The Vista

 Today I was supposed to have a lesson with Beth at The Vista, but she had to cancel. So I sweet talked Peri into coming with me. I decided that Dan and I needed another cross country school before the BN3D. Or maybe I just got excited about it. :) Either way, I wanted to go. And it worked out well because it sounds like it rained a good chunk of the day at home. But the weather is Aiken was great. It was hot and humid but there was a decent breeze and a cloud cover.

I managed to get my trailer picked up for Sundowner and get Dan and then Peri and then we got to the Vista by 12:30. So not too bad. We tacked up and headed out. The tadpole, amoeba, BN, novice field had a ton of stuff. And a ton of trees. We warmed up and then just started jumping. We got a little carried away and started jumping and kept jumping. There was just so many options. But poor Dan was zigging and zagging! There was just so many trees and jumps and I couldn't find my line so we were boinging all over the place. Plus with the humidity... so he was a little behind my leg. Plus I think he was a bit bored. We jumped all the novice fences and.... then we decided that it was enough for that field. He kept cross cantering and I was worried he was sore, but I think now it was just the directional challenges I was presenting to him.

After we finished in that field we went into the water complex and let them have a drink. Then Peri and I took turns trotting and cantering through the water. I decided that Dan and I would then walk off the bank into the water. It was a fairly substantial bank, I thought. So we were trotting around and turned to trot towards it and he locked on, so I kept trotting. Then two strides out he broke to the canter on his own accord and just leapt off, but in a polite normal way. Whooo hoo!! Brave boy! Peri told us to go on and jump the red cabin.... but I was looking at the prelim one and decided it was too big. Then I saw the training one she meant, so we circled and did that. Then there was another training cabin... so we did that. :)

Training Level Cabin

There were a few more I was tempted but I decided that we were well prepared for the 3 day and I didn't want to create an issue, tempting as some of them were. I probably would have jumped the fallen tree that was flagged for prelim, but... another day. :)

So yep.. fun day! Peri did super too and we both got a lot accomplished. :)