Ok, soooo I swear I’ll stop leaning horribly at the down banks eventually. But what a good boy for his first time out! This is everything, start to finish. Thanks Jen! He thought he was da man at the water. 😉 And you get a great Paddy and Brego cameo around the :40 mark.
I can’t figure out how to embed on mobile so hopefully that works.
As for our Georgia adventure, we all arrived safe and sound tonight at our layover stop in Mississippi. Baby had a heck of a day between her inspection, branding, weaning, and first trailer ride but she’s being a champ. Here’s a shot from her inspection today. I’ll get a bunch uploaded in the next couple days.
I don’t have time to write much because we’re super busy getting ready for the sBs inspection tomorrow, and then we’ll immediately be back on the road to Texas with my friend’s new broodmare and weanling filly. So here’s some pictures of me and Valentino Z from today. God I just adore this stallion and can’t wait to have a foal by him. He’s such a lover and just so so kind. More pictures when I get home!
Since the show got cancelled due to rain, my weekend didn’t start out very well. I tried to eat my feelings
And treat them with a little retail therapy
But to say that I was a pretty grumpy person on Saturday is probably the understatement of the century. Then on Saturday evening I got a message from the eventing trainer at the barn, asking if I had any interest in hauling out the next morning for a last minute impromptu XC school. Ummm lemme think about it for a millisecond… YES!!! Weekend saved!
So we loaded up the ponies on Sunday and headed off a couple hours north to MeadowCreek Park. They had gotten very little rain so the footing was perfect and the weather, aside from being humid, was nice and mild.
I have to be honest and say that I thought Henry would be a bit spooky and backed off of the XC fences a little. I wasn’t sure if he’d get in the water or jump a ditch. Here’s where I get to admit that I was wrong.
He started out a teeny bit looky and kinda jazzed up (he jigged a few steps when we first walked out to the field… he never jigs) but as soon as he jumped a few he relaxed and was just a rockstar. There were a couple things that he checked in with me about “Are you sure we should jump this?” but I just closed my leg and he motored right over. He even jumped a log out of the water. Pretty darn thrilled with him and he seemed to have a blast. By the end he felt very confident and more bold – exactly the effect I was hoping for.
I also got to meet Jen from Wyvern Oaks, her husband, and the super adorable duo Paddy and Brego. Watching Brego jump around was awfully darn cute, he’s a very cool (and giant) dude. Jen was also kind enough to take video so I’ll get that up sometime this week.
Today I’m off to Georgia to Rising Star Farm to spend a couple days playing with stallions and babies. I will take plenty of pictures, of which probably 90% will be selfies of me and Valentino. Prepare yourselves.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend and has a good week ahead!
The show was officially rained out. The good news is that the forecast for next Saturday (the rain date) looks a lot more promising than it did a few days ago, so maybe we’ll be good to go next weekend. Of course that does mean that I won’t be able to go to the the TB charity show that is also next weekend. Big bummer because I really wanted to support them. Oh well, it is what it is. Instead I shall spend today doing laundry and packing for my trip to Georgia… maybe I’ll even hit up the book store down the street and get some airport reading material.
Happy weekend everyone! Since I have nothing of interest to offer lately, here’s a video of us hopping over little jumps a few nights ago. Henry was super as usual and I am riding like a big sack of dog crap, because apparently that’s just what I do lately. Yay.
Work has been so insanely busy and stressful this week that I didn’t even have time to write anything yesterday. Sorry guys. Luckily it’s Friday and while it’s still every bit as stressful and busy I’m taking a few minutes to write, dammit.
A relatively new addition to the blogging community, Now That’s The Spot has picked a great topic for her first Blog Hop. She asked What other activities, hobbies, or sports do you do outside of riding?
I am one of those crazy stupid masochistic people who has to split my time between two very time consuming and expensive hobbies. Up until a few years ago horses were really my only thing. I’ve tried a lot of random stuff over the years but nothing else really “stuck”. Then I decided to take a little break from horses to practice this weird thing called financial responsibility (it’s overrated and boring). What I noticed was that I apparently have a really obsessive personality and having grown up at the barn, I had zero clue what normal people do with their lives and all of their free time. It was mind-boggling. So of course as soon as I found another all consuming hobby, triathlon, I jumped in with both feet. I even convinced my brother to do a few triathlons with me, which made it extra fun.
with my brother after his first triathlonOn the bike in Corpus Christi
Suited up for my first ocean swimfinishing the 10k at a duathlon
I swam as a kid so while I’m only average, speed wise, I’m pretty comfortable in the water. I also discovered that I have a natural affinity for the bike. Speed and power came really easily to me. I have to say that triathlon was a little intoxicating for me… having been a rider all my life, and never having been anything but average no matter how hard I tried, it was pretty exhilarating for me to wander into a new sport and do really well right off the bat. I won 50% of my races and was on the podium all but twice, with my worst ever finish being 5th. I was just so much faster than the vast majority of the other girls on the bike, I was able to get and usually keep a pretty good lead. Unfortunately the run was always my Achilles heel (no pun intended)… I have an ankle condition that makes running super painful after only a few minutes. I gutted it out for a long time, even doing a half marathon at one point, hoping it would get better but in the end it was just too debilitating and my only option to possibly help my condition was a pretty major surgery. I opted to hang up my running shoes instead. But in that couple years of triathlon I had a lot of fun and was definitely in the best shape of my life, and I’m not gonna lie – having a big box full of medals and awards is something I’ll always treasure.
At the finish of my half marathon – 2 hours and 10 minutes of pure misery.
So after I decided to quit running I switched to just road cycling and tried my hand at some crit races. They were sorta fun but honestly I just didn’t mesh with that crowd very well. I found them a bit too clique-ish and awfully damn hipster for my taste (yes, I SAID IT). Then SO bought me a CX bike for my birthday and convinced me to try this absolutely ridiculous sport called cyclocross.
40 degrees and ankle deep mud!Whee like a pony!
Basically imagine a bike sport that a bunch of 10 year olds would invent if you got them drunk and let them loose in a park. You ride mostly over grass but sometimes dirt, gravel and pavement. There’s switchback turns, steep up and down hills, off-camber, sand pits, barriers that you have to jump off your bike and run over (I’m not kidding), sometimes it’s super muddy, sometimes there’s stairs, etc. But everyone is just so laid back and having such a ridiculously good time, it makes it crazy fun. The crowd is encouraged to do this thing called hand-ups… basically they stand beside the course with “treats” (usually a Twizzler or a cup of beer) and offer it to you as you whiz by. Ever tried to chug a beer in the middle of a race? And you’ve never lived until you’ve taken a particularly sandy Twizzler from a random kid (preferably without using your hands) and tried to eat it while pedaling your butt off. Races are only about 30-45 minutes usually, and you’re basically at your max heart rate the entire time. You fall, you bleed, you get muddy, you freeze your balls off, you can’t breathe, you want to die, but it’s the most fun you can have on a bike, period.
Sand is harder than you’d thinkI was happy about the Twizzler but sad about freezing to death in December in the sleet and rainI know it looks like I knee’d this chick in the face but I swear she fell into me like that…
Cyclocross is a “winter” sport, season runs from Oct-Jan. The rest of the year I just ride on the road to keep some fitness, but I really only care about ‘cross season. I try to ride my bike to work as much as possible too, since it’s a pretty short commute for me and traffic isn’t too bad.
Otherwise that’s really it, I don’t have time for much else. I’d like to get back into triathlon a little bit next year, just short ones so that I don’t have to run much. We’ll see how things shake out. Until then – it’s almost CROSS SEASON. And Nationals are in Austin this year too!
breedrideevent.com 