Saturday Pony Extravaganza! Part 3 - WITH BONUS PLANTATION FIELD WRAP-UP!

I IZ CHANCEY THE VERY GUD BABY BRONTOSAURUS!

SO... after I had hour-long lessons on both Dino and Sully, I took the boys home and hopped on my third ride of the day, the very handsome Mr. Chance.

Chancey belongs to the third rider in our little Orchard Hill trifecta, and he is a sweet, sweet, baby brontosaurus of a horse.

Chance's mom is going to be unable to ride for quite a bit of the month of October, so she asked me to help keep her guy in work and assist in bolstering his dressage skillz. We had our first little session on Saturday, and he was a champ!

Being half Cleveland Bay, Chancey is built on the longer side with a very upright neck. While this makes him very good-looking and majestic, it makes correct flatwork more difficult for him. So, this weekend we spent some time at the walk and trot learning about stretching his topline OUT instead of tucking his nose IN, and taking bigger steps with his hind legs.

While he is still not quite sure that his hind end is, in fact, connected to his front end, Chancey has a GREAT brain, really wants to be a good boy, and tried very hard! We had a few moments in the walk where he really started stretching his topline and swinging his back, which was met with some obnoxious "GOOD BOY!!!"s and wither scratches. In trot we were able to achieve bits and pieces of better balance, and I got a better idea of how to help Chancey be the best baby brontosaurus he can be. He is a really sweet guy and I'm happy to get to ride him and get miles on a totally different type of horse than I'm used to!

CHANCEY GET COOKIEZ NOW???

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, and the hubby, Max, and I were on our way to Plantation Field to meet up with Emma and Megan and watch the 3* cross country. While we didn't get there quite as early in the day as we wanted to, we still had an absolute blast!

YAY EVENTING FRIENDS! 

I will forever be in awe of upper-level event riders. Several of the fences made me feel sick just thinking about jumping them, and these people just piloted their horses over like it was NBD. We saw one rider fly over a massive, horrifying trakhener in perfect form with her reins in ONE HAND. I am further convinced that upper level eventing is not for me, but wow, it was incredible to watch those horses and riders do something I can't even imagine ever doing!

As is the norm with this crazy blogger crowd, there was much fun and laughter to be had, as well as tasty snacks. Plantation had a great set-up going with a beer tent (!!), delicious food, and an ice cream truck. We made good use of all of those amenities, and Max made TONS of new friends.

He had such a great day!

The one thing that really stuck out for me while we were watching cross country was how all of the riders kept going. Bad distance? Keep going. Horse didn't quite land where they wanted it to through a combination? Keep going. Not quite enough pace? Keep going. A drone that sounds like killer bees is following you? Keep going. There were several situations in which I would have totally bailed and not even attempted to jump the thing, but the UL riders all just made it happen. It didn't have to be perfect, they just got the job done. Phillip and Boyd also each fell off one of their horses, and then rode the rest of their mounts to good finishes.

They Kept Going.

Perhaps I should have KEEP GOING painted on all my jumps?!

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