The weather gods have continued to play jokes on me. Like last weekend, when I had signed up and paid for a dressage test at the Majestic show, actually learned it ahead of time and practiced it, and was almost… kind of looking forward to trying out the Prelim test for the first time. I had even cleaned and packed all my shit the afternoon before and gotten everything ready to go. Really, I brought this on myself I guess, now that I think about it. Far too much preparation.

Last Saturday was hot and gross but ya know… we’re used to that by now. The radar stayed blessedly clear, and I got Presto out after lunch to groom him and get him ready to go. After I loaded him up I checked the radar again, and some storms were starting to pop up. As I was driving to Majestic, the sky in my rear view mirror started looking blacker and blacker. By the time I got there 20 minutes later and went to get my number, you could hear the thunder, and there was now a red blob of a storm on the radar headed right towards the show. Estimated arrival time? Literally like 5 minutes before my ride time.

But it was just the one blob, and Florida do be like that, so I just plopped myself in the trailer to wait it out with Presto. But as it went along, the storm got nastier and nastier, with a TON of lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the US for a reason, but this was definitely an extreme. There were several very close lightning strikes that scared the bejeesus out of me.

Naturally the show went on a storm/lightning hold, and as that storm started to pass over us, I checked the radar again. In the time it took for the first blob to pass over (it grew tremendously as it did so, by the way), another one had popped up behind it, also headed straight at us. This is the point at which I was like nope ok, I’m out. Mostly because 1) Presto’s quarter was starting to run out. 2) the footing in those grass rings isn’t great right after a lot of rain, so what was the point. 3) Have I mentioned I hate lightning? I was ready to bolt. Every bit of desire I had to ride the Prelim test had quickly fled my body.

So I just… got back in my truck and drove home. Come to find out later they actually ended up cancelling the rest of the show anyway, so even if I had waited it would have been for naught. That was a really annoying way to sacrifice an entry fee. Plus I still had to get ready and drive there. Boo. But ya know… that’s a Florida summer afternoon for you. The storms can absolutely come out of nowhere, and they’re violent when they do.

Womp womp.

But the weather cleared up within a couple hours, and that night we were able to head over to WEC to watch the last Saturday night Grand Prix of the summer season. I don’t think I’ve been to one since… last summer? But we met up with some friends, had some dinner, and watched some nice horses jump under the lights.

Monday was my birthday, which was also the day Rubes decided he had cellulitis and needed an emergency vet call. Thanks buddy, I love getting antibiotics for my birthday, what a great gift. He felt very sorry for himself and was all the drama about the entire ordeal pretty much all week.

I did get a couple things with some of my birthday money though (aside from a vet bill). I’d heard a few people rave about the KL Select breeches so I tried some on last week and absolutely loved them. I’m so picky about fabric (especially in the summer) and have a hard time finding breeches that don’t gap at the waist or have extra fabric around the tummy. These were legit the absolute perfect fit with really comfy, stretchy, lightweight fabric and I wanted 97 pairs of them immediately. Unfortunately the shop didn’t have anything in my size in colors I liked, so I went looking online and found a fun new (to me) gem of a tack shop in Ohio called Equine Essentials. They had a 15% off code for new customers, so don’t mind if I do, and when I took a few minutes to peruse their consignment section, I found the most STUNNING brand new Waldhausen sparkle noseband for $10 and a zippered Spy Coast tote for $2. Add to cart. Quite a pleasing little mini haul, plus they sent along a bag of free goodies too.

On Wednesday I had another jump lesson – my first lesson back in a couple weeks since Ellie and Alex were out of town on vacation. It was, to be fair, an absolutely SWAMPY day. 9000 degrees with 700% humidity or something like that, even at 10am. I was just walking liquid, really. Sweat was just pouring into my eyes and I couldn’t see shit. Luckily Presto is well acclimated to the weather, and to be honest I’ve been handling the heat a lot better since I’ve been swimming my 3 miles a week. It’s just helped my cardio fitness so much, and I swear I think something about the hypoxic breathing of swimming does something extra helpful when you live in an environment where you’re legit breathing as much water as you are oxygen. I’ve gotten used to having less oxygen or something? I dunno, I don’t have science to prove it, but riding in the peak of summer has been a lot easier for me this year versus years prior, even when I was doing a lot of cycling.

We kept things fairly brief since the weather was so gross, but we worked a lot on putting Presto in more of a haunches-in positioning going into the corners so that he stays more balanced and doesn’t go quite so wide behind as we come out of the turn. Sometimes we achieved it, sometimes we didn’t, but it did seem to help us both. I swear 2024 is just gonna be known as The Year of the Haunches because I feel like moving his ass left and right has been the subject of 90% of our work this year.

He feels good though, and I think we’re ready to start knocking some rust off at the schooling shows before the fall season ramps up! It feels good to be back on a more normal schedule and back in the swing of things. My ankle has been holding up pretty well… it gets sore sometimes (it def was sore the evening/next morning after the jump lesson) but I wouldn’t call it painful anymore. It’s progress!