Girls' Day at Triple Creek Jumping Show

This morning we loaded up Raven (who was Xena, but is now officially one of my personal Bit of Honey horses!) Beauty, and a new mare named Santina.  Beauty's owner is Alice, and her sister Trish owns Santina.  The last show they went to was a little wilder than Trish would like, so Santina will be attending some of the shows with Bit of Honey this year for field trip experience and ground manners, as well as show exposure while the two of them get to know each other better.

Part of Santina's work today included behaving in hand with Trish handling her, and getting Santina to focus on Trish instead of on the various horse monsters that lurk around show grounds.  Last night we did some pre-show coaching at Bit of Honey to give them some skills to use at the show.  These included breathing techniques and some postural changes to help Trish feel more confident and get Santina listening better.

We started out by walking the horses in hand down to the arenas.  I had Raven tacked up but wearing a halter so she could use the day to meet the people and see the sights, just to gain some more horse show mileage.  Alice rode Beauty down.  Once we got there and Trish and Santina had looked around some, Trish mounted.  Santina initially did some sidestepping in an effort to avoid going in the warmup arena, so I took Raven over to her and performed my regular role as security blanket to get both mares going confidently in the warmup area.  

As Santina and Trish became more confident and relaxed in the warmup, Raven and I gradually got farther away to give them more independence.  Eventually I went to doing ground work with Raven and let Santina warm up over the cross rails.

  Raven is a mare with opinions, but she quickly decided to cooperate with me.

Next we headed over to the indoor arena to let the mares have a look at the jumps and ring where they would be showing. 

Raven took a good hard look at the cartoon characters decorating the jump standards

Since it was a jumping show, I decided to do a little in-hand jumping with Raven to help her get the idea!  She happily followed me right over.

The rest of Raven's day was mostly hand grazing and standing around politely while I coached Santina's rides.

All the girls had a great day at the show!

Sisters were all smiles when we were done.

It was a marvelous day for all of us, and we couldn't have done it without Sara, our photographer and groom for the day.  She lugged around a big backpack containing our water bottles, snacks, and camera.  She held horses while we used restrooms, she organized sunglasses between jumping rounds, and somehow managed to keep track of all the timing for both Santina and Beauty's rides.  We all went home tired, but satisfied and eager to see what will come next for this great group of girls.