Riding, showing, surviving

I haven't gotten much accomplished on getting posts up lately. I've been insanely busy still and no matter how much I intend to get one done, sleep inevitibaly becomes a priority. I spend my mornings at the track, my afternoons with the dressage horses, and my evenings back at the track. Any spare hour here and there is spent grabbing a quick nap or taking care of daily chores that normal people do. I pretty much spend my time hurrying from one barn to the next. I'm not complaining, just explaining my absence as of late.

Indy is doing pretty well, there are good and bad days. JL, my trainer, is going to ride her tomorrow and I'm excited to see how she goes for him. I'm kind of assuming that an Olympic rider will be able to get a hell of a lot more out of her than I can.

Barstow decided to ding up her hind leg and had to have some time off. She got shod a few days ago and my shoer said she had a hot nail in the right front. She about dropped to the ground when he pulled it and then sat there chewing and licking her lips after it was off. I knew something was there, but it honestly felt like it was up in her shoulder more than in her foot, but it still makes sense. I'm glad to know that it isn't anything major or permanent. I rode her on Saturday and she was still a bit sore on the leg she beat up. We just walked and trotted a few steps to see how sore she actually was on it. She was really well behaved! Back to work for her tomorrow.

Gunner is just happy to be away from the track. He's kind of low man on the totem pole when it comes to getting ridden, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't mind much. At all.

I took Beefheart to another schooling show on Sunday. He hadn't been going well the last week and I wasn't all that excited about going. After the fiancé watched me ride Beefs on Friday, he said that he would come out and do some body work on him on Saturday. Beefs is starting to get a little body sore and stiff with working harder. I also need to get him back on the Mega-Sel, as that seemed to help him a lot.

While I rode Indy and Barstow, the fiancé spent about three hours massaging and red-lighting Beefs! The fiancé likes for me to do well too and he isn't going to send me to a show without my horse being as sound and happy as possible. So thankful for him! After he finished working on Beefs, I put Blue Lotion on the tight spots then the fiancé took him to the round pen to roll.

I was sitting there cleaning my tack when I heard my horse tearing ass around the pen. Apparently, he was feeling better. The fiancé caught him before Beefs could kill himself and took him back to his run. Next thing I know, Ty is yelling at me to hurry up and put my stuff away, we had to get back to the track because our other shoer was leaving in a half hour. Okay, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Beefs had pulled a front shoe and the fiancé was a little panicked. Not because of the shoe itself, but I think he was a little worried about how I would react if I couldn't show. He knows I'm exhausted and stressed to the max, that the shows are an outlet for me, and didn't want me to be disappointed (even if I was pretty sure that we weren't going to have a very good one this time). Hence, his change from always being the calm one to getting a bit nervous. MB, trainer's wife, was trying to tell him that JL could put the shoe back on and asked the fiancé if he had seen him. Apparently, he misunderstood and ended up telling her that he hadn't seen the one dog, but the other one had just been laying by the truck. Eventually, it all got figured out. My fiancé was my hero for fixing my horse, MB was my hero for getting everyone organized, and JL was my hero for fixing the shoe.  I'm very lucky to have so many people looking out for me!

Oh yeah, the show. Anyway, the morning of the show I got Beefs loaded and unloaded (he can be a real ass about those things) by myself. He was a bit more awake at this show and I had to deal with a combination of whinnying and trying to eat every weed in sight to get him tacked up, but I got it done. I can't tie him to the trailer because it is obviously going to kill him, even if it just transported him safely from point A to B, and he pulls back. So, getting him tacked up by myself  when we haul somewhere is always interesting. As I finished tacking, MB and JL pulled in with the horses MB was showing. Beefs wasn't being an idiot, but he was tense and whinnying quite a bit. I led him over to where JL and MB were parked to have them hold him while I got on.

*Sorry, no show pics. The fiancé had to take care of things at the track.

I don't do a lot of warm up with Beefs because he A) gets tired and lazy or B) gets hotter and more tense. Either way, a short basic warm up focusing on getting him engaging his hind end and coming through seems to work best. You know, quality over quantity type of thing. He was tense at first and things weren't looking good, then JL came over to coach us. You know you have a good trainer when the second he starts talking, you instantly relax and things start coming together.  The warm up went well and I was starting to feel more confident. *Also, Beefs felt way better, as far as soundness goes, than he had the last week. Thanks Fiancé!

The training 3 test was our first class. I'm pretty sure it was the best Beefs has gone for me. Ever. The only things I can fault us on was that he lost focus on me and was way too interested in the judges booth, we lost impulsion a couple of times, and our right lead canter transition sucked (our left was so good that I about fell off from pure shock). Other than that, I was extremely happy with the test! We scored a 73.8 (the highest I've ever scored on any horse, even the much more talented warmbloods that I've shown when I could actually ride a whole lot better than I do now)! We won the class. There was only me and one other person in the Open division though.

Lunch break was after our first ride, so I untacked Beefs, put him in a pen, and chilled for awhile. He happily relaxed and ate his hay. When I started to tack him back up he was all like "Oh, Hhhelllll nah heifer! I was good, I'm done! WTF?!!!". This is the first time that I've taken the tack off and put it back on in the same day. He's used to being untacked meaning finished for the day. Putting it back on and getting on again was confusing for him.

Needless to say our short warm up started off pretty shitacular. He was tense, stiff, and tired. The warm up arena was rocky and he was starting to feel a tiny bit stingy. Once again JL came over, talked my dumb ass through it, and things started to come together right before we went in for our 1-1 class.

Going in, I knew there were things we suck at (trot lengthenings specifically) and tried to focus on really going for it on the things we could do well. JL had told me to think about setting Beefs up for the movements correctly rather than the movements themselves and I really tried to do that. I didn't always succeed, but I tried. Maybe too hard. The test was pretty fluid, but Beefs had some moments of tension. He lost focus in the free walk, jigged in our medium walk, and must have forgotten how to do a stretchy trot somewhere along the way. Of course or trot lengthenings sucked. His canter lengthenings were pretty nice, our 15 m canter circle to the right was good, the one to the left was okay, and our canter/trot transition across the diagonal wasn't bad at all. I was kind of proud of myself in that I ignored our mistakes and didn't let them translate onto the next movement of the test. We scored a 68.79 and won the class. Oh yeah, I was the only one in the class. Whatever. The best part was that JL seemed much happier with this test than the one we rode last time and what he thinks is much more important to me than what the judge does.

Way too many 5s for my comfort...

                           I'm pretty sure that says tilting (as in Beefs was tilting his head) not titting. Apparently, collective marks can really save your ass.

MB said she thinks we probably won high point again. I had to leave right after my class because we had two horses running and she didn't get a chance to check, so who knows. I'll find out eventually. It doesn't really matter anyway, I had fun.

These last couple of shows have taught me a lot when it comes to riding, but also about myself in general. For some reason, I ride better at shows than I do at home usually. Necessity brings out my best/better maybe? I'm bolder at shows (occasionally, my  reckless "Screw it, I have nothing to lose. Just go for it" attitude can come in handy). Showing really does relax and focus me. I don't get nervous anymore, just content. Things usually seem to come together when I'm in the show ring. Part of the confidence that I used to have returns. I'm not worried about what could go wrong, just what I need to do. Basically, I'm just happy to be out there and nothing else matters. I love it!

After the races, we met JL and MB for dinner at a restaurant that is all organic and serves grass fed beef in their burgers. I'm a rancher's daughter from Idaho, of course this was my type of place! Good food, good company. All in all, it was a pretty good day. Even if I am in Hellbuquerque.