RendezVous

So now that we're all thoroughly saddened by my fairly sudden loss of Dieter as a partner, let me give you a reason to be excited again. There is a new lady in my life. She's a 5-6 year old draft cross (Clydesdale/quarter horse) bay mare with 4 white socks and a brand on her left hind that says "RV". I've decided to call her RendezVous with the barn name Dezi. She's probably somewhere in the range of 15.3 hands, but I haven't officially sticked her. Anyway, Chris showed me some videos of her when I started thinking about selling Dieter. We quickly went to go look at her and fell in love. On our first ride, she had no idea what she was doing and was super green, but she generally felt safe & like she would do her best to do whatever I asked of her. We ended up taking her home with us that night. And we've kept her. And she's exceeded all expectations.

The first week I had Dezi, we weren't able to do very much because it was super rainy and there was a lot going on that prevented much riding. But we did get a chance to cut off the majority of her 2 foot (not really an exaggeration) mane. So we decided to enter her in a show. Why not? What could possibly go wrong? It would be interesting to see how she did in that environment. The second week I had her, we worked on building some rapport, fitting tack to her, and just being able to ride enough to be able to make it through a show with an intro dressage test & some ground poles. I wasn't able to do a whole ton, because work was crazy that week and I had to stay late a lot of nights. Plus, I hadn't taken that Friday off of work, because I hadn't asked for it early enough and my boss couldn't find coverage.

So we took her to Rio Equestrian Center on August 24th. Chris and Leah loaded him for me and I met them at the show grounds. I lunged her Friday night and got on for a quick hack around our dressage arena. She was perfect. She didn't look at anything and she did really well in the open (a little different than the smaller arenas where we had been practicing). After some drama with the fans and discovering that I had spent our whole warm up riding around the wrong dressage ring, I went to Anthony's house for some rest, since it's only 20 minutes from Rio.

Saturday morning, I got to the show around 7am and immediately started taking care of her. I spent the morning and the first part of the afternoon watching my teammates ride. Around 1:30, I started lunging Dezi and getting her ready to ride. The atmosphere was a bit more tense, so I was worried she would be more affected than she was the night before. Nope. She was fine. We had a nice warm up. Didn't even bother cantering, because we wouldn't need to in either of our dressage tests (both were only walk/trot). She went into the ring like she owned it. She had some baby moments, which were to be expected. But overall, she was sane and smart and did everything I asked of her. Our ground pole round was so cute. She went through every standard and didn't look at anything. Being alone in an arena? No biggie. Totally new place? No problem. Never done a course before? I got this, mom.

So she got a day off and then we went to work. We've still been messing with her tack and her bit to make sure we have the right fit. And she recently got her teeth done. But my main concern was whether or not she would jump. Whether or not she would like to jump. Whether or not she would be able to be an event horse. So last weekend, we jumped her.

We started in the round pen where we could use the lunge line to get started. She was totally fine with the jumps. She took them all like cavaletti. No problem. She never thought about not going over the jump. We went from tiny crossrails to 6 inch verticals to 18 inch crossrails to 18 inch verticals and she didn't care about any of it. So I rode her over jumps. She had baby moments in the canter, not wanting to stay in a frame, but when it came to the jumping, she was perfect. She went over everything. She was a total rockstar.

Then this weekend, we went to Iron Horse Hill in Louisberg, KS. We used to go there more frequently, but we haven't been in a while because our footing has been fine, but with all the rain, we needed somwehere to jump safely. Dezi and I rode in a group with our barn's beginner novice horses. And we did it. She started out a little unsure over a small crossrail. We probably did it about 10 times in each direction before she actually took it out of stride and jumped well. So we stood in the middle and watched the other girls jump courses. When they were finished, Dezi and I warmed back up and they dropped the jumps to small verticals for us. She was a total rockstar. She jumped everything well, maintained her frame more consistenly, jumped a combination, & even went over a crossrail/vertical oxer that was 23 inches in the back. She didn't look at anything. She didn't consider stopping. I think she likes to jump! I couldn't be happier with her. And I couldn't stop watching her videos (despite my boyfriend's objections).

And so, a new partnership has begun. I have a good feeling about this horse and this upcoming season. I think we're going to have a lot of fun!