Life with a Retired Show Horse: New Heights

Bella and I have officially moved past the fallen tree limb level!

Although there are times I miss the feeling of Bella’s energy in the show ring, I really do enjoy learning new things and having fun in retirement with her. She’s smart and figures new things out pretty quick, but she also makes me work for it. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about Bella. She’s not an automatic horse. You have to work with her. In the show ring, I had things figured out for the most part, but I’m having to learn all over again in our new adventures.

A few weeks ago, Bella finally got comfortable going over ground poles and didn’t knock them. The next step I decided to try was a very small jump. I’ve never taken a jump lesson in my life, so Bella and I had to figure this thing out together. Thankfully, Andrew has been taking lessons at an eventing barn the past few months and he’s been able to help from the exercises he’s been doing.

At first try, I asked Bella to trot over a small jump. Apparently she thought it was easier to knock the pole out of her way instead of go over it. You would think a horse would realize it’s better to go over the pole instead of knock it after a few times, but that thought didn’t seem to occur to Bella.

Mares.

We then tried cantering over the jump and that seemed to go better, but it was clear I needed help getting Bella to power over the jump. Next ride, Andrew set up some ground poles ahead of the jump. The goal was to get Bella to keep power through the poles so we had enough to get over the jump.

While there were a few knocked poles, Bella got the hang of it pretty well. We started by laying the pole across the base of the jump, then moved it up to the lowest notch, and then the second lowest notch. There was still some pilot error causing a few mishaps, but Bella was very proud of herself. She could hardly stand still and wanted to canter around the arena to go again.

So I’ll be back out there in my Saddle Seat saddle on my retired Saddlebred trying to fix the details. We still need to work on our leads while going over poles or a jump, but I’m thrilled to still be learning with my favorite horse, and thankful Bella makes me work to figure things out with her (although she’s probably already a few steps ahead).