While his 3rd year might have been a big one, Ally's 4th year was definitely bigger.
He entered his first dressage show,
was free jumped with his dad,
started jumping under saddle,
entered his first jumping shows,
and went to horse trials.
Dressage isn't a big thing for me, but it seemed like a good idea to get as much flat work into him before we worked on jumping during the summer. This is from his (and my) first dressage show. Since then, the only dressage we've done has been at horse trials.
May of 1999, Ally and I were working over fences in our lessons. He was still in his over jumping phase.
At liberty, he shows off his muscles.
Here's one of Ally and me after our very first
horse show ever (a jumping class) and one of us jumping.
I considered it a success just to get OVER all the jumps. He had
a slight mental issue over whether they were scary things trying
to eat him, or if he was actually supposed to get near them and
jump them. To say the least, it was a 2' to 2'6" class and
he jumped it a *bit* bigger than that.
Since then, we've improved =)
Here's some of Ally the winter of 1999/2000 before he turned 5 when he was running around out on the cross country field. His tail is in a mud knot ... not usually that short. And his color is a bit lighter from his body clip. *grin*
