♣Ambitious♣

I love brunch. It is hands down one of my most decadent, extravagant, and completely self-interested hobbies. I love picking out my outfit; sometimes I go shopping the week before just to get the right look. I love getting ready the morning of. I love running (fashionably) late. I love getting in the Lyft and pretending that I'm the main character. I love bottomless mimosas, and in Miami, bottomless mojitos. Everything about it is just *chef's kiss* in my world. When Longines came to Miami Beach a few weeks ago, it was the perfect opportunity to kick off hot girl summer. I put an obnoxious amount of energy into visualizing the day. Horses, brunch, the beach, drinks, and a nice sunset were all on my radar. I made the reservation at one of my favorite restaurants. Invites were sent to my work besties plus Trainer T and another one of the adults at my barn. I even went to Target the night before and picked up a new pair of ankle boots. And then they started dropping like flies. Tr...

 

So, how'd Fuego's R&R go? Technically, he didn't break it, just broke out of it. And it wasn't even the wash rack, it was the regular cross tie that he's been standing so perfectly at for months now. AND it was after he had a nice yawning session. I decided to give him a little spa day as a substitution for our usual bareback ride. He's got a little bit of fungus because #ThoroughbredSkin, and while his immune system has taken care of most of it, I decided to hit it with the E3 Shampoo to get it all gone. I'd be shocked if his butt isn't fully cleared up by the next time I'm at the barn. "Hiiii. Whatchu doing down there???" He got a nice groom, a bath, hand detangling of his mane and tail, drying time under the fan in the middle of the day, early dinner, and lots of treats. This horse wants for nothing. Since the timing was right, I decided to do some glamour shots of him as well. Y'all, he's a pain in the rear to take photos o...

So, I was right, Egg Head definitely needs some R&R. Winter has maintained a boney grip on South Florida. As we approach hurricane season, the weather has been oddly dry, and the evenings have been somewhat cold. Typically, by this time of year, it's raining at least daily, and the air has hit the point of being disgustingly humid. This weekend, I stepped out of my apartment into a chilly, dry morning. It was about 71* at 9am, which is definitely not typical. By the time I arrived at the barn, a strong wind had picked up. I took Fuego out of his stall, and he was just very blah. He didn't seem super interested in doing anything. I even had to basically shove a treat into his mouth because he didn't want to take it on his own. So, with that in mind, plus the weather, I kept my expectations low and just aimed for a fun lesson. We kept the warmup pretty simple. I didn't do any extensions, no leg yields; it was mainly just maintaining a working trot and changing directi...

Show season is still well underway here in SoFlo, even as temperatures start to rise. Trainer T's show team is also growing as she's added several more off-property clients. My real adult weekends continue to be consumed 100% by horses, whether I'm at the barn annoying Fuego or tagging along to the grand prixs. Which, by the way, now that WEF is wrapped up, we're switching to polo matches instead. At least the alcohol is included with those . . . Because of the sheer number of students she had, Trainer T offered to do my lesson whenever she returned from the show on Sunday. Earliest would be 5pm, latest would be, uhhh, like 9pm. On a work night, nonetheless. Eh, not a big deal for me. I hung out at home for the morning, stayed at the show for a few hours, then head back to the barn to mess around with Agave until they got back. That's when the whole downward-facing horse incident happened, which still perplexes me. I think my lesson ended up being right around 8pm. ...

I always like to try new things when I ride. Well, at least in my head I do. Usually I'll find some new exercise, day dream about it, go to the barn, set everything up, get out to the ring, and then either a) not do it or b) attempt it, not like how it's going, and quit. Believe it or not, Fuego and Baby are the only horses that I've ever stuck to my guns with. There were already a couple of exercises that I had in mind to help Fuego and me. First was transitions to improve the quality of the gait with minimal picking. Then I also wanted to try raised poles to get his feet up. There was also an idea to try cantering through a line of poles and halting at the end to see if that had any impact on how he jumps. We didn't end up doing this last one, but we did go through a line of poles at all gaits which is kind of a big deal for me. The morning of this ride, I was watching a new video from Jesse Drent where he was doing some complex polework with a horse that is notorious...

While goals are canceled for the time being, I still think it's worthwhile to take a holistic look at what's changed since January. We started the year with Fuego being lame. It definitely didn't set the tone for us moving forward, and once he had his shoe back on, he was fine. Speaking of his feet, they're doing great! He was switched to an aluminum shoe and had some mud put over the front of his feet to hold it on better. The tears grew out a little slow, but his feet are solid, and *knocks on wood* he hasn't pulled a shoe in a while. Something else he hasn't done in a while (at least with me) is break a cross tie. He has also graduated back to being in the wash rack instead of hosing him off while hand grazing. He walks in with gusto and stands all the way at the front to do a thorough investigation of the whole setup. He still isn't confident about exiting and can get antsy if he's there for too long, but he isn't breaking anything. He does his b...

Donkey On Duty I think I made a mistake. There's a pretty clear trend with my last few lessons on Fuego. We were riding on a high until around the beginning of February, and then his demeanor changed, and then the splint showed up, and then he continued to be a lot more tense than usual. I had initially felt that the splint was the answer to all of our problems, but it definitely was not. My lovely little Dressage horse came back, but jumping seems to still be a point of contention. Trainer T also decided to make a change with his supplements and pulled him off of one of them for a few weeks. The weather is getting warmer, he's still shedding out his "winter" coat, and he's just been feeling a touch sluggish. He seemed like he was just having a little bit of trouble, so she tested things out. Unfortunately, it did not go well because Fuego is a psycho. I had a semi-private with another adult who rides Destello. It was a quiet Sunday evening, usually the time that ...

  Jumped over some big sticks, and continuing to work on Fuego's Dressage!