Cross Country School at Sunrise

After enjoying the mini horse trials that Sunrise Equine hosted over the last two months we asked if we could come school their very beginner friendly course.  I took Ferriana, Joan rode Rain, and Gillian rode Silver.  We had a great time!  Silver remembered running the course when he was competing, and was a little hot to start.  Gillian did a wonderful job of sending him forward at the trot, getting him to bend, change directions, and land quietly then come back to a civilized gait.

Rain thoroughly enjoyed herself as always.  She adores jumping and going places, so was really happy to participate.  I had tossed her stuff in the trailer since we were running a little late, and when we arrived Joan realized I hadn't packed a saddle pad for her.  I have spares of most everything in the trailer, but no extra jumping pad.  As a result, Joan and Rain got to break in my sparkly new white dressage pad on the cross country field.  They did a remarkable job of keeping it clean!

Ferriana's progress is stunningly fast, and I can feel her thinking and reasoning things out in her mind.  When we first started out we rode around the jumps first, then walked over the small logs near the front.  Because Silver was excited to run and jump, and to avoid traveling the same path Silver had gone a few weeks ago, we then went to the ditch in the middle of the field.  Ferriana looked hard at it as we walked around, and when I offered to let her go over she said "Absolutely not".  I didn't push the issue, since it makes more sense with this horse to let her watch, learn, and decide to do it on her own.  We stood aside and she observed Silver and Rain going over the ditch from both directions.  They walked through, treating it like a trail riding obstacle, and they also trotted and cantered over so they could actually jump it.  Ferriana stared.

We then schooled the other small fences on the course to give Ferriana the idea of what was going on, to help Silver settle down and realize he can just mosey around without worry, and Rain of course just hopped over everything with her fuzzy ears forwards.  We went over a bunch of different logs, ground poles, and let the horses look at the much larger fences to give them that exposure.

Joan was able to get some video of Ferriana jumping, which was fun to see. Here she is trotting towards the log, eagerly looking for the obstacle, and then going over.

After we were done with schooling the rest of the course, we returned to the ditch.  By then Ferriana had the idea that we go over the logs in a thoughtful manner, and was willing to follow Silver when he went over the ditch.  She was brave and went over it on her own next, though jumped it slightly larger than she needed to.

Subsequent tries were more organized, but she still didn't want to hit the log so she tucked her legs up tight each time.

I still need to edit the videos to skip the parts where the camera wildly swings around trying to keep Ferriana in view, but soon I'll have videos of all three horses uploaded and shared here.  It was a fun jump school and I'm incredibly pleased with Ferriana's progress!