For Father’s Day, Vicki and I rode in a dressage and 2 phase horse show.  Alex and Amanda didn’t want to show and we decided that was fine.  This was my first show (other than some fairs) since 2010 when I was still on King.  This was also the first time I have ever actually entered a jumping class.  While I was not necessarily totally ready and refined, I wanted to take Mojo to the show and see how he behaved.

King was always a great horse at home, and still is, but about 3 times as much horse once you got to the show grounds.  “High energy” would be an accurate description.  I was extremely pleased to find Mojo was the same horse on the show grounds as at home.  I think he was actually more focused and ready to work than schooling at home.  Mojo and I entered the 18″ cross-rail 2 phase division which includes dressage test Intro B.  We separately rode dressage test Intro C.  To get ready for the show, I did ride Mojo through the Intro B test twice in the weeks before the show.  We never tried Intro C.  As for jumping, I think I jumped Mojo 3 times in the month we have had him.  We never actually jumped a full course.  In fact, I don’t think we ever put more than 4 jumps together in a set.  Anna’s opinion was I was crazy to go so under-trained and having no idea what would happen on the jump course.  I figured why not give it a shot.

Let’s be honest.  Dressage is boring.  I’ll just summarize the 2 dressage tests with we have areas to improve on but I wasn’t last in my divisions.  But Vicki did get higher dressage scores on Devil, riding the same tests with the same judges.

The jumping was much more fun.  When we got out into the warm-up area, Mojo and I started working over the practice fences and it was awesome.  He was ready to go, so we headed on the course and jumped a clear round.  He didn’t give me any hesitation and we had a blast.  Anna would not that my form requires improvement, I look down at the jumps, I sometimes catch him in the mouth, and Mojo doesn’t always get the correct lead coming off the jump.  That’s why she is a better rider.  I just know we had fun and he can definitely jump higher!  Vicki and Devil also jumped a clear round and had a blast doing it.  We want to find a jumping only show…

I would also like to note that Mojo has now been with us for 5 weeks and has been out of shoes for 5 weeks after many years in front shoes.  He has been tender on his front feet (to be expected for the transition) so we normally ride him in boots.  However, for the dressage show, I couldn’t ride him with boots.  Last week I gave him a trim and applied Hoof Armor.  The Hoof Armor worked like a champ and he didn’t take a tender step all day.  I will be continuing to experiment with the Hoof Armor on my own horses before offering it to clients, but so far, I’m happy with it!  The next step is to put it on the ponies and see how they do on the rocky trails without any boots.