Friday, September 16, 2016

Short and Sweet

This post was initially supposed to go live yesterday, but I had a mental meltdown and didn't touch my computer, so it's late! Oh well. Tuesday was farrier day for Cinna at the barn, so she had to be trailered over in the morning. Typically I take the day off work and do it, but we’re in our busy season at work on top of the fact that I’ll be taking quite a bit of time off for Vegas next week and Puerto Rico in December, so I sweet-talked DH into driving her.... bless him :) apparently she was reasonably well behaved about loading in the trailer (not always her favorite) and standing for the farrier (also not always her favorite), so yay! Baby is growing up! The farrier told DH she had great feet. All of my Iberian horses have all had rock solid feet, which is nice -- less maintenance costs! 
#textsfromDH
Tuesday night I knew I didn’t have the energy to ride both horses (this cold is totally kicking my butt). I decided to prioritize Ruby (since we’ll be showing Saturday) and to just lunge Cinna. Cinna had a really super session where we utilized the entire arena and she worked really well at the end of the lunge at all three gaits. Normally in the walk I have to have her a little closer to me to get her to really listen, and then send her out to the end of the lunge at the faster gaits, but Tuesday she was really tuned in to me and would “whoa” even at the end of the lunge -- so much progress! We also toyed around with side reins, although the set I have at home was obviously designed for a horse with a much longer neck, haha. Even on the tightest hole they were super loose, but since she’s a baby, that’s a-okay with me! I am going to need to buy a new leather hole punch at some point in the near future though -- DH destroyed my old one in pretty spectacular fashion trying to punch enough holes in my leather lunging caveson to make it usable. 
Totally chill with the tractor driving by.
Apparently Tuesday must have been baby horse brag day, because she was super about being hosed off after her workout too. I think I’ve mentioned previously that she was not a fan of water -- totally my fault, because she wasn’t exposed to it very young and then by the time I got around to it she was big and strong and a total PITA about it. I was finally able to enlist DH in assisting me earlier this summer, but she’s still probably only been hosed off less than 15 times in her life. Tuesday she stood like a rock to be hosed off (I actually dropped the lead at several points because I’m bad at juggling the hose AND a lead rope). 
Totally ignoring me spraying her in favor of checking the lawnmower seat for treats haha.
After I got Cinna put up, we headed out to the barn so I could ride Ruby. DH was kind of grumpy about two evenings in a row of horse things after he so graciously trailered Cinna for her farrier appointment, so I kept my ride short and sweet. I’ve been brushing up on Training 1 & 3 (the tests I entered in the show Saturday) so I gave it a go at riding them both from memory (using the final halt from T-1 as my intro halt for T-3) and Ruby was SUPER good! It’s always tricky practicing tests in the arena where I board her, because it’s shorter and narrower than a dressage arena (even a regulation small one), so while Intro A/B ride okay, anything else is dicey. Our trot loops actually rode better than I thought even in a small arena, and we even nailed the canter - trot transition across the diagonal (that Topaz and I really struggled with last year). I did a little more work, then called it quits so I could hose her and treat her leg. Last week it was looking like it wanted to become a little proud flesh-y, so Jacki offered to let me try some Equaide  -- I’d heard good things about it but it was $$, so in the past I had hesitated to bite the bullet and get some. I’m sold -- gonna have to pick some up to keep on hand! I treated her leg last week (either Thursday or Friday?) and the Equaide stayed on for DAYS (all the previous treatments we did pretty much had to be reapplied daily). Leg looks great, hopefully it will heal up and not scar! 
I keep forgetting to take photos of her leg, but we had round bales delivered, and I find that equally as exciting. Set for winter!
Wednesday it rained off and on, so I was planning on giving Cinna the day off and focusing on Ruby -- since you know, it was crunch time before the horse show. Life had other plans. My hourlong commute is currently being complicated by a bridge repair, forcing a bottleneck across the ONLY way I can get to and from work. Wednesday I had an appointment with my chiropractor, and heard in the office that there was an accident on the aforementioned bridge. I texted DH to let him know I'd be late, but didn't think too much of it. My bad. Instead of getting home at 5:30 like I normally would after the chiropractor, I didn't make it home until 7:15. I'm not going to even discuss my feelings on that (although if you're FB friends with me, you might have seen my rant, sorry haha), but thankfully DH is the absolute best and he ran out to the barn and lunged Ruby while I beat my head into my steering wheel sitting in the equivalent of a parking lot. 
I had plenty of time to go through and cull photos while I was sitting on the highway.... not moving....
That's why this blog post is going live on Friday instead of Thursday -- I was absolutely not in any kind of mental state to deal with proofing and adding photos, but on the plus side, now I can throw my Thursday recap in here too, so win-win!

Thursday after work I headed straight out to the farm that is hosting the show on Saturday -- I met up with some of the club members so we could get the arena set for the show! I've helped dissemble a dressage arena, but never put one up. My type A personality had a lot of fun trying to get all the lines straight, but in the end, I think it looked pretty good! That didn't take as long as I thought it would, so I jetted home, fed my dogs, and ran back out the door to go see Ruby. My intent was to ride (I even pulled out a pair of breeches while my dogs were eating), but unfortunately the brain fog from this cold is alive and well, and I totally forgot to change INTO the breeches. I didn't realize that until halfway to the barn, so I gave up and just lunged her... but TONIGHT will be a riding and bathing night! I packed most of my trailer last weekend (minus the stuff I keep at the barn for daily use), and we got ride times last night, so I'm pretty much ready to roll! 
Thank God my horse is a good sport and doesn't actually require RIDING before horse shows, lol.
So next week I'm hoping to bore regale you with a fun show recap, and I'm also planning on adopting the unoffocial blog hop describing my average day, so hopefully I can get my act together and have some fun stuff for you to read next week -- your reward for dealing with so many of these boring daily recaps haha.

I realize the title of this post is rather deceptive, because it's neither short NOR sweet, but I titled it before my traffic jam extravaganza and I'm too exhausted to think of anything else. I guess all the workouts I recapped with the horses were short and sweet workouts? Oh well. It's my blog, it doesn't have to make sense... God knows anyone who knows me knows that *I* rarely make sense.... lol. 

6 comments:

  1. That week sounds exhausting! I hope you have a GREAT show!

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  2. Show got rained out 😔 more time to catch up on sleep I guess! Haha

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  3. Replies
    1. So disappointing 😔 Mother Nature is not cooperating with this year's show season!

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  4. Awww what a bummer that the show was cancelled after all that running around!

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    1. Par for the course this year, haha. Sooooo much rain! Oh well. The rain date is in 2 weeks so we'll try again!

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