And we get better!

So Rocky Fork's first hunter pace of the season was last Saturday. Aaaand.....I'm just going to lay it out like this. 

BOOM! Third place! At the last pace (Miami Valley) there were roughly 40 riders, at RF's pace there were 78! 15 teams (of 2-3 riders) in our division alone! We got our time down to just 5 minutes too fast. The 1st place team was 49 SECONDS too fast. 

I rode Big Fella and teamed up with Cloud 9 on her gelding Drool Worthy (please, I know, my creativity is out of this world). MVH's pace last week had roughly 12 numbered jumps. RF's had 40! Now, we didn't jump nearly all those jumps, probably only about 10 (ok, I snuck in some on my own since Big Fella likes to lag so.far.behind, so 13?) but I really wish we would have! The jumps varied from stadium jumps around the soybean fields to log jumps in the woods, to stone fences between the two. We had a bad mini-storm the week before which leveled quite a few trees in the area - lucky for the pace, they were put to good use! 

Big Fella is lagging a bit in the fitness department so part of my unspoken agreement with him is I'll work on my two-point and give his back a breather during our trot sections. His canter is pure rocking-horse and a joy to sit - his trot has a lot of action so I don't mind working on two-point. When I get tired of trotting two-point I stand in my stirrups and pretend I'm cruising between fences at Rolex. 

Dassah-Mare really needs to get out to a pace soon and fortunately there's quite a few left!