Cob Jockey

Late on Saturday night, Connor's breeder asked if I wanted to see Castleberrys Delight, Connor's full sister, go Prix St. Georges with her the next morning.  Delight does't live terribly close to Indiana, so I assumed seeing her would be a hike - and I was surprised to find out she was not only showing at the HHP, she was stabled next to Karen's Hampton!

(I said on Facebook that I've met three of Connor's full siblings, but it's actually four now: Delight, Tristan, Cadence and Dyma Hi.)



I wondered if I would recognize her as I walked over to the warmup - and then I was like, "That's stupid, she looks just like your horse."  And she does, in many ways.  She got more of her sire's head while Connor got his mom's, and she's a liver chestnut while he's a brighter chestnut, but they are similarly built and have almost the exact same blaze that sort of looks like a hand with the index finger pointing up.

Her little brother in the same ring a few weeks ago.

Seeing her go was awesome, and not a little intimidating.  Her rider is awesome and Delight is so well-educated, it looked like her rider could control every aspect of every step.  But, Delight is also 6 years older than Connor, and that pair has a lot of advantages we don't: months training and showing in Florida every year, to name one.  Still, rather than being discouraging, it was awesome to see what's possible with a very VERY similar pony to Connor.

This photo taken by Connor's breeder.

They ended up winning their class both days, despite apparent not-so-generous scoring for all competitors, with a 60% I think.  That's quite low for her, but they felt the scores didn't represented the tests, and said they were some of her best work.