El Sueno H/J show (pics and video)

Sunday morning we went to a lovely little hunter/jumper show down the road at the beautiful El Sueno Equestrian Center (home of Debbie Rosen of Wild Ride Eventers). It was a beautiful foggy morning that burned off to become a lovely sunny afternoon.

Longing in the derby field.

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? All 3 goals (not fall off, not get eliminated, go forward in between jumps rather than up-and-down) were solidly accomplished! Hemie was an absolute rock star - solid as if he'd been doing this for years.

He got off the trailer and was totally calm. Longed in a derby field. Calm. Warm up in a covered arena (first time). Calm. Go into a new arena and tackle a crossrail course with extra colorful flowers. Calm. Stand around and wait. Calm. Dogs and people and loose horses. Calm. Go back to the trailer by himself. Calm. Get loose from trailer and have a stranger catch and retie him. Calm.

And OTTBs have a reputation for crazy. Ha! I got the *right* OTTB then!

Thanks Weez for the pic! What a nice facility.

As to performance, we competed and placed in:

• X-rail hunters (2nd of 3)
• X-rail handy hunters (2nd of 3)
• X-rail equitation (2nd of 3)
• Hunter under saddle (4th of 4)
• 2' hunters (3rd of 6)

The flat class was just for Hemie's general experience. It was our first, and as far as I'm concerned it can be our last.


I was quite fortunate to have a groom for this show. My husband's friend said she was interested in being near horses and "helping out"...so naturally I roped her into being a schlepper groom. She was quite helpful and very good with the horses.

Here's some more pics and video:

From our first ever flat class.

JD on Pixie, left, Hemie and I, center.
Congrats to JD on winning the blue in her first show on her horse!

Video is of 3 classes: 

x-rail handy hunter (note stop after fence 1 - that was required in the course), 

x-rail equitation, and 

2' hunters.

I'm so pleased with our performance. We have come a long way from our September derby, where we bounced around like bunnies. =]