Follow the path of gratitude and blessings will follow.
That was my fortune cookie at dinner Friday night. And it was perfect! This weekend was such a great weekend. I'm so grateful to God for all He has done for me. All my answered prayers... all of the big things... all of the little things. Ahhhh..... Just... grateful!
Friday was the start of my staycation!! During my mental breakdown a few months back I scheduled a week off for a staycation, since we weren't planning on going to the beach because of our Out West Trip. (Well, it turns out that we're now going to the beach in July with Mike's mom but also haven't booked our Wyoming trip yet, so we'll see if that happens). I didn't necessarily mean to plan it right after our second Working Eq show, but I did. Which, bonus. :) It was nice to not have to go right back to the grind after a long show weekend. And.. the WE shows aren't nearly as exhausting, but still.
Anyways... Judy and I had signed up for lessons with Shannon on Friday before the show so we headed up to Aiken. My lesson was a 2 and Judy's was at 3, so we were hoping to get there about 12:30 ish to give Teller time to settle. Unfortunately, despite leaving on time, we hit traffic on 20. I have no idea why... but we were stop and go and never got above 10 mph for about 45 minutes. Poor ponies. It was soooo hot too! I think we actually had the hottest most humid weekend of the entire year so far this weekend. Of course! At one point I jumped out and put their fans on even though I'm not sure it helped that much. Especially because we started going again fairly soon after I turned the fans on. Whoops. Oh well. We got to Stableview around 1 pm and Shannon had texted asking if we wanted to ride together at 2 because of schedule changes. Sure... works for us. I just told her that I wasn't sure we could get ready any earlier because of the traffic. I also didn't realize that she didn't have anyone before us... so we got tacked up and headed over to the big jump arena and XC warm up field. We warmed up a bit, not realizing she was waiting on us. Oh well. They needed their warm up and Teller needed to be lunged.
We had a great lesson. And thank God for the breeze because it was amazing. It was so hot and muggy but the breeze made it really quite pleasant even! Our lesson was helpful as usual! I really do like Shannon. She had brought her metal gate which is really handy. We played with the bull line, the gate, the double slaloms, the drums, the figure 8, and the rounding poles (the switch cup and back for intro). She gave us super helpful hints/pointers. Stuff like... when doing the rounding pole you want a marching walk in and a steady rein back and want to ideally put your cup back without stopping your rein back. She had us ride the body part that was not straight to keep them straight. Like.. when we first started backing, if the hips swing left, move the hips back right. If the shoulders started going left, move the shoulders back right. It was helpful. She also explained that because of their vision, they think theres' a fence behind them and that's why they twist... For the bull line she told me to make sure Dan was not running because it would only get harder to get him to not run at it. If he got quick and didn't listen to my half halts, I needed to circle him... circle the bull.. circle the barrels... That helped too. Then in the drums, she told me that he was too quick and just pulling himself along with his front limbs. And when I slowed him down AND rocked him back, his trot got real pretty. And duh.. I know this... I know I know this, but it was kind of nice to feel him slow down but ALSO rock back. You'd think I'd know this by now, but maybe it's just more nuanced feel. Between Lyric and Funny, I think I can feel it better.. or maybe I'm expecting more now. Either way... it couldn't just be slow... he also had to rock back. We played with the gate and she told me to make sure that I backed him far enough that his nose was past the standard. Because if the gate was short he could stick his head over it, but if the gate standard was tall or thick, he wouldn't necessarily be able to skip over it and it encourages him to chew on it. Ahhh.... good point! It definitely helped. So lots of good little pointers. Then she had us do a reverse gate. Which.. is not a left handed gate. It's a right handed gate but backwards. So you face the other way and instead of backing and then going forward, you go forward and then back. I think. I asked her if that would be something they could ask intro to do because it was going to confuse my spatially challenged brain and I'd rather not do it the day before the show if it wasn't an option. She said it was, so... darn! We went through it and it took a minute to switch my brain over, but we got it. Fun! Of course it was a regular gate at the show, but... still fun.
After our lesson we hacked them through the arena and around the dressage arena and then back out to the cross country field. We were tempted to walk through the water if they didn't have it roped off, but... they didn't even have water in the complex. And... mostly because they ended up setting up the course in the big jump arena not in the cross country field. I didn't want to get charged for "cross country schooling" too, so we just hacked on the edge and then headed back. The ponies got rinsed off and then we headed to Liz's house. Cindy had beat us there because her lesson was earlier and she got our stalls all set up. We parked in the pasture so we couldn't turn them out. But we couldn't have anyways because the kids had parked their truck in the pasture and Dan would have totally chewed on it. Plus... we were giggling because of ALL THE HORSES.... these particular three together... just seemed like a really bad idea to try to turn out together. Not because they would be aggressive.. but because it would turn into a giant frat party. Ha ha... Lots of "hold my beers" and "watch this" and... shenanigans. It just seemed like a really bad idea! Plus, it's hot and muggy and buggy so they were quite happy in their stalls with fans and Liz has the awesome extended patios so they were quite content.
We had a lovely evening with chinese food and had great conversation. I forgot how fun Cindy is! And my fortune from my cookie was perfect! We had early ride times so we headed to bed fairly early. Sadly Liz got sick so she couldn't join us. She was supposed to come up that day and spend the weekend with us, but was puking. Oooh no! Stay away my friend! I wasn't sure if she was going to come up the next day or not, so I ended up sleeping on the couch that night. Which wasn't too bad.
