If you’ve kept up with my shenanigans over on Instagram (shameless plug haha), you would know I did a crazy thing a couple of weeks ago. After months of exclusively dressage, not even looking at a pole, Phim made his debut back in the jumper ring. This endeavor was not at all expected or planned for in the slightest so you are probably asking the same question my mom did when I told her my idea… “What happened?”.
It all started on a walk. No, I’m not joking, I was taking Phim for a nice tack walk as our relaxing ride of the week, in his trail bridle, a D-Ring snaffle with no noseband, and pink polos when I decided it would be a swell idea to see what he would do if I pointed him at the teeny log we have out in the jump field. When I say teeny, this log is maybe 9″ tall on a good day and any horse barely has to pick up their feet to get over it, let alone Phim’s 18.2hh self. And he walked right over it with no reaction, it honestly caught me off guard with how little he cared about it when in January he would have galloped away on the backside of anything pole-like. With his newfound calmness going over things, I made the executive decision to jump him over the 2 cross rails that were set in the arena. Because I am just crazy but not stupid, I had my friend Jen come out of the barn to watch us in case I died. So up to the cross rail we went, trotting along, excited but also a little terrified. And to everybody at the farm’s surprise, he jumped it with no issue and just cantered away gently. I did a couple of more goes over the jumps and called it a day, giving Phimmy all the Nutri-Grain bars he wanted, and went to drive home with a big smile on my face.
While on the way home, I sent Jen a text that read “On a level from one to batsh*t, how crazy would it be if I entered Phim in the horse show on Wednesday?”. She talked me through all the things I hadn’t considered yet (shoutout to Jen for being our voice of reason & biggest enabler) and then I finally made the decision to enter him.
With a day and a half to get everything together, I started packing my trunks, tracked down a new bit, and we were on our merry way down the street to KHP for the Kentucky National. He schooled phenomenally on Tuesday night and I felt really confident in our ability to put in a good round on Wednesday in the 1.0m. And boy did we! Even though I was a ball of nerves and needed to call in reinforcements to give me a pep talk, Phim was a superstar to put it lightly. We had an absolute blast with all our friends cheering us on ringside. Without their encouragement, I don’t think we would have done as well as we did. He hadn’t jumped at all in 9 months, I hadn’t shown that height in 2 years, and throughout the week, each round got better and better. Seriously could not have asked for a better reintroduction to the big sticks.
High off the success of our first outing, I jumped right on entering the next show, Split Rock Fall. It was flatwork and trail rides for our week off to keep sharp. The actual jumping of the jumps was never our issue, it was always the before and after the jump, so I wasn’t at all worried about jumping him between shows. Because he was doing strictly flatwork leading up to this, whether we knew it was coming or not, his rideability improved so much. I really credit dressage for Phimmy’s newfound success.
Once again on Tuesday, we headed back down the street to the show. Phim put in 4 beautiful rounds in the Clairborne ring like he had been doing it for his whole life, despite my inability to remember where I was going on Friday. We met some wonderful new friends who invited us to hack out with them as a confident buddy for her young horse and got to see some old friends for the first time in a couple of months to make the week even better. Nicole was even able to last minute add us to her private client list so I have beautiful proof of all our hard work paying off.
Overall, I could not be prouder of this horse. We were in such a tough spot after our last dressage show because he was giving me all the signs that he was not happy anymore. But I am so relieved that my random, spur-of-the-moment decision has him back to being happy again. Even though I kept pulling him off almost every distance and would just hold on for dear life going into the one strides, he never held anything against me. The horse he is becoming is special and I’m incredibly excited to see him thrive. One more show left in the 2022 season at WEC Ohio in November so make sure to follow along on Instagram @trottingonblog to keep up to date. As for the future, we’re going to see where this (not really) new path takes us. Phimmy seems to be as happy as ever and we’ll keep going so long as he stays that way. We’re aiming for Wellington but honestly, we’re just having some fun and hope to move up to the bigger sticks soon!
Loved the new article