It's been pretty busy around here, lots of new horses and faces, and lots of fun things on the show schedule. The weekend following the Town Hill Combined Test, was the Riga Combined Test, where I had a bunch of students from Town Hill competing. It was a great time and everyone did really well. I don't think there was anyone that didn't place, and my favorite "Wonder pony" and Alice cleaned up with a 1st place finish in their first outing together, so that was really great.
We had a weekend off before Kent Horse Trials which was also very successful for us. Steve and I had our Novice debut, and I couldn't be more pleased. We had a very fair dressage test. I don't get too worked up over that, it will be what it's going to be based on where we are at. Steve is typically a high energy, tense horse, so bending, changing of bend and transitions are not always as good as they need to be. The fact that we are quiet, in a rhythm and not scaring people, is all GREAT STUFF, and all I could ask for. It could have been better, of course, but for the ride I had that day, and where he was at I couldn't have asked for more. Our stadium started well at fence 1, and as I tried to keep him settled for two, I got a big FU and a hind rail, jumped into the line at fence three, okay but steadily gaining speed, and about fence 4 is when I gave up trying to micro manage and allowed Steve to careen around and "get the job done" without making him too angry. I figured it wasn't good to make what was turning into a successful run a training day, and decided to let him finish clean and comfortable, and then hunt down someone after that might be willing to help up clean up our stadium. I have some ideas, so hopefully they will work!!!!
The XC was fabulous... Steve was so hungry and ready for more!! We started nice and easy, trotting fence one, and after fence 2 had a minor explosion slightly off the path, which was ok...fence 3, 4, 5, 6 rode beautifully and I had a good, moving pace to fence 7, this giant brown whatever it was, it was huge and in an awkward spot...my mental nemesis for the day...lucky for me a herd of 6 people were standing on the other side of it, in my path (hello fence judges, where are you when we need you?!) so forget about the jump, start yelling at people, and that actually wound up smooth though we went sailing through the tall grass, setting our own path, yet again... it wasn't until fence 12 Steve actually took a breath, I think, at least he felt a little settled and possibly starting to tire (thank god!) after that we headed into the field where we have schooled the same round of questions a time or to so I decided to take a glance at my watch...which said way more time left than I should have...so, broke down to a show jump canter and crawled over the rest...until the last hill, I decided hey! lets gallop!! and he did...right into the big bushes on the top of the hill where we had to stop, back up and remove ourselves from this giant bush...back on track, cantering again, and then finished at a strong gallop 43 seconds under optimum time... eep! Anyway, it was a blast and a good confidence building round.
The next big thing we had was the Boyd Martin clinic. I just did the one day, and it was a blast. I did some rather large and complicated questions for mine and Steves pea brain, so that was good and successful. He jumped really well, and for the most part behaved, I'm beginning to think if I can really apply myself and get serious about some technical questions, training might not be far off in our future.
Our next big plan is to head off to Great Vista at the end of June...possibly with a jumper show or two inbetween.
On another note, we've welcomed some new horses into our family. Here's the Beauty made her way back to us after her new owner came into some unforseen circumstances. She has since found the perfect owner who has decided to keep her with us and in our program. We couldn't be more pleased to have them with us! We also have welcomed our new working student Tory and her horse Flame into the mix. Papaya has also come back to our barn, and is available for lease and we have a new boarder, Deb and her horse Shorty Cat, who is here for some training. On the sale end of things, we have a new horse TC Soccittomebaby...a very cute 6 year old filly, as cute as they come...see our sale page for more info on her!
Lots going on, it's already starting out to be a great, fun summer!!!