118 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2012
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
By Lauren R. Giannini
The athletic gray pony caught Mindy Coretz’s eye in the summer
of 2011 when she was a counselor at the Aspen, Colorado camp
she had attended as a kid. He had a little too much motor for the
job description, he was green and he presented different problems
to different level riders; but she just knew that he was a diamond
in the rough.
“I thought the pony would make a really good project for my
sister Amy,” recalled Mindy. “He had the most impressive natural
jumping form I’ve ever seen.”
Mindy returned home and persuaded her mother Kim and sister
Amy to try the pony before they headed to the Pony Finals. Her
family lives in Oklahoma, but summers in Aspen, so they were
already near the barn. Mindy, 19, is not only a jumper rider, she is
an organizer: she had plans for that pony.
“I warned Amy that the pony was way hotter than anything she
had ridden; but he had a lovely natural lead change on the fat,”
said Mindy. “I set some little jumps and they jumped it nice and he
tootled away. Then I built a combination, oxer to vertical and the
frst time he came through too fast and ate the second one. Amy
worked him from 2’3” to 3’6” and he was great. We took him with
us to Kentucky. He was a wreck, rearing in the cross-ties, pawing
in the stall.”
Their trainer was not totally convinced that the gray was a good
idea: he was “just a pony jumper” until the Coretz girls took him to
Ocala in February.
“In Ocala, iJump was cleaning up, winning classes of 40 at
Level 0s and 1s against horses and professionals, our trainer
Libby Barrow of Farewell Farm, in Oklahoma, who was riding him,
thinks the world of him,” recalled Mindy. “My sister Amy came to
Ocala and she said, “I really hate the jumpers.” I said, he doesn’t
move well and he goes too fast for the hunters. My sister said,
“No, we’ll make him a hunter.” And that’s what we did.”
When they put iJump into a plain D snaffe, he poked his nose
out, acted happy and cantered slowly, jumping everything in the
hunter ring. He ended up teaching lesson kids, showing in pony
hunters, equitation and jumpers. Amy and Mindy tell a funny story
about one of iJump’s jumper rounds. He never touched a rail, but
in one class, ridden by Hunter Holloway who had jacked up her
irons as she was a bit tall for a medium, he had one rail. When
Hunter rode out, she said that wasn’t his rail, it was hers: she had
hit it with her own foot.
“iJump rises to the occasion every time,” said Mindy, who’s
understandably pleased with herself for discovering him. But it’s
Amy who insisted last March that the pony convert to the hunters.
“I kind of like taking it slow, I’ve always been a hunter person – I
don’t think I’ll ever be serious about jumpers,” admitted Amy, 15.
“He has a great jump, he’s super brave and I used him in Pony
Medals. In one year, he went from being a camp pony to qualifying
for Pony Finals. We knew hunters wouldn’t be his specialty at
Finals. He fnished 20th in the top tier of the Medium Green Pony
Hunters. He’s now ranked 12th nationally out of 147 ponies.”
Many of his points came from showing in Denver where he was
champion every weekend. During the winter circuit, the Coretz
sisters show in Ocala at least four, sometimes six weeks or more,
e
Pony Power
commuting there with their mother from Thursday to Sunday and
then back to Oklahoma to attend school for the frst half of the
week.
iJump has developed a following at Farewell Farm in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. It seems that everyone has gotten attached to him:
“He’s so much fun – he’s been a real pleasure,” said Mindy. The
fact that the pony was bought as a resale project didn’t go over
well with students, boarders and assistant trainer/barn manager
Tiffany George, who got up a petition to keep iJump in the barn.
“That pony is very loved by everyone at the barn,” said Amy.
“Mindy was teaching at camp and she fell in love with him. I love
him; but I think it will be really fun to see him with some other kid.”
iJump: medium green pony hunter, unknown breeding, low
mileage with lots of seasons left, experienced in hunters, derbies,
jumpers and eq, businesslike in the ring, forgiving – a real winner.
Amy Coretz,
hunter rider who
also enjoys doing
derbies and the
medal classes; but
doesn’t think she’ll
ever be a serious
jumper rider and
iJump, a medium
who’s super –
whatever you ask
him to do.
Photo by Mindy Coretz
From Summer Camp to Pony Finals
iJump