Jumper Infamy

Wow, do I have the stories to tell... And unfortunatly no pictures to go with.

Yesterday was a LONG day. We went to the Como Zoo with my 8 and 5 year old cousins. The zoo was interesting (I've been there quite a few times) and I very much love the conservatory. Charissa was quite enthralled with the Japanese Garden. THEN we went to ComoTown, a small kiddy sized amusement park. Uuuuugh... We were there for FIVE hours. And of course, KRISTIE has to go on ALL the rides, most of them spinny rides. I don't handle spinny rides too well. We did the swings, the little roller coaster, the tea cups, the pumpkins, the frog hopper, the train, this weird ride that went up and down slow while you shot water at fake fire, and OH the bumper cars. Ian, the younger of the two, is more or less a wimp and wouldn't go on many of the rides. But he would go on the bumper cars (go figure), and since he is only 5 I had to go with him as the adult. But the bumper cars are very small and I really couldn't fit that well, so every time someone bumped us my shins would smash up against the front of the car. And we went on them over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. I was motion sick, tired, and cranky by the end of the day. But I didn't let on the cranky part.

TODAY I particpated in my first jumper schooling show. Here is the tale:

To start off, I have two things to say : 1) I'm glad I have no problem laughing at myself, and 2) Sometimes Sackett is too good for his own good!! He he. Yes, so I went to my first jumper show today. Sure, it was schooling show, but you've gotta realize that I know squat about jumper shows and that it was an incredibly confusing ordeal for me. Signing up for classes was a mess because I didn't know what things like the roman numerals "I" or "IV" meant, I had no idea that some of the classes were optimum time (and never found out what that time was!), and I accidently signed up for a jump off class, which I had not wanted to do (I switched classes). Figuring out and memorizing the courses was also a bit of a hassle.

.

So I entered into a 2'6" optimum time class and a 2'9" speed class (to avoid the jump off). My 2'6" class went super good and I ended up getting 4th place out of roughly 15 people. I was just tooling through it without really trying to go fast or hit the optimum time. (Because I didn't know the optimum time anyways) It was the 2'9" class that was interesting.

.

It started off with a verticle, four strides to another verticle, a sharp left turn to a square oxer, then another sharp left turn to a verticle. You were then supposed to do a SUPER sharp roll back turn to the right to a skinny verticle. The verticle with the roll back turn after was set very close to the arena fence and you only had about a stride and ahalf of space to get your turn in before the arena fence. I'd say the arena fence was about 4 feet.

.

So I'm going through the course, trying to get my speed on a bit. As I'm going over the verticle with the roll back I more or less "forgot my lines" and couldn't remember if I was supposed to turn left or right. I landed and Sackett went straight. During that stride I realized that I was supposed to turn right and so I began to open my right rein when I realized (oopsy) that Sackett had locked in on the arena fence!!! He was completely committed to that fence and was attempting to jump it the same time I was attempting to turn right. SO he did a stumbling leap over it, nocked it half way down, and stopped while straddling the fence. I actually didn't fall off, but I jumped off right away because I thought Sackett might freak out straddling that half demolished fence. But he didn't, he just stepped through it, pulling it down the rest of the way as he went. He wasn't in even the LEAST bit phased.

.

As soon as everyone found out we were ok it was pretty much a roar of laughter. The judge let me finish the course (my turn was VERY nice the second time) and it finished out ok even though we didn't place of course. I had several people tell me afterwards how "cool" or "awesome" it was to watch! Rocky told me that when I realized he was going for it the best thing to have done would have been to just gone with him, but I obviously wasn't thinking too fast at the time. *sigh* My first show and I'm already infamous for destroying property!!!