Star got a bit tense in the walk work in my dressage test and started the weekend in the middle of the pack, but a clear, fast and beautiful round propelled her to third after the cross-country. Then, she really impressed me in show jumping; though this is a new-found partnership, I am excited about her future. We had two rails down—one of them being completely my fault when I added a stride too many coming to a large vertical out of a turn. She was brilliant, though, and Phillip Dutton and I both think this little girl isn’t far off from jumping a clear round at the advanced level, which thrills me.
Walkabout was so rideable in the cross-country and show jumping this weekend, putting down clean rounds to end eighth in a big division of intermediate. I got nailed for riding him underpowered in the dressage, so my goal is to go on with him a bit more at his CIC** at Richland Park (Mich.) at the end of August. He really was far more rideable this weekend, and I am thrilled with the rideablility I had compared to at the Stuart Horse Trials mid-July.
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Indie did his first training at Milbrook and came fourth; he was quite green in the show jumping or else he would have had a much better finish, but I think once he figures it all out he will be a really good one.
This weekend I’m off to Waredaca and look forward to the lot I have going there.
Hope all is well,
Jennie
