Twin Rivers, Days 1 and 2

Our weekend started with a bit of drama as Cupid did not want to load in the trailer.  I was surprised because he was good last time.  This time we had a bigger (6 horse) trailer, with a pretty big step up.  We tried coaxing him with treats and grain.  We tried a lunge whip, to no avail.  The hauler finally moved the trailer to the hill so the step wasn't as big but by that point Cupid didn't even want to go near it.  I was about to give up when my wonderful vet came by, and patiently lifted each leg and slowly moved him forward until he was on.

The drive was about 3 hours.  We got there and let the horses get settled in their stalls and have some lunch.  Then we saddled up and headed out for a walk around the cross country course.  Cupid and I are doing the beginner division which is not timed, you can trot for both show jumping and cross country, and the maximum jump size is 18 inches.  We jumped a few of the jumps we thought might be part of our course, and a few of the Intro jumps (next level up).  Cupid was very good, and I was more relaxed then I was at Camelot.

Relaxing in his temporary home

On the second morning we explored the show jumping arena.  My nerves were starting to act up again a little.  Although Cupid was being good, he is definitely more eager to go when he is away from home.  Then we were told we were not supposed to be in that arena, whoops.  So instead we went back out to the cross country course.  Cupid got a little excited when we cantered through and out of the water!  Our trainer had us do a good bit of cantering after that, which definitely tired me out more than Cupid. 

Photo by Michelle Cale

Photo by Michelle Cale

By the second afternoon Cupid was getting bored of spending so much time in a stall, even though I took him out for several walks.  He has a bad habit of putting his teeth on the stall bars and scraping them back and forward.  It makes a bad sound and also can't be good for him!  Maybe next time I'll try to bring some sort of stall toy for him, but I think he may still be more interested in the bars!  He also was not really interested in eating his grass hay.  He ate up the alfalfa hay and his grain, and a bunch of disgusting old scraps of hay he finds on the ground so I think he's just being picky.