Keysoe!

I foolishly allowed my yard mate to persuade me to go to an evening clear round event at Keysoe on 22nd August .  I was very dubious about jumping as I haven't done any for ages.  She said she would put some jumps up in our menage for us to do some practice a couple of days before.  Okay then, I thought, we'll see how the practice goes. 

Rather surprisingly, the practice went extremely well and when I measured the biggest jump afterwards it was 2'9"  -  he's never jumped that big before!  I didn't really have an excuse not to go then and I was strangely quite keen!    

Not too scary

We came across a diversion en route to Keysoe and managed to get lost so we were a little late arriving which meant that we were too late for the 60cm and had to jump the 70cm course.



Scary pumpkin jump

When we went in the ring Santana was all over the place, looking at the jumps and the banners round the edge.  He's lead such a sheltered life it was all rather overwhelming for him!  I showed him as many of the jumps as I could before heading towards the first - a quite innocuous straight.  When Santana realised I was expecting him to jump it his legs went all over the place and he stopped with his nose almost touching the top of the pole and legs akimbo.  We came around a second time and we were off   ... that is until we arrived at the second jump.  We managed to get round the course - eventually - and as I had paid for two rounds decided to do my second round straight away. 

This time it all went much more smoothly.  I knew he had now seen, and jumped, all nine jumps so there was no excuse.  I sat back and rode with purpose and we flew over all of them.  The only hiccup was a run out at the second part of the double, but that was soon remedied. 

All in all I was very pleased with him as it was a big step up from anything he had done before.  I came out of the ring absolutely exhausted and pumped with adrenalin, but I was also pleased with myself for having done it.

Second part of the double - Yay!

Getting into our stride