Gina the jumping machine

I headed to the barn late Friday afternoon and set up a grid for Gina. After she'd been so good over the log pile a couple of weeks ago, I figured there was no reason not to address The Show Jumping Issue. Except, you know, a general interest in not breaking my other arm/dying.

Gina's such a good poser. Moe is a ham.

I have two sets of standards I made last year. (Once I figure out how to keep their feet from continually falling off, I'll post instructions.) The barn has a set. I bought eight landscape timbers at my local hardware store and thought about what to set up on my drive to the barn.

This is designed to trot in. It's approximately 18' from the first crossrail to the second. From the second jump to the third, it's about 24'. The crossrails are about a foot tall at their center; the vertical is about 2' tall. There are no trot poles leading to the first crossrail. I set my extra ground poles along the sides of the grid to encourage Gina not to run out.

Gina noticed the jumps right away, but stayed pretty relaxed throughout our warmup. When I pointed her toward the grid, she hesitated. Instead of putting my leg on, I let her stop and eye the jump. I am obviously an expert rider.

I set her to it again and felt her start to wiggle. This time I applied some leg and said, "Come ON, you can walk over this!" Lo and behold, she trotted through the whole thing.

Let me repeat that: Gina trotted through a gymnastic. No fuss, no antics, no nothing. She acted like she did this every day. I actually said "HOLY SHIT" out loud when she took off cantering afterwards.

I was completely flabbergasted, so I sent her through it three more times. The distances got increasingly awkward, so I called it a day while she was still super zealous.

Who is this horse??