Was in a ...photoshoot?

Went out to the barn this morning, hoping to get Soonie jumped in time so he and his buddy could go outside on time, and then maybe hop on one of the training horses.  Ended up in jumping in a magazine photoshoot??

Literally me

...I don't know.  Someone was trying to feature the TB charity in some magazine or something something so a professional photography crew came out.  And lots of people in country fashion.  In all seriousness, the people were perfectly lovely and it's super duper awesome that the charity may or may not be featured, or at least some music academy one of them is associated with will benefit (clearly, I did not follow the explanation of why there was a photoshoot in the first place).  I am all for Thoroughbreds and/or music education benefiting from some pretty horsey photoshoots, so I am happy they came out and got what they needed.  Sharing the farm is the fun part.

But on that topic of country fashion, if you haven't read Amanda's post over on The $900 Facebook Pony on "equestrian fashion," please do.  Because after laughing hysterically over that yesterday.... TODAY IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

I will preface this with the fact that I used to see "equestrienne" fashionistas all over the place when I lived in Middleburg.  Particularly at the big races, where ALLLLLL the Washington, D.C. city folk would come dressed in fashion tweeds, faux riding pants and faux riding boots with their cute scarves and giant hats.  Either they knew exactly how they looked, or they actually thought that's what us equestrians actually wore.  Ironically enough, the actual horse people would either be dressed in dirty barn clothes (because, horses) or would be dressed in distinctly "normal person" clothing because it was probably one of the few days on our calendar where we DIDN'T have to wear barn clothes.  So you have the city folk trying to dress like country folk, and the country folk dressing up like the city folk.

But while we're on this subject, SCARVES...are we supposed to wear fashion scarves when we ride?  Who in the fashion design world decided that was a thing anyway?

I mean what am I supposed to do with this when schooling

So back to today.... Bubba and I jumped some fences for them to photoshop into the background while the crew gathered around one of the other TBs who was there to look pretty.  Then it was over and everybody celebrated with Veuve.  No lie.

Actually, I'm just sad I couldn't partake in the champagne because I had other horses to get on and had to turn down the bubbly.  I'm grateful that they offered, but I figured green horses and Veuve was probably a bad combo.  And at the end of the day, the charity got featured and I'm getting a free, professional jumping photo out of the deal so color me thrilled.  :)


Back to the actual horse stuff, Soonie was fantastic today.  He only hacked out yesterday, given that I felt like garbage and we both had a long day on Friday.  I did a quick review of what we learned from Linda as our jumping warm up, and he felt great.  There was no fight today, when I repeated the application of the aids as Linda had taught me, he came right through and was moving nicely through his shoulder.  He got to that good place much quicker and much more honestly than he ever had before at home; so far it looks like that breakthrough is working!  I tried to keep it short though, given that is working some muscles that aren't used to being worked like that for very long.

Since I felt like we needed to jump something other than plain rails (Anne Kursinski clinic in a couple of weeks), so I set up a 3' vertical with the brick wall filler, and a triple bar with the lattice gate.  He warmed up great and was perfect over everything.  Linda Zang was right, Soon jumped so well with our new approach to throughness.  I just wanted to get him forward and soft to some fences that actually were interesting to look at (which, by the way, were not that exciting because zero shits were given).  I intend to ship out one evening this week to jump at the new trainer's place, so today's jump school was meant to be light and easy.  And it was.

Additionally, the photoshoot nonsense was a great schooling opportunity.  That's why I agreed to it.  Any chance I can get at home for Soon to have to work around or through some distraction and shenanigans, I take.  In this case, it was a group of new people making noise, a dog, a dude on a ladder, a photo umbrella and flash photography, and another horse in the middle of that chaos - and Bubba had to jump into that.  And he did, repeatedly, with no issues.  Sometimes it's just about using situations as growth opportunities and taking advantage of them.  He was super all day and was happy to play ball with the circus in town.  I was super proud of him once again!  :)