Eyeford

The weather was a little hot, but nice for the Eyeford show. The breeze was definitely welcome as the afternoon heated up, and kept the bugs away.

The show was reasonably well attended, with a manageable amount of entries in each class. The parking and warm up was nicely non-chaotic compared to some other shows we have been to this year. Lara did a good job keeping it running smoothly as well.

Janine was our hunter representative on Shawn. It was their first show together, and her first class was about as close to perfect as I could reasonably expect: Even canter, good corners, consistent form and pace. As it was Shawn, she did add in the lines, and trotted some changes, but it was all very smooth and huntery! She got a few comments on how nice a round it was and how nice a horse Shawn is. I was very pleased and wished I have videoed it for Janine. I thought for sure she should have placed in the top three, but it was not to be, and she was left out of the ribbons. When I later looked at the judges card this is what I saw: three checks denoting a good jump, then the notes: horse too slow, switched leads in front of jump...and no marks for any of the other jumps...apparently the judge didn't bother judging after jump 3! And no one saw him swap leads in front of a jump, so not sure what that comment meant and how horses that trotted jumps crooked placed over them. Oh well...I guess I would rather she had a really good round and no ribbon that a bad round and a ribbon.

The next three classes went ok for them, but Shawn was getting tired, so was later with his changes and had some chips where he should have been able to take off slightly long. Regardless I was still very happy with both horse and rider, and they did pin in a few of those classes.

There was another girl at the show who had some very nice rounds on her liver chestnut and was left out of the ribbons which suprised me. Sure the horse didn't come in looking like a hunter, but she got all her strides, all her distances, nice corners, and the horse had good form...and the rider was nice and quiet. I felt she definately deserved some ribbons based on some of the rounds that I saw that did place. I remember the horse from previous years and was very impressed with the progress they had made and told the rider so.

I guess that is the thing with hunters though...it is subjective and some days it is to your advantage, and other days you get left out.

Then it was the jumpers. Jerry and Karen made their debut and it went really well! Karen was one of the few to get a clear round ribbon in her class. They had a cheap rub in the power portion of the power and speed so that was too bad. The Stake class was something else though...there was a crazy hair pin turn at the end of the course...Jerry ALMOST made it, but just didn't have enough gas in the tank to get himself over the jump from the odd angle. Still, they ended up in a jump off as hardly anyone could make the turn, and managed to place 5th! It was a great first show for the two of them, and Jerry looked like a show horse rather than an off track maniac. Maybe the name "Serenity" suites him after all.

Sara and Fancy challenged the big division and did pretty good too, but I think Sara had gotten perhaps too much sun by then and was a little out of it and missed some turns. It was a long day for them as Sara arrived at the same time as Janine and I did for the hunters. Fancy jumped well though, and was quite good in the combination and tried pretty hard to accommodate some of the crazy turns.

Hopefully they hold more shows at Eyeford next year...if they do, we will be there!
Karen