This is part 18 of Jenny’s adventure as a working student and EN guest blogger. Jenny has ambitiously decided to spend this year as a working student in Lexington, Kentucky, and along the way she has become one of the most prolific guest blogger in EN history. Thanks very much as always for writing this Jenny and thank you for reading.
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From Jenny:
Hello Eventing Nation!
It has been quite a while since my last post, it’s hard to figure out where to begin! Since my last blog another one of our mares foaled and gave us a beautiful little black filly, whom we have named ‘Diva.’ She is quite the spitfire and already has proven that although little, she is very fast! Diva is by Catherston Dazzler and out of my favorite broodmare. Bacon, our first foal of the year, is doing very well, and is a huge hit in the barn. He is BIG and extremely friendly, and is starting to play with Diva in the field. Our next mare is due to foal any time now, in fact we have been on foal watch since last week, and we thought for sure she would have it this weekend just to be inconvenient and interrupt our competition schedule! She has yet to pop, but any day now…
Not only have we been taking shifts to foal watch these past couple of weeks, but we have also been taking shifts teaching the kids in our pony camps all sorts of fun horsey things. My favorite part of the week was the fashion show, where I separated them into teams of three and gave each team a saddle pad, 2 polo wraps, a quarter sheet, a fly mask, and a feed bag, and made them dress themselves up and do the catwalk down the centerline. The kids LOVED it and kept begging me to do another round, so by the fourth round I was scrambling for a style theme, and settled on birds. Well, who would have thought that Nemo (Megan’s Advance horse) is terrified of children dressed up as birds in horse clothes! Megan was flatting in the ring while the kids were running around flapping their saddle pads and feed bags, and let’s just say that Nemo will probably never be a children’s horse!
Speaking of children horses, we acquired a new appy pony named Kiwi who has been a huge hit with everyone. Unfortunately for me, we obtained Kiwi thru a trade for Pesto, my little rocket pony. Pesto was originally bought for the lesson program and when it became obvious she would not be a kids pony, I took her on as a project and fell in love with her for her crazy jump and inability to ever slow down! With the show season and all of our babies in training, I haven’t had the time for Pesto–she was just sitting in the field doing nothing, so now she is off being someone’s games pony! I think I am the only one who misses Pesto because she was the true definition of a mareish mare, but there will always be a place in my heart for that fresh little paint pony!
I always thought Pesto would be the only mare I would like, but Megan has been sneakily converting me–my riding list has mysteriously been growing with mares lately! One mare that I am really excited about is a 5 y/o Trakehner who has taken some time to figure out and get going, but now is jumping with so much confidence and enthusiasm. I know that with her movement and jump she is going to be a very fancy eventer or hunter in the future! We also got a big and beautiful OTTB who was bred and then put in a field for a couple of years, so she is starting a bit late but definitely has the mindset to learn quickly. She will also be a fancy one to look out for in the future!
Now for what I have been wanting to write about all this time– Midsouth Pony Club HT was this past weekend, as well Molson and my training debut! I have been waiting for months for this weekend, and have been super excited to move up! I rode dressage on Friday and was thrilled with Moo. Megan told me it was our best test to date, yet I unfortunately got my worst score to date with Moo with a 36. Still a great score (we did get a 9 on our halt!), and I’m definitely excited for what we can do in the future with more experience. When I walked the xc course with Megan it was obviously not a soft move-up training, but everything seemed do-able for us newbie’s. There was a challenging toothbrush that was shared with the Prelim, as well as a corner and rather large half coffin, all of which Molson did without any problems. The whole course was a blast and I keep replaying it in my mind just because I can’t believe we actually completed a training, with plenty of time to spare as well! On Sunday I was still on cloud 9 from xc, that I didn’t even care what place we were in (Megan doesn’t let us look at our scores anyways). My big goal of the weekend was to just complete the event, so when we had a double clear stadium round I was smiling from ear to ear and just a pinch away from crying! Not only did we finish on our dressage score, but we somehow managed to tie for first place! With a slightly faster round than the other rider, we took second, and I can’t stop smiling! The weekend was a great one, with one of our riders winning the Open Prelim, and everyone else taking home lots of ribbons in the BN and N divisions. I can’t be more proud of the Team CEO family, and can’t wait for Champagne Run in a few weeks. This weekend we have our home mini-trial, which is going to be so much fun to have people come and ride on our home turf!
Until next time!
xo, Jenny
