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The weekend started off so promising. I got to ride my horse 3 days in a row last week, with 3 good rides. We dressaged and jumped and he was super. He even got a couple days of turnout, which is nothing short of a miracle at this point in our apparent monsoon season. When I got home from the barn on Friday and checked the mail I had my awesome new custom charm from Straight Shot Metal Smashing waiting for me. Yes it’s a Narnia quote. Yes I’m a nerd. Yes I absolutely love it. Yes it’s now living on Henry’s breastplate.

I even got Indian food for dinner on Friday. Indian is my favorite, and it was delicious and all was right in the world. Then Saturday happened.

I was up early on Saturday and at work at 7am. I’m super busy at work right now, plus I’m in money hoarding mode trying to save up for AEC’s, so the overtime is welcome. After putting in 4 hours I went down the street to the grocery store to stock up on a few essentials and grab some cleaning supplies (the SO’s parents were set to arrive at our place on Sunday, so my Saturday afternoon plan was a thorough scrub of our very-neglected-during-show-season house). There I am in the self checkout line – mistake number one when you have a crapton of produce – and my debit card gets declined. Try again, same thing. I look up my account on my phone and see two transactions from a Walgreens that certainly weren’t me, then I get a text from my bank that says my card has been suspended due to suspicious activity. WHILE I’M STANDING IN THE CHECKOUT AT THE GROCERY STORE. The timing is really quite impeccable. This asshole was buying things at Walgreens with my money while I was slaving away at work on a Saturday morning trying to make some extra cash.

After a lot of embarrassment and fumbling around in my purse I luckily had a checkbook on me, so I wrote a check for my groceries. I ran home, unloaded those, sat on hold with the card services folks at my bank for 10 minutes, then ran to my car so I could hightail it to the bank before they closed for the day. Half an hour, a mountain of paperwork, a new debit card, and a police report later, I should hopefully get my money back at some point. To the jerkoff who charged $550 to my card at Walgreens: I hope karma is extra bitchy when she catches up to your ass.

Then I cleaned a little, it rained all night, and my level of grump went sky high. On Sunday I got up and cleaned some more then went out to the barn to douse my creature with fly and mosquito spray. I also wanted to see just how wet and muddy it was (we got another 2.5″ at the barn. I don’t even know what that brings us up to for the month… 14″? More? Whatever). The answer is: wet. Really wet.

I turned Henry out in the round pen while I cleaned his stall and he did this:

So I did this:

Seems fair.

Hopefully today I’ll have time to at least go for a road hack, if we can beat the rain. Yes it’s supposed to pour buckets. Again. Never fear, I bought myself the best shirt in the world as a “don’t be sad” present:

Happy freakin Majestic Monday.

I’m generally pretty boring in my choice of color for a horse. I like brown and bay, and with either little or no white. I tend to roll my eyes at people who are immediately taken in by a pretty color or flashy markings and not really see much past that. There’s really two reasons for my snobbery: 1) trying to keep a gray horse or very chromey horse clean drives me nuts, 2) flashy color and markings can make an otherwise unattractive horse look a lot “fancier” than it really is, so for a plain horse to look stunning they truly have to be stunning. Plus let’s be honest, there’s a lot to be said for one that is mud colored. Especially when they like to do this at shows in between phases.

I am probably one of the few people in the world that really doesn’t want a chestnut with chrome or a black horse with 4 high whites and a blaze or a dappled gray. But every once in a while a “weird” colored horse comes along that tugs at my little pony-loving-kid soul and I get a little googley eyed. It’s almost never a pinto (because holy crap way too much white) but there’s something about a dilute that can really get me.

Yes blogger friends, I confess… this plain bay loving snob has a weakness for yellow horses. Not the apple bottomed stock horse variety, but sporty types. Usually warmbloods and Connemaras to be specific. I’m usually one of the first people to roll my eyes at the crazy color breeders (especially the thoroughbred ones, they seem to be a whole new level of internet wackadoo) but every once in a while I come upon a horse that makes me think they might be on to something after all.

