I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I got a couple pictures from the jumper show last weekend. Ya know… the last time I rode. Unless you count me sitting on my horse bareback last night.

The bad news is, it’s still raining every day. In fact yesterday it looked like this.

Inches upon inches. On top of the inches upon inches we already had. Basically we’re never riding again and the horses are never leaving their stalls again. I’m not even being dramatic anymore, that’s just a fact. It kinda looks like it might not rain today, which would be both strange and amazing. There’s some really big bright spherical orb thing in the sky that I caught a brief glimpse of earlier before it ran away again.

I cleaned stalls last night and the horses all just looked at me like HEEELLPP UUSSSSS.

All I can really do is a lot of this:

Because I feel months of work and the show season and the goal of AEC’s slipping farther and farther away with every drop of rain. We’re still going to the event this weekend (they’ve gotten less rain up north), but I’m not exactly hopeful for a great performance considering I’ve ridden twice in 12 days and the poor horses have been stuck inside since Sunday. In fact, I had a dream that I was second after dressage and then had 4 rails in stadium to drop to 6th. Even my subconscious has given up on my life goals.

Is it possible for mass amounts of rain to cause instant depression? I’ve even tried hiding my feelings in food and that’s not really helping either. That always helps, especially in the form of Thin Mints. I’m at a loss here for how to treat it if food doesn’t work.

I have a lot of review posts I need to write, I just have no spirit left. Sorry readers, this blog is a sad and boring place right now. But… yay event this weekend? Unless it turns into a mud fest. Boo.

Horse baby of course. Calm down. As most of you know, my mare Sadie is leased out to a friend, and in foal to the stallion Mezcalero.

Yesterday was her birthday so to celebrate I thought we would have a fun contest to see who can get as close as possible to guessing the correct color, sex, date, and time of birth for her foal. Winner gets a $25 Riding Warehouse gift card!

What you need to know:

• The baby will be bay, chestnut, or black. Those are the only options (brown is rolled in with bay). I don’t know the agouti status of either parent so it’s possible that black isn’t actually an option – in which case it’d be 75% bay, 25% chestnut. Know that if you pick black you’re living dangerously.

• There is really no such thing as a “due date” in horses, but the average gestation is 340 days. For her, 340 days would be July 6. Most mares foal within 330-345 days.

  

• This is her first foal, so she’s a maiden.

Contest Details:

• One entry per person please!
• Enter by commenting on this blog post
• With your entry please list the following: color, sex (filly or colt), date of birth, time of birth. Just in case multiple people get the correct color, sex, and date, the person closest to the correct time will be the winner. If you don’t give me a time, I have nothing to break ties! On the flip side, if no one gets the correct color, sex, and date, whoever was closest will win.
• Give me some way to contact you – either your email or your blog link, if you have one. If you have “liked” my blog page on facebook, you can just leave your name and I’ll find you that way.
• Entries will stay open until June 15.

Good luck!

 

 

Now that I have been back into the swing of participating in USEA recognized events, it is certainly clear that some shows really have it all down pat while others are just plain disorganized.

I’ve come to really like or dislike certain things about how horse trials are run or what they offer. A lot has changed since I evented in the early 2000’s… we didn’t have the same kind of technology then as we do now. Shoot, I remember getting my ride times in the mail on a postcard. With all of these changes I have noticed a lot of things that make me more or less likely to want to attend a certain event. So lets start with things I consider to be perks:

TIP awards – I love thoroughbreds, I love my thoroughbred, and I love the TIP program. If you offer TIP awards I am much more likely to want to come to your show.

Startbox Scoring – It’s kind of annoying how some shows use Event Entries and others use Startbox, but I have to say – Startbox is way better. I’ve never had a problem pulling up anything or finding anything on their website, and updates happen timely. I’ve had a lot of issues with Event Entries though, either not updating or just not being particularly user friendly.

MyCourseWalk – There is one event here that posts their courses the week before the event on MyCourseWalk. I love this. I like being able to see it in advance, plot it out in my mind, and already have a good idea of the course before I get there and start walking. Plus the courses stay on MCW so you’re able to go back and look at previous years, or look at a venue you haven’t been to before to get an idea for what they have on their course. I wish more venues would use it.

