Yesterday I went to the Belgrade Racecourse and the barns and was happy to meet many of my old friends, including my old trainer (with Professor Steve Steve below) as well as some good new kids, including two sisters who used to own and ride my old horse. There were two small show jumping classes yesterday (3'6" and 4'), both with simple, nicely flowing courses appropriate for the very beginning of the show season. The horses are all better than what we used to ride, the rides went smoothly, and both sisters placed in the bigger class that included a jump-off:
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Horse post! :-)
Looks like a spacious show-jumping arena...3'6" was about the highest fence I learned to ride over, before I switched to other equestrian activities.
Yes, it's huge. Really easy to set up a nice course, with or without various ditches and water-jumps. It may be a little too open for excitable horses and hard pullers, though. I wish there was a good indoor arena for riding those types there.
Oh, and this will be the site for the Balkan Championships in 2010 so there will be a lot of work to make it better, prettier, etc. with the new soil, new fences (these are pretty old), new warm-up paddock, etc.
It may be a little too open for excitable horses and hard pullers, though.
It took me awhile to understand the difference between small, contained riding areas vs. open spacious ones, with respect to horse behavior. Horses that I could play just fine in arena polo, would have killed me on the big field.
My only experiences with water jumps have been entirely unintentional, and occasionally without the horse. ;-)
I also wish they would tape some of the events and post the videos on their website.