♣Ambitious♣

Today was a horse filled day, minus the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Fifi had a lesson at noon, meaning that I actually got to sleep in for once in a long time. My first dilemma of the day was which belt to wear. Was I to go with well fitted with obnoxious butterfly buckle or horribly fitted but actually classy? I ended up going with the butterfly because the other one was just hanging off of me, but it was getting hooked on so many things. I'm pretty sure I left my good black belt in Jamaica last week. It is now enjoying daiquiris and sugar cane on the beach. There were more people at Fifi's barn today, including the ever fabulous Kellie. There were also donuts, many donuts. Fifi didn't get yelled at as much in her lesson today, so I didn't have as much written down, but I did make note of one exercise and a couple of other little things. Afterwards, we went on a trail ride, and I walked with Lee's nieces while they switched on Fisher. For some strange reason, th...

I'm off by a minimum of 2 points. I'm not exactly sure anymore, but, so long as I place well at my next show, I will qualify. Sunday started out not so nice. I switched into Low Children's from Pleasure Horse. Miss S just wants me to do something without having to worry about points. I don't even know what Low Children's judges. I might do Low Hunter next time. Long story short, I didn't get to school, so Baby stopped at all the fences in our first two classes, and I was excused. Miss S had me do an open card and gave me a crop to carry, which I honestly hated, but I guess it was necessary. I'm not against crops. They're an aid like spurs, a whip, and so on, but I hate that I had to all of a sudden use one. I hate that things got to that point, and I hope that I don't have to use it ever again. We got through the open card and the next judged course. I got a third there, then a fourth in the flat. Now, the main issue all morning was the meda...

So, Saturday showing had finished, and now I'm sitting with my trainer and Shelby, drinking lemonade and making schedules. My allergies and asthma have suddenly decided to spur up, so deep breaths every once in a while. Getting up this morning was not happening. We actually woke up later than we usually do since we didn't have any lead liners this weekend. Dubstep helped. We get to the barn, and I go to clean Baby's stall, and for some reason unknown to me, she decided to roll in her pee. We had been good for almost a year, but I guess we've reached relapse. I cleaned her off. There was still a faint stain. Fortunately it wasn't too obvious. Miss S put me in Pleasure Horse before I did any of my equitation simply because she wanted me to do something that wasn't equitation. Out of the four in the division, Baby did pretty well. She was calm for the most part. She got a third in the flat and park mount, then a second in the combination. Things kind of went so...

 I'll apologize now for the novel, but I couldn't document 2.5 hours worth of riding in a shorter way. So I survived the clinic. What a relief. It was moved up an hour earlier than it had been originally planned, so I had to wake up at 6:30am, school year time . I got to the barn just before 7:30. Baby was, well, dusty, but I think her hose down on Sunday helped to minimize the amount of dirt I would have to brush off of her. I ended up having to switch from my blue saddle pad to my burgundy one; my original outfit had a blue shirt and a pair of grey breeches which I had ordered last Tuesday, but it appears that I got the short end of the stick when it comes to shipping. The items didn't arrive until today, in the afternoon, plus the gloves were missing. I wore my pink polo and jean breeches. I felt so under dressed, but at least I was clean and had my shirt tucked in. The whole clean thing didn't last too long. It was hot, even at eight in the morning. TWC has a t...

'Course not! I spent the last half hour cleaning my boots and chaps for tomorrow's clinic, but prior to that I threw some laundry in the wash. Guess what I'm washing? Show stuff! And now, I'm writing on my horse blog while simultaneously watching jump-offs (commentary included), and that's basically what I've been watching all day. It never ends. I was slightly bothered by the whole not jumping thing on Thursday. I want to be just a little bit prepared, so I rode on yesterday and did a figure-8 with fences. I also did the transitions exercise, and Baby was The Bomb. She was super duper responsive without being tense or uppity. The leaning wasn't as bad as Thursday, but it was still there for both directions, and she's basically saying "Eff you" to my inside leg. I've been trying to pay attention to my upper body issue at the canter, but it's hard to tell if I'm doing the right thing when there is no one there to watch me. After re...

When you're bitten by the horse bug, you tend to have an almost uncontrollable desire to be on the horse, but when I went to Fifi's barn yesterday, that changed. I sat down right in my chair, writing notes and taking pictures, while my dear friend was tortured, er, I mean took a lesson. Her trainer makes her work, good lord, it's intimidating! As terrifying of an experience as it was, I enjoyed listening in to both Fifi's and Kellie's lessons (I also enjoyed just looking at Kellie, and I mean that in a completely not stalkerish, no homo way; she dresses nicely, and she likes my half chaps, so we're cool). I took lots of useful notes that I applied to my ride later that day. They're a funny bunch at Fifi's barn. My friend Lee rides there too, and she was telling me about a Dom Schramm clinic that was supposed to happen this summer. Unfortunately, they won't do the clinic if there aren't enough people. Since its show season, a lot of people, m...

Because when you ride recklessly and flop around over jumps, he is bound to question whether or not he is judging an equitation class. I mean . . . Every fault I have was just magnified 10x when I got in the ring. Even during my warm-up I looked better than this. I was so much more focused and thought clearly about what I needed to do, but, once I got to the actual class, I blanked on pretty much everything I shouldn't have blanked on. I remembered my course, but everything else just went out the window. If only I had been judged while schooling on Saturday morning. Baby went over everything nice and was picking up her leads nice, just still not so happy about picking up the left lead — she actually didn't feel quite right on her left lead, and I have asked Miss S to have the chiropractor out sometime this week. Otherwise, she was great. I hung around for a while since Jr. Eq. is still and always will be towards the end of the day (gahh!!). Cas convinced me to do the ...

I guess it's a good thing that I rude with the people who I ride with, Cas in particular. She has to jump higher than the rest of us because of the classes she does at shows. I've been waiting for the day when I can innocently tag along behind her and try the bigger jumps—though I am overly pleased with how Baby has done in the last 6 months—mainly for the heck of it. Tuesday was that day, but since flatwork always precedes jumping, you'll have to read all that before getting to the "good stuff". I'm still in the process of breaking I'm my tall boots, so I rode in them for my lesson. They're so much easier to get on now that they've been through one weekend of showing, but still they could use a bit more stretch, mainly because of my awkwardly large calves. Flatwork was the usual walk, trot, and canter. My departures for the canter need a bit more work though. Baby it's still being more disagreeable than usual about her left lead. I'm goi...