There are two stallions in particular right now that make me all sorts of weak in the knees when I see pictures pop up on my facebook feed (because, naturally, I follow their pages). Quasi Gold is the first:

The pitter patter of my little heart is very real. I dunno what it is about those chocolatey dapples but I can’t control myself. He’s stunning and I would take one just like him in a heart beat, even if it meant scrubbing off poop and pee stains for an hour every horse show morning and buying Quiksilver by the barrel for that tail.

The other one that always makes me pause when I see him on facebook is WH Topgun, a little buckskin Connemara. At 14.3h he’s even further away from my typical choice of horse, but this guy is just too cute for words.

That little dude has some serious hops and I want him. I want him bad. Pretty sure I could make 14.3h work for me, even though it’s not mud colored.

Someday I’ll get my yeller horse. Someday. Maybe eventually there will be a really nice dilute thoroughbred stallion and I’ll be able to have the best of both worlds.

Does anyone else have weird or outside the box color obsessions?

Not gonna lie, I’ve been walking on air since we finished on that 28.3 (whaaaat?) and scored our last qualifying placing for AEC’s. If this is a dream, please no one pinch me.

Although when Henry and Halo got home from Corona and we tried to be nice by turning them out in the round pen for a few minutes, they decided their weekend long bromance was over and broke up in pretty epic fashion. There was a lot of kicking and horrible noises but it looks like both boys managed to escape with just superficial wounds. I might kill them, but they managed not to kill each other. This is why Henry has no friends.

Not even that could damper my mood, although it did make me feel like I should cover him in bubble wrap with a layer of full body armor over top until September. Brace yourselves for much obsession over every bump, lump, scratch, scrape, and funny step for the next 4 months. I already booked the hotel because I know as we get closer to opening date the rates will skyrocket, so cross all your crossables that I haven’t jinxed us. I’m about to get very superstitious and unreasonable and crazy. You have been warned.

Of course, it’s still so swampy and gross here that we’re never riding again anyway. It’s getting to the point where everything just smells like rot.

On the bright side, my horse has this one clean spot, so it’s not all bad right?

Not even the shitty weather can kill my buzz right now. You know why? Because BOOM.

Yep, that’s gonna get really obnoxious really fast.

Otherwise there’s very little else to report here except that I think I finally settled on the Airowear Outlyne as my new vest of choice, for a multitude of reasons that I’ll explain when I actually get it. Between that and a new Samshield and the cheap-but-it-works skull cap I already got, I’ll finally be all caught up to where I want to be in the safety department. I think Henry already has every piece of equipment any horse could possibly need, but I’ve been thinking about getting him some ice boots. However, I can’t find any that look promising and aren’t expensive. Let’s be honest, if it comes down to spending $200 on ice boots or just polo wrapping ice packs to his legs, I’m taking the cheaper way out. Any recommendations? I want all 4. Or I can just buy old crappy SMB boots and stick my ice packs under those, because I’m lazy.

After our shenanigans on Friday, I actually managed to get about 5 hours sleep which is pretty amazing for me before dressage day. Nothing unnerves me like dressage. Our ride time wasn’t until after lunch, so Barnmate Bobby and I piddled away the morning walking courses and grazing the boys.

A couple weeks ago at Greenwood I changed my approach to how I warm Henry up for dressage, and I liked how it worked, so I went for the same format again this time. I got on him about an hour ahead of time, trotted a little, cantered once, then spent the rest of the time walking, halting, trotting, halting, stretchy trot, walking, halting, and very basic lateral work. Basically – bore him to tears and get him thinking “whoa” instead of “go”. It took about 30 minutes for him to really settle and relax, but he did. When it was our turn I walked him around the outside of the ring, let him look at the potted plants at the letters, waited for the whistle, picked up the trot, and straight in we went. No fuss, no muss, no time to get worried or tense.

