July 19, 2009

QEP XC Practise: Coco

Coco absolutely surpassed all of my expectations today. I was thinking that I'd tack her up, walk her around the parking paddock and let her see the other horses cantering - then that'd be it for her. But she wasn't as worried as I expected her to be. So I took her around some of the course - the picture of the little ramp below is the only actual 'jump' we did.
We started off at the end of the course with the waterjump. I spent quite a bit of time just walking her around and letting her see the other horses and hearing some splash through. She was actually very good about it all. When it came her time to walk in she hesitated a bit, and then slowly crept in. Each time she jumped out she did it from further back than I expected - so the poor girl got it in the teeth a few times :( poor Coco! I'm sorry!
After heading through the small option a few times I was feeling a bit brave, and curious. I walked her up to the drop option and she just plopped down. I couldn't believe it. I came back around at a canter and she just bounced off! I'm so stoked with that.
Feeling pumped from the waterjump we headed to the ditch. Coco had no idea how to tackle such a thing. She was perfectly happy to go through it - and I mean literally through it. The first pic below is actually a canter stide! She bounced the damn ditch! After a few botched attempts she worked it out and jumped over happily.
We also did the bank (I really wanted to cover off all the unusual fences - the water, ditch & bank - as you can't really replicate them at home). She had no worries with that and seemed to think it was quite easy after that tricky ditch!
So all up a very good day for the team. A big thanks to Pie for being photographer (I love our new camera!), and Swifty for being videographer, and Mum for promising to pull manes for me next weekend!

2 comments:

FeetNZ said...

Wow: she's turning out to be a little star!

perfk said...

thanks - I am so proud of her! she tries her heart out :)