March 24, 2010

HoY - Xev's Jumping

Headed up to HoY on Monday to get all settled in for a very long week up in Hastings. I spent the first day getting sorted, and then got some shopping out of the way. My first jumping classes were Wednesday.
Xev had just recently got over an abscess and had been working well the few days before we left. I rode her around on the showgrounds and she seemed really good, but after a course walk it was quite obvious that our jumping ring was something like concrete so we had to take it fairly carefully. In my first class I could tell Xev wasn't all that comfortable, so headed off to get Kylee from Hot Spots thermal imaging to see if we could see anything obvious. There was still a tiny bit of heat in that hoof - but well on the mend. Not the greatest timing, really, but that is horses sometimes!
So our jumping on Wed & Thurs was a little untidy and we opted not to start in our 1.15 class - but great to be amongst the atmosphere and get our bearings. Friday was a no-jumping day for us - and then on Saturday Xev came out really nicely for a good round in the Gamblers Stakes which was a lovely way to finish up the show.
I was really impressed with how well Xev handled the long week away from home. Especially with Neo calling out and trying to make things difficult whenever I seperated them.
Xev now looks ahead to mostly dressage starts over winter - hopefully getting a lot more registered outings under her belt. Xev's full brother (Farrago Spydekka) was also up at HoY - sadly we didn't manage to catch up with him and his owner, but I did see ribbons for them in the Rising Star results which is fantastic. Farrago have a few younger horses that will be coming out shortly too which will be very exciting to see.

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