Hello, baby event horse...

I don't know where I get my ideas from, but thank goodness I have a saint of a baby Thoroughbred to always pull through for me.

It was a beautiful evening yesterday, and I had this urge to throw on our "jumping tack" and go for a nice conditioning hack in the cross-country field at SP. Katie agreed because we have been looking for opportunities to school the boys alone and away from each other...she headed to the dressage ring and I headed to the field. We picked up a trot almost immediately and he was being very good...a little tense and look-y, but behaving nonetheless. Did have a major meltdown spook at the round bales (gah), but after walking up to them and snorting at them, we were okay. Trotted all the way to the bank, which has schooling elements for several levels...I pointed him at the section where you can just trot up and down. He hesitated but went...ears pricked, enjoying himself. So I thought, what the heck, let's find something to pop over. There was a small maiden sized fence over by the paddocks, so I headed for it at a trot. He hesitated, again, but then gave me a stellar jump that was much more promising than what he's shown me before in the arena. We landed in a canter, came back to trot and headed towards it the opposite direction. He jumped much better this time, right out of his trot stride and landed smoothly and calmly. At this point the horses in the paddocks were running around snorting like goobwads, so Aidyn started getting distracted and neighing...we popped over this fence again and I got the oh-so-brilliant idea to find a 2'3" fence to jump. About two strides out I panicked and figured my baby TB had no chance...but he surprised me and jumped nice and round over it. He did misjudge the width a bit but it was a MUCH better reaction than I thought I would get! Finished up over a little helsinki and up/down the bank again before we trotted towards the barn..by this point he was worked up a bit and I needed to do some 20-meters around the ditch complex to get him calm and listening. We trotted through the water to cool off (and he loves the water), and despite being brutally attacked by Papa Goose, we headed towards Katie and Jay-R.

Such a good boy. He is so brave and so willing. I feel like we might be able to do this eventing thing after all. :)