Today Kevin came to hack with us, however, on a bike since he is definitely not a (horse) rider. At first Ruby was trying to pull a fast one and refused to leave the property... A 10-minute fight later we were on our way. We crossed the highway at Jigs Hollow and went to discover some new gravel roads. I had looked at some maps on the Internet ahead of time. This one road, Crook's Track, was supposed to end but it just kept on going and we ended up crossing a small bridge over the Grand and discovered even more gravel roads on the other side. Ruby was absolutely drenched by the end which means that I have to clip her as soon as possible.
Today Ruby's right leg started to lock up. So after the treatment she was good on both sides for a while, then the locking started on the left and now on the right.
The weather was great so i took her down to road to New Jerusalem. It was the mennonite rush hour with everybody coming from church with their buggies. One lady's horse was actually more scared of Ruby than Ruby was of her!
I came back from the vacation and tested out the new olympic-size sand jumper ring. Love at the first sight!
Giselle rode Ruby while I was gone. She said that Ruby cleared the 4-bar (120 cm with 120 cm spread).
Ruby enjoys the new ring and goes like a steam engine. I think the cooler weather has given her more energy. I felt a little bit rusty and the new riding boots were annoying but we managed to do some jumps up to 3'3". It is great that going over is never the problem, I can trust Ruby. Sometimes we get bad spots and mainly take off too close.
We went to the Twinholm (Burlington) jumper show on Saturday. What made this show extra exciting was the fact that I had promised to trailer Tanya's horse Tex as well. Thanks to some practising, Ruby climbed into the trailer like a little angel after Tex. We actually took the highways to Twinholm and it went very smoothly.
Ruby & I did 22'9" clear round, 2'9" with immediaqte jump-off and 3' speed classes. I was very happy as we did all clear rounds and Ruby seemed even more at ease than in the last show. There was no need to "push" her through the course which was great. I didn't want to do sharp turn so we weren't fast enough to win. However, we placed 8th in the 3' speed class despite almost having taken a wrong obstacle due to the number being knocked over.
Unfortunately Ruby didn't load as well on the way back... In fact we had to fight with her for 40 minutes. At the end she gave up and followed the grain bucket to the trailer. We were in a hurry so that was quite annoying!
Just back from Orlando, I had time to practise loading Ruby into my new trailer only a couple of times on Saturday. Kevin and I removed the divider and got Ruby almost in with the help of some extensive carrot bribery. Later in the evening Sandra helped me feed Ruby in the trailer so that time we actually managed to get her fully in and close the doors. I can't believe how difficult and stressful this is!!!
The Conestoga Cadora trillium show at Brookside was on Sunday. Kevin was there to help out. I saved Ruby's breakfast to lure her into the trailer. We did get her in fairly fast but not without a cost: she freaked out and backed out hitting her head in the ceiling which resulted into a cut... Blood was everywhere!
The show went OK. Uli didn't show up and Kevin was furious to stay there all day. I did training level and this time Ruby was more comfortable with the ring. We got mostly 5s with the comment that she should be more rounded in the frame. I think we'll get there fairly easily. To top it all, Ruby amazed us by loading into the trailer like a little angel on the first try! That's my girl!!!