Competitor dinners – Almost everyone has these now, which I really like. It’s a good way to get people rubbing elbows and talking to each other, plus it’s nice to have at least one meal taken care of while you’re on the road. I greatly appreciate them, especially when they don’t charge the non-competitors either (our helpers are just as important!).

 

On the flip side of the coin, there are a few things that drive me really crazy:

Not posting entries or results in a semi-timely manner – if it’s past closing date and you still haven’t posted any of the entries you’ve received, you’re way behind the ball. I like to know that my entry got there, that it’s all complete, that it’s all correct, and that I don’t owe you any more money. On the same token, if it’s been an hour and a half since my division wrapped up and there are still no scores posted, I’m going to start getting impatient. Keeping up to date on your paperwork and keeping people informed goes a long way in making an event look organized, competitor-friendly, and on the ball.

Dangerous stabling – if a normal sized horse cannot easily turn around in the aisles, they’re too narrow. If the stalls are so old and rusted and bent that a horse can get a hoof stuck in the bars, it’s time to replace them. If the doors won’t stay shut without having to be tied up, fix them. If the barn is going to flood in a rain storm because there isn’t appropriate drainage or gutters, put it in. There are a lot of irreplaceable and well-loved horses staying there, please make us feel like they’re safe while they’re at your facility.

Not splitting divisions – maybe this is just my “I need AEC placings” craziness setting in, but if you’ve got enough entries to split up your divisions into Junior, Senior, and Open divisions please do it. Horse show 101 is to have as many people walk away happy as possible, so do yourself a favor and split that stuff up. One big division kinda sucks.

Volunteer education – please please please take 15 minutes to educate your volunteers on their duties. Jump judges need to know where is or is not an appropriate place to sit, they need to know what constitutes a refusal, etc. Scribes should know how to make the shorthand comments as readable as possible. The people in charge of parking should know where each barn is. I love that our sport is so volunteer based, and I love volunteering, but we need to make sure we’re doing a good job of setting our volunteers up for success.

I’m sure there’s a lot I’m forgetting here. Fellow competitors (not just eventers!) what are some of the things that you love to see or drive you crazy at your competitions?

Remember that whole drought thing that Texas has had going on for years now? Remember when it used to not rain for months at a time? Apparently it’s a feast or famine type of thing around here because it will not stop raining. And when I say rain I don’t mean like a half inch here and there. I mean like 4-5″ at a time. Enough to flood everything and make lakes where your arenas used to be.

Enough to make the turnouts so muddy that it’s dangerous for the horses to go out. So basically as long as your horse doesn’t want to ever go outside and you don’t ever want to ride, you’re all set. Did I mention I have another event next weekend? Did I mention I haven’t ridden since we did cross country on Sunday? Meh, details. You can tell I’ve been bored by the new stuff in my blog sidebar and the fact that I started a facebook page for the blog. I never actually do housekeeping things like that normally. Luckily I did stop short of a complete blog redesign. At this point I’m considering buying a million tarps and covering the barn with them 100 x 100 feet at a time. That’s not drastic, is it?

I think I have secured a truck and trailer to borrow (thanks again Erin for saving my butt, this is becoming a theme) so I can try to haul out to places with covered arenas to ride this weekend. There’s a dressage place down the road, and a local h/j show going on this weekend about 15 minutes away where I could at least do a couple of jumping classes. That might be the only jumping we get to do before the event next weekend. Shoot, at this rate it might be the only riding we get to do before then, since the monsoons are supposed to continue next week. I’m getting tired of always being woefully unprepared for things. Stop raining. Just stop.

To assuage my anxiety and angst I went spur-of-the-moment googling yesterday for some breeches for cross country. I guess the gods are feeling guilty because I happened upon the perfect pair, AND they were on flash sale for 40% off. You’re not off the hook, gods, but thanks for the cheap breeches.

Know what else would make me happy(ish)? A full set of these DSB boots in navy, because they’re beautiful. Sadly I’m out of money because I’ve spent it all on horse shows that I never actually get to prepare for. No bitterness here.

I’d trade a couple of semi-vital organs for a covered arena right now. Who needs a kidney?