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

Equitation? Why yes...please.

Day 2 of our Northern Adventure! We actually got an earlyish start, and had the horses ready to go by 10. Teri did Cruiser and Tiffany first, then it was The Mighty's turn. He motored around like a pro, but the real fun kicked in when we got to do some equitation stuff; 2 roll-backs to a trot fence (my nemesis!) bending to a single oxer in the lower center 20 metre circle. Can we have more like that please?! Teri believes I have too much time to think in the hunter courses, and not enough to do, and the equitation is the perfect marriage of having to think AND do.


We cooled out with a nice trail ride, then had a good bath and lunch. We were (again!) not particularly successful at having turnout....good grief! I have a portion of the mania on flip cam, and will attempt to upload.  We were efficient and got out of there after feeding dinner at 5, and now I'm ready to turn in. Tomorrow is trainer day, and the arrival of Tiffany's dad and JLord (one of The Mighty's favorite cheerleaders!!)

Big Red Truck update: looks like it will be fixed tonight and ready to go tomorrow.

Hmm....they have So You Think You Can Dance Canada! I'll tell you though, their host is no Cat Deeley! But Jean-Marc Genereau is hilarious.

Gotta find 'Unstable' on the tv now...I still think we could film the stateside version!

Soundtrack to date: Rumor Has It, Bright Lights, Bigger City, Paris - Ooo LaLa