Back to work!

Ah, vacation, I miss you! But more often than not, I was ready to come back and ride!

So today was my first day putting my nose back to the grindstone. Let me tell you, one week off and I was DEAD by noon!

Despite the heat, humidity, and stagnant air, I had a fairly good, productive day. I fixed my jumps up (most had been knocked over) and set a few new things. I relocated my single vertical so I can jump it off the other lead, and set up some more canter poles at 2.60, which is .20 meters shorter than Patrick is used to. I figured I should start challenging him again. Onward!

Everyone got a good, solid flat today, and I thought I was going to die. Side cramps combined with heat exhaustion is not a fun mix! Even my legs were all loosey goosey, not cool guys! Thankfully, my horses picked up the slack. Patrick was super about the shortened canter poles, and figured them out pretty quickly, provided I could keep my leg on long enough to find him a distance.

Bella was her usual self, calm, quiet, and fairly laid-back. She's so difficult to ride when you're out of shape because she's just so round. I'm going to be sore tomorrow, you can count on it!

Bailey did a lot of walk work today. She's finally beginning to learn that leg pressure doesn't always mean 'go forward', and by the time she was tired and less 'jumpy', she was starting to show the hint of a bend around my leg. I even trotted her over some ground poles and a little 1ft jump! She clacked her feet against them more often than not, but she didn't mind going over them, even when they're painted neon orange and black. I hope that's a good sign!

Anyways, this is all in preparation for this coming weekend. There's another show at my old farm, and I plan to bring all three of my training horses there. Bailey will go to school on Saturday morning, and Bella and Patrick will show on Sunday in the jumpers. I'm going to take Patrick in the 2'0" stuff (and maybe a 2'6" if he's stupendous!) and Bella will move back into the 3'6" stuff, provided all goes well this week. I finally got ah hold of my trainer while I was in North Carolina. He's going to try to come up this week to help me school my two jumping horses, and he's going to ride Bailey. I have a fear that she'll become a one person horse, because she's so leery about strangers. So I decided I needed someone as good as, or better, than me to hop up on her. Hopefully he keeps his word and comes out. I could use the tune up.

Also, tomorrow afternoon I'm going to call this farm looking for a barn manager. I'm not sure if I'm interested; there's little information provided in the ad. However, I figured it can't hurt to inquire about their facility, and maybe I'll get lucky and it will sound promising! I hope it's a low key H/J facility that does some local 'A' rated stuff, that way I can get my horses out to the shows without taking time off from work. If it's too time consuming or not a competitive barn, I think I'll have to pass on it. It would have to be really good to get me away from my own training program.

And lastly, Patrick is officially listed on Dreamhorse.com as 'for sale':( I'll be so sad to see him go, but I know he needs someone who can really appreciate what they have in him. He's listed at $8,000, which is a bit more than I expect to get for him right now, but if I've learned anything about selling horses online, it's ask for a lot more than you expect to get. Plus, I did a search on horses in the area, and judging by what I saw, it's really not that far out there. Go figure. Hopefully a girl can get lucky!

Oh! And Bailey started trailer training today! She walked right in and ate her lunch:) Yay!