A (Surprise) Weekend at LCGT

What started off as a simple family day trip ended up being a completely unplanned visit to the Longines Global World Tour to watch world-class show jumpers up close and personal.

Front row seats for all the excitement! 

W and I had been planning to treat my parents to a fun day trip in NYC as part of our thank you to them for helping us out with the wedding. Despite living so close to the city, my parents dislike the crowd hustle and bustle so they haven't ventured across the river for quite a number of years.

After thinking over several options that would be suitable and enjoyable for my parents, we decided to do a day-trip and picnic lunch at the scenic Governor's Island. This was a date location when W and I first got together and I loved the "mini getaway" feel it had since the island is only accessible by ferry.

We left the house early and swung by to pick up my parents to drive to the train station. All was well for the most part though we had to take an unexpected extra ferry ride from NJ to NY due to a train station being closed for construction work (thanks Hurricane Sandy) but everyone took it in stride without complaints. While on the ferry ride over to Governor's Island, I noticed a girl and her dad all outfitted equestrian paraphernalia and pointed them out to W. Of course that should have been clue #1 that something horse-related was going on haha

The day was absolutely gorgeous and the crowds were light since we got there early. After enjoying a big picnic lunch, we got a 4-person surrey rental and tandem biked our way around the entire island enjoying nearly 360 degree views of city skyline.

Smiles for everyone! We all had a great time trying something new. 

Seeing all the wide spacious paved pathways, my dad joked that they should offer horse carriage rides and trail riding. I laughed, "It'd be quite something to transport all those horses by ferry."

Imagine my utter surprise when we turned a corner and suddenly arrived in a sea of tents, event fencing and horses everywhere. Before I could even open my mouth, W turned to look at me and said, "You want to see the horses." He knows me too well haha

We dropped off our surrey when our rental time was up and walked back to see a full blown top-level international show jumping competition complete with vendors and tent tailgating. It was really quite amazing to see how baseball fields had been so thoroughly converted into a temporary stadium.

All the jumps were NYC-themed, it was FANTASTIC.

A decent number of vendors too.

Ponies for the kids to pet!

Apparently this year was the first time NYC was incorporated into the Longines Global Champions Tour show circuit and it was pure luck that our trip to the island coincided perfectly with the event being held that weekend. W was totally floored since he had specifically looked at the calendar to check for special events and didn't see any mention of the event on the agenda. 

It was the first time all of us got to see a show jumping event in person as well and my parents were happy to partake in the sights and sounds. 

My mom watching a rider taking her horse to the warm-up ring behind the stadium. 

No horse outing is complete without some free swag!
I'm curious to try that rub rag on Quest but the effort may be wasted since pasture lol  

Despite the transportation hiccups, it was really quite a great day and I had a wonderful time with my family. Seeing how my parents were excited about being at a horse show was good to see as well. They weren't fans of me learning how to ride at first and eventually reluctantly realized that my horse thing was not an random whim. They have slowly come to care about Quest as much as I do (my dad supplies the mareface with 75% of her apples lol) and just seeing them curious and interested was an encouragement!

A Weekend of Firsts

I had my very first schooling show this past Saturday- all things considered, it went pretty well. The other divisions were categorized by skill level for the younger riders but the only division I could compete in was set up by age (18 & older)- consequently I was up against some very tough competition who were all literally jumping and cantering circles around me. Poor Dylan had already done about 4-5 divisions with other riders that day so he was not looking his best either. Suffice to say with the knowledge and skills gap I didn’t get in the ribbons. Of course it would have been amazing to bring home a ribbon but it’s the experience that mattered in this case, and it definitely gave me fuel to keep getting better and work even harder to improve.

Rori and I had a lesson together yesterday with Christy and it addressed some questions that had come up during the past month. Christy hopped on her for a moment and I was slightly relived that the little hiccups that I noticed with her trotting consistently and the occasional head tossing weren’t completely because of me. I got back on her and got to work on my canter seat with Rori on the lunge line. She’s given me a few canter steps while we were out on the trail but they were sporadic and hesitant. Walk , trot, and canterrrrr. And there it was, I felt it! We were cantering! I had the biggest smile on my face. Christy let me go for a few more times around before stopping Rori to give me a high-five. She could no longer contain the silent applause in her head and had to heap praise on both of us. I was grinning from ear to ear the rest of the afternoon.

We finished off the lesson with a little trotting and I got to feel Rori do her pacey trot and it was actually super comfortable to sit. I’m half wondering if this is something I could get her to consistently do out on the trail because I could probably ride that for hours if she had the go power to keep it up. Our first real event together will be a 6-8 mile hunter pace the first week of April. Thanks to daylight savings and the longer days, Rori and I got a lot more trail mileage in last week. Hopefully this keeps up!