Friday 14 October 2016

Delusions and an Inner Child

Well, color me shocked!  We finished the year with some jumper classes!

Back in the spring, I half jokingly declared a year-end goal of hitting the 0.9m (3') and 1.0m (3'3") jumpers at the season finale indoor show.  It didn't seem too likely (or frightening) at that point since (a) it had been cancelled last year and (b) we'd never jumped higher than 3' so odds of being ready enough seemed slim and none,  Its good to have stretch goals though!
Odds of success?  Unlikely
Except August hit and we were ready to try Pre-Training eventing (3') at least in terms of schooling around it without worrying about time.  Hm ...

And then we missed our upgrade opportunity due to weather and the gods.  (About which I'm still grumbling a bit.  Smart choice, right choice, blah blah.)

Then in September, I found out that the competition is ON!  Annnnd there went my inner 16 yo in need of wish fulfillment.
Woman, you're in your 40s but why let that stop you?

So there were two opposing thought trains in my mind:

Path 1:

  • 3'3" is only one hole higher on the standards, and the horse doesn't care about the height.  
  • Life is short.


Path 2:

  • You haven't competed the horse over a 3' course. 
  • Jumper courses are significantly more technical than Eventing Stadium courses.  
  • You haven't competed over a 3' course in a decade
  • You've never successfully competed higher than 3'
  • The Fair is probably the toughest competition venue within 3 provinces
  • Your coach thinks you're a little nuts for doing this
  • Its an expensive competition
  • The horse has never been to an indoor competition
Guess what I opted for?  Path 1, of course, because see inner child above.  

Wait, HOW wide is the maximum???? 

I'm not completely crazy, I needed to make sure I'd ride forward instead of yank in front of a maxed out spread fence.  So, out came the measuring tape and the schooling fences built to max spec with a long approach. 

I mean ... we had 4 weeks to get ready.  Plenty of time right?
Yup.  PLENTY of time