Doing the Thing

Well that escalated quickly…

As I was looking at numbers about owning a trailer vs. moving to a different barn vs. trying to come up with other options I reached out to a couple of friends, H and we’ll call her M. Both are competitive pony riders and H has, of course, been talked about in this blog before. M I know more through social media but she’s in the same area that I’m in and I’ve seen her at shows before. She’s currently riding 4^th (?) level with her pony.

Cute fluffy puppy is cute and fluffy

I had become aware of where she boarded over the past year or so and the barn she’s at is one of the barns I’d mentioned that was within my budget as long as I dial back lessons slightly. I’d been really chewing over if that was something I wanted to do since I’m all about education first, fun later. However, I’m honestly at a place where I think I could do ok without weekly lessons. Definitely not without lessons completely since I am very much a beginning dressage rider but I’m confident that I could do ok with 1-2 lessons per month. In the past when I’ve missed lessons for up to a month I did fine at my following lesson and had been able to take action on almost all of my homework.

I was still hesitant since along with increased cost, fewer lessons, a smaller indoor arena, and a longer drive it meant moving Katai and myself and all of the stress and change that goes along with that. Despite my love of change and my, sort of, gypsy life style over the past several years I’m at a point where I don’t want to keep shifting. I’m tired of moving and I’m tired of change right now especially after the past several months and I really thought that I’d be with Jane until she retired.

 

Also had a boot spa day and unfortunately found that I'm going to need to
replace these. After 5 years of constant
use the leather on the foot cracked open

However, I had some text communication with M and email communication with the barn manager/owner who we’ll call S2. The barn was quite full but they have a small group that does consistent dressage shows during the year and they were looking for another dressage show participant. There were some changes coming up that might have left an opening so I scheduled time to see it earlier this week. I went to see it and felt like I was literally in heaven.

ALL of the things I’ve wanted since I’ve been owning horses were present at this barn including a dressage instructor, the ability to help trailer train, fantastic footing, indoor and outdoor arena, stalls, lots of turnout, FANTASTIC hay, fantastic care, very generously bedded stalls, amazing ventilation, four heated wash stalls, heat lamps over the grooming areas, TONS of trails as in miles and miles of trails through woods, meadows, hills, roads etc.  In addition, they routinely travel to some of the really big shows in our region, participate in regionals, and have a fantastically supportive show team that has all the infrastructure to make it fun.

I got to meet S2 who I’ve only met in passing at shows before. I also got to meet the guy who works at the barn (we chatted for a while about my Smartcar), S2’s spouse, and some other people at the barn. I was there for over 2 hours chatting with M and company and getting two tours J. Honestly while I love where I’m at this was an easy decision considering all of the factors. Plus, it could completely eliminate the need for me to get a trailer in which case I can use my trailer savings to pay for shows and replacing a couple of key pieces of equipment.

I went ahead and let both of them know (M sort of co-manages show schedules and the show group stuff and has been there for a long time so I know the right people ;) and found out that I actually could move in as soon as 4/6. Cue total panic. I, of course, need to give Jane a month notice and I need to figure out travel over there. In addition, they’d like me to come with them to a large show out of state at the end of May. Cue more panic haha. I haven’t shown since last July was it? This will be my first real rated show (not opportunity classes) and I haven’t even ridden very consistently all winter with everything going on. However, I have just about two months and all of the buttons are still there so I’m confident that with consistent rides we’ll be very capable of doing a couple of first level tests at that show.

As of right now I’m aiming to move middle of April (of course still paying Jane through the end of the month) and will plan to take at least a couple of lessons with S2 prior to the show in May. I’ll do a few seperate posts on the details soon but for now I’m completely over the moon and sooooooooo excited to move!