Specifically, it's about Miles, my 4 year-old gelding. I got him as a lightly started 3 year-old just over a year ago. It was more than a little bit crazy to get a horse that young and green, considering how inexperienced I am as a rider. However, this was trainer-endorsed insanity, partly driven by how wild the horse market is these days. And what can I say? We got lucky. He is so kind, trainable and generally level-headed. He's an elegant mover with gaits that are also comfortable to ride. It was hard to tell how he was going to jump at first because we didn't do much jumping and when we (by "we," I mean "my trainer" because I sure didn't jump him for the better part of a year) did, it was little stuff that he could just step over. But now that he's doing a little bit more, he's showing cute form over fences and great enthusiasm for the job. He is a DELIGHT and I am so grateful to have him in my life.
He's been doing some schooling shows this winter and then we'll shift to rated shows in the summer...hopefully at some point in there, I'll actually be able to start doing over fences classes with him instead of just being his groom who hopes to do a flat class LOL. We just did our first wee jumps outside yesterday, which was pretty thrilling. We've jumped a bit in the indoor, but it's a small arena so we were just doing single jumps. Sometimes we'd canter around and do it multiple times in a row if things were going well, but we needed more room to start putting combinations together. And then the seasonal move outdoors has taken some time, with all the horses acting squirrelly AF as the weather swings wildly between temperatures. But finally he was mostly sane yesterday and we got to make a start - yay!
