My husband signed up for cross country schooling to follow the show. He walked a tacked up and ready to go Eugene over with me. When I finished my course, he realized that he’d forgotten his helmet, so I gave him mine and hand-walked Nilla around to take some picture of them jumping.
My husband hopped on and then took off jumping stuff leaving me far behind, which resulted in a lack of great pictures. The two of them were basically like little kids let loose at an amusement park: running all over the place, jumping everything, and just having a ton of fun.
They mostly stuck to the smaller jumps, which Eugene often just took in stride. The nice thing was, Eugene was actually jumping and not hitting anything. It was like jumping was finally making sense to him. Having been a flag horse in the drill performance at the prison, Eugene was not at all concerned about the jump flags.
He wasn’t bothered by any of the jumps, the flowers, the lizards, or anything. My husband took him over the ditch and he just stepped right over it.
They also tried a little coop that had been on the intro course last year although it’s actually taller than a few of the BN jumps on the course that day.
They were having a lot of fun, but I wanted to end on a good note and not keep going until he got tired and had a bad experience. I told my husband to pick a last jump and he chose a log pile. It was a good sized jump, but Eugene just cantered over it like no big deal.
Because cross country is apparently no big deal to this little Mustang. My husband was absolutely thrilled with his performance. He was regretting not signing up for the Horse Trials and just doing the Combined Test, but I think it was the right decision. Plus, they probably had more fun just bombing around the field schooling than they would have running a set course.
I am thrilled with how Eugene has worked out for you guys. He’s such a good fit.
He’s been working out great so far.
YAY EUGENE! what a brave smart little mustang.
Aww, what a good boy! Sometimes they “get” jumping when you point them at more solid jumps. He’s so cute!
I’ve been wanting to try it for that same reason. To be honest though, he was better about jumping in stadium before XC too so I think he’s just all around getting better.
He seems like he has a heart of gold 🙂
What a great boy!
Oh my gosh he’s so adorable.
He looks SO MUCH like Tristan in some of these pictures, too – the build, the expression, the way of going. I have some of these pictures in duplicate.
They do seem very similar in conformation. Was Tristan from Nevada? Tristan has all the pretty coloring though.
You are doing such a fantastic job!
Eugene sounds like an awesome horse!