Obstacles in Our Way

I am a person who likes doing things a certain way, and generally does not like change.  As you can imagine, that last few months have not been the most pleasant for me.  And just when I thought we might resume a bit of normalcy, a horse at our boarding stable presented with some suspicious symptoms so our barn was locked down for 3 weeks, no taking the horses anywhere.  (Cupid was not affected, but we did daily temperature checks to be sure.)  Of course we were entered into a show in the midst of this, our first since January.  Plans that had to be tossed out the window, yet again. 

I know horse shows are not that important in the greater scheme of things, but it was still a disappointment.  I just feel like it's so easy for something to go wrong with your own horse - injury, training problems, etc that I try to seize the opportunities when I can so it was a bummer when we had been training well and felt ready to go.  But that's 2020 for you.  And since I had cleared the day, I ended up volunteering at the show instead, so I feel good about doing that.

We are scheduled to do a working equitation show this weekend.  We did a clinic and schooling show 2 years ago so we're totally ready to do a rated show, right?!  Our rein back and opening gates still needs a little work, but overall I think Cupid will do well and it will be fun.  Aside from the heat expected where we're going... 100 both days. 

Yesterday I set up some stuff to practice.  I made a rope gate between two jump standards, poles to back up between, and pylons for weaving through.  One nice thing about working equitation is that there is a fairly short list of possible obstacles, and several of those are just bending around something.  I messed up the slalom thinking they needed to be 4 meters apart...which we cannot trot through for the life of us.  And it's one of the few obstacles that requires you to trot.  I was relieved afterwards when I looked it up and saw it is actually 6 meters, which I think we should be able to do.

Pylons

After we were done with the practice I needed to put everything away, and decided why not do it on horseback.  So I went over to the pylons and leaned down and grabbed one.  Cupid was a bit hesitant about having it swinging by his side but walked along.  I set it down in the corner and headed back to get the second one, and this time Cupid just seemed a bit curious.  We took it over where we put the first one, and headed back to get another one.  This time Cupid set off straight to where we took the others - he figured out the task at hand and seemed pretty pleased with himself! 

Rope Gate

Today we went on a trail ride in Runnymede Sculpture Garden.  Cupid was very good walking by a balloon on the street, and passing by a few flocks of wild turkeys.  We also went through two gates, and while we did not do a great job I gave Cupid treats for completing them and hopefully he is starting to get the idea.

Balloon up ahead - Cupid walked by no problem

So to recap, we've faced several obstacles, both planned and unplanned.  While the unplanned ones are not always fun, we're making it through and further solidifying our partnership!