Pace and Chase

Better late than never!  Here's a post that I wrote awhile back about a small show I went to in August.  

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The day started relatively leisurely for a show day.  I grabbed breakfast on the way to the barn, another friend had hooked up her truck and 3 horse trailer the night before for us to use.  I had originally planned to braid since my mom was supposed to come watch, but she bailed out due to forest fires threatening her town.  I knew that was a possibility, and I haven't braided in awhile so I figured I might as well stick to my plan and braid anyways even if it's just a schooling show.

For those that don't know the pace part of the show is jumping solid obstacles in a match-the-clock format.  The chase aspect is doing the same course in groups of 2-4 horse/rider combinations.  You must get all horses over one obstacle before continuing to the next.  So, if one horse refuses then you need to be close enough to communicate that the lead horse needs to wait up.

It's also important to note that this is our first time showing without my coach being present.  Two shows in one weekend and all.  Athena is really quite good about everything.  She hasn't been the first horse loaded in an angle haul since I brought her home, but that was a non-issue.  Then during warm-up she trotted and cantered around like it ain't no thang.  There was and X rail and a 2'3 vertical set up in a warm up area so we hopped over those a few times in a figure-8 pattern.  I have been working on self-reminders.  Hands forward and down.  Leg ON.  Body quiet.  Look where I want to go (not AT the jump), especially the solid jumps.

We went over to do our first course, the pace aspect.

Fence one was going towards the gate, 90 degree turn left to a small bench.  Another 90 degree turn to a house which jumped a bit weird each time for me.  Then a bit of distance to a log pile which was just past the ditches.  The first time through I wasn't quite sure the line I should take to this so I went between the 2 ditches and had a stop because angles and decisions were all bad.  Then another relatively quick 90 degree to the right, maybe a bit more than 90 to a gate looking jump.  I'm mostly sure I angled that every single time because it was hiding behind a bush and even when I knew it was there I wasn't quite sure exactly where.  From there it was a slight bending line to six, right to seven & eight.  Another right and jumping down the biggest drop Athena has ever been asked to do. (Note: we've only schooled drops twice before and the last time was into water and she really didn't want to do it).  Left again to the final two fences which rode very nicely as they were again coming back towards home.

Aside from the hiccup at four I was really pleased with how the round went.  Then immediately my friend and her pony came in and we did the chase!  Athena has been so good lately with leading that we decided that I'd lead and she'd come up behind us.  Turns out the whole way we were only about one stride apart.  There were another two teams in the chase, one team had a good pace but we were a bit better in our pacing and snagged up 1st place!

My friends other horse had some nervous issues going on so we decided that I would just re-ride the pace at the same height and she just got him working a little and call it a day.  I ended up placing 5th in the pace (solo) class.

Overall a great weekend, spent with some lovely people.