Sweetpeacefuldream and I had our appointment to get video footage for her episode. Miss Pea is the only horse from Colorado attending the Retired Racehorse Project Kentucky Makeover this month, and she was picked up by Altitude TV for a special story illustrating her progress from successful racehorse to show jumping sporthorse. She is an interesting subject partially because people think of Colorado as being very oriented towards western riding, and Miss Pea is going to compete in showjumping, an english discipline. The program is called Gates Open at Arapahoe Park and she will be in the episode which airs in either November or December. It will show footage from her time racing at Arapahoe Park here in Colorado, clips from her letdown period with CANTER Colorado, video from today to highlight her sporthorse training at Bit of Honey, and follow her to the makeover in Kentucky in two weeks.
To show how she is learning to jump I had set up a grid of four fences, plus an oxer and a jump of barrels set at a challenging angle. The first time through the grid Miss Pea pretty much demolished the poles. It gave her a chance to see what she needed to do, gauge distance for her jumping efforts, and figure out how high the fences were. Each time through the grid after that she got better and better, until the last time through she jumped clean and was able to compress and extend her stride really well. I love this sort of gymnastic for teaching a horse to jump, and it was obvious from her progress in the one brief jumping session how well she problem solves to think through the challenge.
We also did some brief interview type video with Jonathan Horowitz who was filming today.
My working student's video, taken while Miss Pea was jumping through the grid for the show can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ismk2bNqa9Y
I also had Miss Pea jump the small oxer and then take a tight turn as a bending line to the jump made of barrels. Her first time through this she drifted a bit after the oxer until she realized what our next obstacle was, and then she latched onto the idea and jumped well. By just the third time through she was jumping the oxer at an angle and taking the bending line no problem.
If you feel that Sweetpeacefuldream and I have represented Thoroughbreds well through the process of training for the makeover, please vote for us for the TB Ambassador Award to be presented at the Makeover! Vote here:
https://www.retiredracehorseproject.org/2015-ambassador-award
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