Lots of doings!

Thursday, Aug 18
We had a Low and an Ariat National Medal Class.  The Low (unrated of course) went perfect, landed every lead, jumped awesome.  The Ariat was fun; we got a bending line AND a rollback.  Jumped fence 1 beautifully, unfortunately did NOT land the lead and skipped the change.  BUT, jumped the scary straw that gave many others fits (a couple of unintentional dismounts in fact) and bent to the oxer and jumped out fantastic.  We had one unintentional swap in the middle of a line (oh NOW you give it to me?!) and finished up well.  We ended up 7th in a big class.  I feel like if we had landed the leads and not swapped, we would have made the ride off.  Oh well - hard to NOT be happy with how he went!

Friday, August 19
We went late late late today (read...last group of the day).  So we went for a leisurely stroll this morning, had some grass, a good nap (him not me) and finally got ready to go.  We had a good low round.  He looked pretty hard at the first jump of the judges line, and I tapped him off the ground, but landed all leads and jumped well.  Then we had a hunter round, and had a bit of drama with his gawking to the right, and me trying to get his attention on the jump, and finally at the last second when he's almost underneath it he sees it and leaps it like a deer.  I get chucked forward and lose my right stirrup but stayed on and we jumped out, and carried on (I finally got my stirrup back before the next line!) and finished up again with the judge's line - in which he decided to pay me back a little for the tap off the ground last time and jumped in and out like a freight train.  Somehow - we still ended up 6th - and had to jog..with him chuckling I'm sure.  Then we had the hack, and Teri said its the best I've shown him under saddle, so we ended up 4th.   All in all a long, but very satisfying day.  We go first thing tomorrow - so wakey wakey!

Random Notes:

• Quote of the Day:  Hunter Ring 3 Gate Person Tracy "If I don't see some action soon, I'm going to start looking for some adults"
• Seeing the Tallulah mare and her Voltaire foal going parade in the Grand Prix field for the Diane Tidball Grand Prix
• So many horses, so much seeming chaos - and yet it all somehow works.  Kudos to TBird Show Park staff!
• Oberon's Playlist today:
• Money - Jessie J
• Rumor Has It - Adele
• Bad Romance - Lady GaGa

930 Horses Oh My!

We actually arrived Sunday night, and got the horses reasonably settled, and fed before heading off to the Holiday Inn Express (free breakfast and internet!) ourselves.  Monday was set up day, as well as giving the horses (Mighty, Cruiser, Rumor and Toby) a good hack and a trail ride (beware the killer blackberries....they could clearly use the services of Totes McGoats here!).  We even got Teri on a bicycle yesterday!  She is pretty convinced I am going to hurt myself on the 2-wheeled non-beastie.  No worries about the 1200 pound beastie ...go figure hahahahaha!!
Tuesday was schooling day, and Mighty got to go first...and beep bop boop (yes I made sound effects) we went around and were done.  He got a bath, and some turnout where he made new friends and got a nice roll (thereby negating the benefit of the bath). 
Our weather is beautiful, and it's *almost* as much fun to fantasy horse shop and people watch as to ride.  Please note the use of asterisks.  We have a pretty easy day tomorrow, then the Ariat Medal Thursday, as well as the Scheduled Entertainment Event of the Evening---the Hunter Derby. 
Notes: 

• to the @#&* who tried to steal our golf cart last night and broke the key off in the ignition....karma will kick you in the ass.....trust
• we've talked about bringing bikes up here for years, and finally remembered...Rock Hopper and Magna have been a hit.  Emily and I took them 4-wheelin' today, got herded by a golf cart and truly took them rock-hoppin'
• There are 930 horses here across all the divisions.  It promised to be super busy, organized, chaos. In other words, a horse show.

Oberon's Playlist Today:

• Uprising - Muse
• You Got the Love - Florence and the Machine
• Just a Lil' Bit - 50 Cent

Miscellaneous Stuff

It has certainly been a busy few weeks since we left Thunderbird.  The Mighty has a tooth issue, essentially a cavity, due to abnormal growth of an upper molar.   It will have to be extracted - looks like October.  He colic'ed yesterday - so any vendor unfortunate enough to give me a bad time basically got their head ripped off.
We're heading back to Thunderbird next week, for a 2 show stay, after which we will officially be destitute.  Stay tuned for the September garage sale at which ponychick sells everything in the house that is not nailed down!
I decided I am *not* going to my high school reunion.  None of these people were friends back in the day, it's not like we became friends AFTER high school, so why on earth would I pay $100 to go hang out with them now? 
Just for fun:  Current Fave Five
1) Johnny Depp (pretty much locked into the emeritus spot)
2) James Marsters (ditto spot #2)
3) Kyle Chandler (obsessed with Coach Tayler and his puppy eyes)
4) Taylor Kitsch (Riggs, Riggs, Riggs)
5) open...feel free to apply...supply a photo :-)