We left off last time having a bit of a rough day, but with a plan to put that in the rearview mirror and move forward. Thankfully that is exactly what has happened. Since having that little mishap at Meadowlake I elected to move Maverick to my trainer’s farm, and while it means a lot more driving for me he has absolutely flourished there.

The day after Meadowlake we did a light XC (cross country) school just to see where things stood after that and it turned out to be the best XC school he’s had to date. He was almost too bold in some places but I was so glad to feel that from him after the day before. Afterwards we got him settled in and introduced to his new turnout buddy, who happens to have competed to the 4* level so hopefully he can instill some upper-level wisdom into him while they’re out together.

Courtesy of Jordan Sigmon

Our focus then shifted to some show jumping to prepare for WEC (World Equestrian Center) but also mostly on Maverick’s flatwork. Everything you need to happen over fences always comes from the flatwork, so you have to start there. He’s really starting to grow into himself and understand how to use his power now which will definitely help our scores in the dressage ring.

WEC Ohio is always one of my favorite facilities to show at and it was so nice that they held a less expensive schooling show for us to be able to take the young horses up for some mileage. Maverick exceeded my expectations as to how he handled the big environment. On schooling day, he was a bit impressed with the jumps and overjumping quite a bit, but by his first class the next day he was all business. It was a great opportunity for me to play with his rideability and some inside turns; we had a few learning rails (and one bad rider rail), but overall I couldn’t have been any happier with him and we got some great pictures out of it to boot!

The next week was Kentucky Classique Horse Trials, also the hosts for United States Eventing Association Area 8 Championships. I found out pretty close to the competition we were eligible for the Starter Championship division, which was pretty exciting considering this horse only jumped his first full courses in May. Dressage was mostly good – there was just one little miscommunication in our left lead canter transition, but he brought home a score of 32 which I was very happy with. We then went on to cross country, where he proved to us that Meadowlake was just an off day. There were a couple of jumps going in and out of the trees that I had to keep his focus on, but in the last half of the course he took over and just cruised home. I did accidentally go about 14 seconds too fast, so we incurred a few speed faults but we got what we needed out of it and that’s all I care about. Show jumping on Sunday was also great –  we had one rail at the last that I just needed to half-halt a touch earlier to prevent. We ended up finishing ninth and he got to do his first prize-giving ceremony and victory gallop. He was very unenthused by it all.

We’ll spend the next few weeks fine tuning his flatwork, working on some grids, and schooling some more cross country before his final run before the Makeover which will be held at Stable View the last weekend of September. With every ride, I’m more and more glad I didn’t throw in the towel when he was completely feral his first month off of the track.

The Jockey Club supports many aftercare initiatives including the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the only accrediting body in aftercare, and Thoroughbred Incentive Program (T.I.P.), which encourages the retraining of Thoroughbreds into other disciplines upon completion of careers. View all of the initiatives supported by The Jockey Club.