Garden State Horse Show Report

A week ago we packed Choc's trunk with all his worldly posessions
(including two varieties of horse cookie and a box of sugar cubes -
in his opinion the important part), loaded him on the trailer beside
five bales of hay and traveled to the big Garden State Horse Show
in Augusta NJ for the jumper divisions.

We had a wonderful, albeit somewhat exhausting time what with
early mornings and late nights. (Now, some of the late nights were
due to going out after the show....) Choccie was *wonderful*, had
one rail down the whole show and picked up an eighth place ribbon
(out of 35 starters) in the Level 4 Jumper Stake. Which means he
won actual money. Therefore, Saturday evening Choc bought a
round of drinks with his prize money, leading Donal to lead a salute
to Choccie. ;-)

He had a chance at ribbons in the two level 5 classes as well as he
had clean first rounds but alas, Donal's sense of direction must have
been compromised as he turned the wrong way in one class and had
to correct his course, leading to 4 time faults and in the other class
he was very fast in the jump-off - but added in the Liverpool. I think
the problem is that he has spent most of his time in the states training
problem horses and this is the first chance in years that he has had
to be competitive in the jumper ring. Either that or he needs a GPS
for his GPA. ;-)

The really great thing is that the horse was very rideable, very
confident and showed every sign of learning how to handle the
technical questions they throw at jumpers these days. He learned
a lot at the show about related distances that are not set on stride
and handled them beautifully. It's very exciting - my sister and I
picked him out as a four-year-old in a field in northeast PA. We
chose him on the basis of his breeding, his good movement and his
good free jump. Despite the fact that you could not catch him at that
point.

I think the cross-country school was good for him as he was much
more open in his stride. Cool. We are going to do that again.

Why I love my trainer: There is a kid in the barn who has had the
world's worst luck over the past year. Her horse fractured a scapula,
was laid up for four months. She spent time reconditioning him, took
him to two shows and he injured his left rear fetlock and has spent
another month in the stall. She never pouts or complains, rides the
little barrel-shaped App just to have something to ride and works in
the barn 10-15 hours a week. Kristin loves Choccie and has ridden
him and taken some lessons on him. We dragged her along to the
show - on Thursday, Donal told her to get her riding stuff, she was
going to do the morning warmup ride in the Grand Prix ring. She
rode him Friday as well. He invited her to walk the courses, including
the course for the Grand Prix Saturday afternoon. She worked her
rear off helping with Choc and the other horses there and at the end
of the show Donal pronounced her a "good gaffer." She had no idea
what that meant but we told her it was good. :-) So even though she
couldn't show, she felt part of things which was a huge boost for her.

I've put up an album for Choc at Garden State:

http://tinyurl.com/3aqfgm

In other news, the Irish horse is shipping on Thursday and we will
be able to pick him up from quarantine Sunday morning. At last!

Sue
svleopold@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.