We got up early and headed to Stable View. I had to give Dan a bath because he had rolled in Liz's paddock and was dirty! And Judy wanted to lunge Teller and let him get settled. Man.. it was so hot and humid and miserable though. Like... ridiculous! Dan wasn't even dry when I tacked up but it didn't matter because we were both getting sweaty already anyways. We got tacked up and headed over to warm up with Judy. Dan warmed up pretty well and seemed quite happy in that fancy footing. We practiced our things and he felt pretty darn good. Then it was our turn. He was a very good boy and we had a pretty good test. Our biggest issue was that I coudn't find centerline! In the beginning or the end. And I think one of my walk circles was too big. Probably a 10 meter vs 5 meter. Oops. And then across the diagonal I half halted too big because I was thinking he was going to lengthen across it but then... I kept half halting when I didn't need to, so he almost broke into the walk. She must have missed that part though because he scored an 8! She liked his big floaty gaits! We ended up with a 63.5... a 65.0?? I can't remember. That put us in 2nd, which yay! Judy's test was two after mine so we stayed and watched and it was LOVELY! Like... she nailed it! And she won the dressage, which I knew she would after watching her test. I was so excited for her. She's worked so hard! But I was also excited to be in second place after that. Because... that belt buckle y'all! :)
We watched a few and then headed back and hosed them off. Then we brought them back to graze while we cheered Cindy on. She did novice 1 and was awesome. They won the dressage. So whooo hooo! And fun and successful day! After that we put all the boys in the trailers with the fans and went to do our course walk. They had the obstacles in the arena next to the dressage ring, so that was kind of cool. It was a fun course! We did our walk and came up with a plan. Then we took the boys back home and put them back in the stalls for the day. We all showered and felt so much better. It was SOOOO hot! Judy went to dinner with Katherine so Cindy and I ate leftover Chinese and watched a stupid movie. She also had two baby birds from her horse trailer and one of them was very friendly and learning to fly so he hung out with us. And sat on my head a good chunk of the movie. Hee hee. Fun.
Sunday morning was an even earlier morning! I decided to bathe Dan at Liz's so he could maybe dry... and it was easier than trying to wrangle him at Stable View. He was SOOO dirty though. I wasn't sure I got it all off, but... only so much I could do. We got to Stable View and parked in the day parking again and got tacked up. Judy walked over with us and did a short lunge while we started warming up. They were kind and put the bull line in warm up as well as a jump and the drums. In our course walk I realized that the bull line was very close to the livestock pen, so my plan was to circle left and make a circle to regroup before charging in to the pen, especially since I would be going from one handed riding. And then the jump was a nice long approach and then a very short distance from the backside to the figure 8. So I had made sure I could circle between the two because otherwise we'd be cantering the figure 8. Shannon was laughing at me saying "you're really worried about this". Um yes ma'am.. have you met Dan?? ha ha. So in the warm up I practiced trotting the jump a few times... then I practiced the bull line a good bit, making sure he stayed slow. He felt really good but I might have overdone it just a teeny bit. Or maybe not...
We went to the arena and adjusted our pole. She rang the bell pretty quickly after so we circled around and then halted to salute. Dan was a bit quick and runny. Ackk... no, no, no, we spent so much time getting you rocked back! But it was go time, so.. off we went. I did manged to get him rocked back mostly and we had a pretty darn good round. Mostly! He did the drums well and the bridge wonderfully. The bull line went great except I "threw" my pole into the barrel instead of placing it. I got a "careful" comment. Yep! Whoops! We did our left turn but he went feral and squirted around that turn like his tail was on fire. And then I couldn't stop him. He almost ran into the livestock pen. I had to half halt him hard and then actually halt him. And reinback for good measure because NO SIR! I was sort of embarassed! But then he walked nicely into the pen and we finished that well. He was great to the jump and actually trotted until the last stride. He landed in the canter and we did our turn. I think I may have goosed him with the spur because he got a tiny bit rowdy but I got him back under control and then we did the figure 8 nicely. He did the rounding poles decently although he got a tiny bit stuck in the reinback. But he was pretty straight. And then he did the gate great!! It was a tiny bit sticky but really quite nice and he didn't eat it or even try to touch it. Good boy. Our double slalom was really quite good (Of course.. ha ha.. now that I've been practicing half the size!). We trotted around to the final obstacle, the jug and I almost trotted to the halt but decided to walk in case he was going to charge through me again. But I walked him too soon so we had too many walk steps. But he was square and immobile. We had a nice trot through the finish flags and a nice halt. Good pony! Mostly! ha ha. We ended up somehow winning the EOH! I guess she really liked his nice forward stride! I was surprised. I figured we'd be in the top three, because Judy and Kristin had nice rounds too. But yay for us!!! Judy and Teller came in third, behind Kristin.
Our EOH round
We stayed and watched the rest of the rounds for intro. And Dan was happy and friendly and even let some random lady pet him. She mentioned how sweet he was and I was like... "he's not usually"!. Doh! But he was. I think he's a happy camper in this job. After that the boys got a bath and sat at the trailer while we ate lunch. Then we loaded them up and put the fans back on, including the extra fans we plugged into the elecric generator and Judy's battery operated one. Judy and I went to volunteer. We were timers for the speed rounds. Which was fun! We got up front seats to watch the speed rounds and it was helpful to see the times as they were happening and hear some of the judges comments. Fun! Then we went and let the ponies graze again and took them through the misting station while we waited for them to calculate points. The awards ceremony was at 1:30. :) And Dan and I won champion!!! Whooo hooo!! Judy won reserve champion. Whooo hooo!! And Cindy won champion. Whooo hooo!!! What a fantastic outcome for us all. :) That puts me in the lead for that belt buckle. hee hee... So exciting!