This was only our second time doing Test B, and on paper I don’t really like how it flows, but it actually seems better suited for Henry. Having all the trot work in the beginning and canter work at the end helps him not get flustered and tense. Overall I have very few complaints about our test, I felt like it was pretty representative of where we are right now. Our canter work was a little subpar, just kind of heavy and blah and more like ovals than circles, and I’m still not able to keep him connected in his trot to canter transitions, plus his last walk to trot transition was tight and tense – but otherwise I thought it was pretty solid for us. His free walk was great for him (remember how we used to not have one?), his down transitions were great, and I was able to ask for a little more brilliance in the trot than I did at Greenwood. I walked out of the rectangle feeling like we’d done just about as good as we could do, and hoped that was enough. Turns out it was good enough for a personal best score of 28.3 (first time in the 20’s!) which put us in 4th place. I needed a top 5 finish, so I was starting out in a good spot and now the pressure was on to stay there.

On Sunday we had stadium immediately followed by XC. The stadium course was tricky and from watching the other levels go before us, it seemed to be wheeled on a tight track. There were lots of rails and lots of time faults. By the time they put the jumps down for BN they looked microscopically tiny, which worried me more because I knew Henry wouldn’t be very impressed. I did a fairly brief warmup of mostly trotting, a couple laps each way of canter, then I jumped the vertical once and the oxer once off of a short approach. No reason to use him up in the warm up, I still wanted him to be sharp. I usually give him a little tour of the ring when I go in so he can see the jumps a bit before we start our course, but this time I trotted in and kept him to the rail, hoping that the element of surprise would work in my favor for keeping the rails up. He cantered right around, taking all the tighter options and shorter approaches, and had no problem. I did give him a little cluck at a very delicate little natural jump as a reminder to pick his feet up, but he had nary a rub and was very rideable and put in a nice smooth round. The stadium course claimed A LOT of victims, with only 3 people going double clear – me and Bobby being two of them. Pretty proud of our boys for that! Plus our clear round moved us up to 2nd.

After stadium I did a quick helmet change, threw my vest on, and went straight back out for XC. Since it was getting hot I just galloped one loop around the warmup and jumped him over the little coop once. Henry seems to be understanding the phases now, because as soon as we jumped the coop in warmup he was like YEAAAAAHHHH!!! THE FUN PART!!! Ok Henry, we get it, you’re a big deal. He even jigged a little on the way to the startbox. He never jigs.

Once again I do have helmet cam footage (thank god for helmet cam!) although I still forgot to clean the lens. I swear I cleaned it after I saw this video, so it won’t be so bad for the next one. Unless I put my fingers all over it again. No promises.

I came out of the startbox like we were on a mission, because the first 3 jumps were no joke. They were all big and 2 in particular wasn’t inviting. He leaped happily over the first one and also had no problem with the second and third. When we came out of the brush into the field for fence 4 I slowed him down a little to remind him that just because we came out bold doesn’t mean we can’t be adjustable, and he politely cantered the hay box. We made our way back into the brush for 5 (and I actually went down the correct path – I kept picking the wrong one when we walked it) and through a little bit of mud to 6. There’s really not much to say about any of those because he just rolled along, and I let him, so that was that. Pretty easy.

After 6 we made a bit of a rollback turn to 7ab which had a funky approach, but again he locked right on and had no problem. Fence 8 was a tall, very vertically faced fence in the treeline, which he took a bit of peek at off the ground (apparently this fence didn’t ride very well for a lot of people for whatever reason) but he never wavered. Then it was back into the brush over 9, then back out into the big front field for 10 A & B, a log to the water. I always ride the water very aggressively and I did the same here because I knew he wouldn’t see the water until we landed from the log. I sat deep, gave him a growl, and he bounded right through. With many pats and Good Boy’s on the exit, I let him gallop a bit to the bench at 11.

