Boise River Dressage

 

Wow. What a weekend. 

I'll break it down by day.

Friday: Got off work at 1 pm. Ran to the tack store to return white show shirt for a colored one because SCREW WHITE. Spent another $90 (lol it's only money right?) Packed everything up in my trunk for the show and CJ arrived around 2 to pick us up.

My beautiful button braids.

As soon as Ries gets off the trailer he seems off. Not sure why. Tack up and walk him around. Hes a nutcase. Decide to lunge him where he throws a fit. Get on. Randomly he decides he wants to strike out, throw his head, crowhop, buck, rear, ect. Just out of nowehere, and then returns back to work. Kind of bizarre. 

 

 

 

 

And the resulting afro.

Stop schooling and try and trot around the second arena just so I don't get myself killed. He rears at the walk. Que getting off. I send him out again to be lunged and he throws a few bucks and just seems unhappy. CJ and I decide that he isn't acting normal and to put him down for the night. We guess that if we let him settle in his stall and come back maybe he will be a different horse. 

Run to the barn to do chores and run back to the showgrounds to attempt to ride again. He seems calmer. Switched pads and switched into a mattes fuzzy girth. Get on, walk three steps, he tries going up again. I was only walking on a loose rein. Something was up. I got off, cried, and CJ decides he must be in pain somewhere. Decide to give him banamine for the night and hope that he wakes up feeling better. 

I got home around 10:30, had a piece of cookie dough, a shot of vodka (my roomate was getting ready to go party and offered), and a bag of goldfish and call it a night. 

Saturday:  Decide to have Toni (the massage therapist) come out to take a look at him. HOLY SHIT. My poor horse. He had two ribs out on both sides and his SI joint was out aswell. His loin was incredibly sore as was his chest/neck. I forgive him for Friday's antics. I braid him up and Toni suggests trying him in an hour and if he seems fine then to carry on. 

I run to the barn to switch half pads and grab a different bonnet (we switched from white pad to black pad) and come back to tack up. I walk him around on a loose rein and he seems relaxed. The second I pick up the reins and ask him to trot he starts acting uncomfortable. Not nearly as bad as before but still not himself. CJ and I vote to retire him for the weekend. Que more crying. 

Scratched my ride at 1:30. At 2 CJ decides to grab her school master. My next ride time was 3:30. Ran to the office as she ran to get said pony. Cleared it over with the office (I had called Friday night to explain I might be needing to do a horse switch) and Czoey Czar arrived at 3 pm. I slapped some braids on, tacked up and rode around the warm up. 

I hadn't ridden this mare in probably over three months and CJ explains that she also hadn't been out in 3 days. Ha. Ha. I'm way too mentally drained at this point to even consider stressing out. The night prior, CJ & mine's farrier's (and family friend) son was in a motorcycle accident. CJ stayed at the hospital with him until 4 am. He is currently in a drug induced coma.

Thanks to HollyBull for the pictures!

My ride went well, training level test 3, and I somehow managed to get a 66 and second place! Lost by half a point, not too shabby! 

Sunday: CJ hauled Czoey over at 10 and my ride was at 11. I slapped some more braids on her, hopped on and schooled. I felt a lot more prepared for this ride. My stepdad even showed up and video taped it! I have no idea where that footage is though haha.

The ride, training level test 2, went super well. I scored a 65 and was super impressed with myself. CJ thought I should have gotten over 70 but you win some you lose some. Scored another 2nd place satin. Lost to first again by half a point. Sensing a trend this weekend. 

My final ride felt the best. I felt prepared to do test 3 again since I had just done it the day before. However, CJ didn't seem too excited. She was probably just tired. I scored a 66 and, you guessed it, another 2nd place and loss by half a point! 

At this point my feet had probably ten blisters on them each and I was ready for bed. We packed the ponies up and sent them home. I stayed around the show grounds a little later to wait and see if I managed to score any champion or reserve champion ribbons. 

And guess who did?! This kid! First dressage show ever, on not my own horse, and I got reserve champion! I'm not exceptionally impressed with my dressage seat, but it seemed to get the job done.

And now to today: How is Riesling? I currently don't have a clue. Promptly on Monday my back decided to seek revenge against me. I joke that I got the same thing Riesling had. Currently struggling to get anything done unless I absolutely have to. I think my body is out to kill me. When will I ever be normal?

Your barn child

I couldn't title this "My Barn Child" because of, well, obvious reasons.

But I'm facing a dilemma.

Cute little 16 year old girl rides at my barn. Basically we are the only ones that ride consistently and are of the same age range. So naturally, she comes to me for advice and her day to day problems.

The other day she accompanied me on my trip to ride up at CJ's house after I finished riding Ries at the barn. We were jamming out to some BSpears (she had no idea what was going on) when she started telling me about her guy problems.

Let us take a step back, girl is 16.

At 16, I was an innocent little flower. I know some of you probably were not.

Now back to the drive: she was saying how she skipped class and went with some dude to go make out in his truck instead. "I would have f***ed him too but it was his brother's truck so I felt weird."

WHOA. BACK THIS ON UP. *cue internal crying*

I had no idea how to respond. And then this beauty came out:

"Does that make me a hoe? I don't care. I am a hoe. I'd f*** any hot guy!"

Uhm.

So they say horses are supposed to keep you out of trouble, and this completely ran true for me. But she still gets into mischief. Which is understandable for a 16 year old girl but holy hell that conversation threw me for a loop.

Should I be concerned? I mean I'm all for letting your freak flag fly but shes 16 and I don't want to see anything bad happen to her.

First of many

Well. Its time. My first horse show is coming up over the horizon. It is no longer this vague goal or idea that might one day fall into fruition.

I had a major anxiety attack yesterday. I took the afternoon off work to haul over to the show grounds as a sneak preview. Ries hasn't shown or even been hauled off property in a long long time. I panicked. Everything I thought could go wrong was going to. But I was wrong.

My horse walked right on the trailer, walked around the grounds without plowing me into the ground, and I actually was able to ride and he calmed down and went to business. 

So I have probably thrown down over $1,000 for this one show over membership fees, entry fees, and show clothes. Let's see if we can win some satin! 

PS blog posts have been lacking because I have NO fodder and life has been pretty boring. 

#Pegleg strikes again

The. Hell.

Ive been battling "allergies" for the past two weeks. Yesterday I woke up wanting to throw up my tonsils and knew there was an issue.

So I went to the doctor and apparently I have a sinus infection. Popped some antibiotics and then puked all afternoon. So useful I know.

Anyways, Im feeling slightly better today. Next week Im going to see an ENT doctor because I want these damn tonsils ripped out. Me thinks they are making me sick. 

Monday Musings

 

Woo. Monday. Ew. 

Friday Ries and I pretended to work on our dressage tests.

Beautiful art I know. Saturday I went and spent the day at the lake. It was pretty awesome because some random group of people invited us to join their party barge made of random floatation devices (my friend and I were on a blowup mattress lol). They also gave us free alcohol so that's always fun.

Yesterday I decided it was cross training time and Ries and I took to the jumps. The #muskateers were all at a clinic/show so #pegleg had to jump by herself. Ries was a star. He tends to flatten out and get fast. Everytime I rocked him back it felt great. Sometimes he ignored me though, and realized his mistake haha. We just jumped a big crossrail (2' ish in the middle) and a 2'3 vertical. I need to gain more confidence back but it was great. It was 90 degrees out though and I wanted to kill myself. SO much sweat. My thighs feel good and sore today so my mission was accomplished.

That's about all that happened last week. No major plans for this week but I will try and get more fodder.