After 11 I looked down at my watch and went OH SHIT. We were too fast. At the time it sure didn’t seem like we were going that fast, but I came out going more like Novice speed and since he was rolling along so well I just really didn’t think about making wider turns or squishing him back into a slow canter. I collected his canter for 12, then brought him down to a trot right after. It was a pretty slow little trot, with me looking at my watch trying to remember what the hell the speed fault time was. We’ve always come in just a few seconds under Optimum, so I knew what OT was but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what speed fault time was. 4:05? 4:08? 4:15? SHIT! So there I was, trotting around between 12 and 13, taking the longest route possible, with Henry going “What the hell are we doing?”. Bless his heart, his mom is an idiot. We jumped 13 and eased across the finish, with me still not sure if we were too fast. Luckily speed fault time was 4:05 and we were 4:19, so all of my trotting wasn’t quite so necessary, but it worked out. Lesson learned – know both times by heart. Or ya know… be more aware of your canter and how that affects the track you take. Duh. Almost everyone was closer to too fast than they were to OT, even people that are normally slow, so I wasn’t the only one thinking it rode a lot faster than it was wheeled.

But at the end of the day we got the job done, and a double clear was exactly what we needed, so we kept our 2nd place! Barnmate Bobby was the winner, so our two bay boys went home with a first and second. He said he came inches from falling off after 8 when he got popped out of the tack… now I call him Dreamcrusher because if he’d done that I would have won. Thanks Bobby for killing my dreams by not falling off. J/K love ya mean it. We were the only two to finish with scores in the 20’s as well so it was a great weekend for us! I think Henry is a bonafide event horse now. And better yet – we’re officially qualified for AEC’s. It’s gonna be a hell of a party. Goal that I made last October: accomplished, and it feels pretty damn good. I’m super proud of this horse of mine and really excited to see what he develops into as we continue our journey. For how green he is to this sport you really couldn’t ask for more than he’s already done for me in our 3 shows this spring.

We’ve got Texas Rose in 3 weeks, then we’re done for the season.

Have no fear, I’ll cover Corona Horse Trials in just two posts, since I sadly have almost no pictures and video from the show itself. I do however have a lot of pre-show shenanigan pictures that absolutely deserve their own post.

Barn Buddy Bobby and I ended up being the only ones from our Austin contingent that went, and of course when we loaded the trailer and drove out of Austin on Friday morning it was raining. That’s all it does here anymore. And then along the way the clouds parted, the angels sang, unicorns had rainbow colored kittens, and WE FOUND THE SUN. It was a mere 3 hour drive away and boy was it glorious to finally see some blue sky. You might be hideous, West Texas, but you win a million bonus points for Vitamin D. Our moods instantly became cheerful.

We got there, unloaded, got the boys settled in, and then got on to ride around. They hadn’t been turned out or ridden since the Sunday before, due to how much rain we’ve gotten, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Henry neighed for Bobby’s horse Halo a couple times, but settled well so after a brief school I went for a little walk and let him chill. After we put the boys up we grabbed out adult beverages and our course maps and headed out to walk XC. We did the first walk fairly normally (well, ya know, with a drink in hand)

but there were a lot of really confusing twists and turns through all the brushy scrub in the beginning of the course so we walked it again. That’s when I mapped it with My Course Walk and Bobby insisted on starring in every picture. Well, except jump 1 because I forgot to take a picture of that one. Ooops. If you want to see the whole thing on My Course Walk, click here, but here are all the jump pics:

Course Walks with Bobby really can’t be beat. I’m not saying that’s the best thing ever posted on My Course Walk, but… it is. Obviously we take ourselves very seriously and have zero fun at shows.

You also might notice that a few of those jumps are a little big for BN. They were. Unless I’ve suddenly shrunk and now my hip is only 2’7″. I wasn’t going to complain though, because I’m already planning a fall move up to Novice and figured this would be a good way to test him over a few bigger fences. I wasn’t really worried about any of it in particular – it was big for the level in a few places but overall I didn’t think any of it would be a problem for Henry. It was a course that was really looking for forward positive riding, and that I can handle. The real test would be to see if I could remember where the hell I was going, weaving through that maze of scrub. It’s funny how our Texas events can have such completely different landscapes. Two weeks ago at Greenwood, just a few hours east, we had lush green fields with rolling hills and big trees. Not so much at Corona, but the sandy footing has held up well to our rainy spring so it worked out perfectly.

We walked the stadium course, which was pretty twisty and challenging (I thought it was really going to separate the men from the boys) then grazed the ponies and headed to the hotel. Saturday was the hard part – DRESSAGE.