Layers

What an appropriate name for this blog post. First, we’ve got the layers of snow. Snow that JUST KEEPS FREAKING FALLING and won’t give me a long enough break to get to the barn.

Seriously guys, not sure what I did but pretty sure I’m in some sort of 3 year run of bad luck. 2018 concluded with the illness from hell and I was encouraged that it would all be up from there but alas all that’s happened is extreme cold (windchills down to -50*s), and lots and lots of snow. I’ve barely been leaving the house at all and have only made it in to work about 7 days out of the past three weeks.

That’s bad.

Luckily I can work from home, unluckily I hate it and even worse, the same snow that has me working from home also means I haven’t been able to make it out to the barn much at all. At least my boss, who is an eventer, lives 5 minutes from her barn so even if she’s working from home she can still go to the barn. I’m very jealous lol.

I was going to wait to blog until I had more positive news to share but we’re into March at this point and there’s a lot more snow in the forecast and the days where we aren’t getting snow are really cold. Grrrrrrrrrrr

 Luckily I live with a really amazing person now and have an awesome puppy so time at home hasn’t been awful but I am just absolutely dying for some consistent, productive time at the barn and am feeling really motivated to make progress so it just sucks that the weather isn’t cooperating. Second, while I don’t have much really positive riding stuff to share I do have some updates that I wanted to share so I figured it made sense to post at this point.

The first update is that I actually did get a bit done at the barn over the last 10 days or so. I was able to make it out late not last week but the one before, on Saturday, and then again on Monday and I had my lesson last Tuesday! The bad news is that I forgot to bring riding clothes with me to work on Tuesday so I didn’t ride and instead K put a ride on Katai. However, it went really well and despite not riding much she was really impressed with the progress I’d made on my homework. T

he second update is that I audited a lesson two Thursdays ago for a fantastic, upper level, local trainer. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do with K moving. For the short term I plan to stay and will try to make e/o week weekend lessons work. If they were weekdays it would be fine and I wouldn’t be that worried but I have a REALLY tough time fitting things in on the weekend so I’m worried about that. I’ve also been planning to increase my lessons this spring and either take weekly lessons, get more clinic time, or at least take more as needed so that we can officially progress up to second level.

Long term not only am I really sad to be losing my trainer but the farm I am at will also need to close at some point, likely, in the next few years. I don’t know (or understand) all of the details but the land was re-zoned as commercial so I signed on knowing that they had approx. 3 years at that point. The city may allow them to extend but if not, there will be a TON of displaced riders and horses all looking for space at the same time and I don’t want to deal with that. The two things together are causing me to look at new places despite wanting to be doing just about anything other than move Katai again.

She can't resist grabbing a bite of Alfalfa as we walk past

The good part of it? I really enjoyed the lessons I got to see. This person is very easy going but still firm, has their Gold medal so would be the most accomplished dressage show rider that I’ve had the chance to ride with, and is just fun and has a good sense of humor. Unfortunately she had a cold when I audited so was a little less chipper but still fun. The riders at that barn are very talented and I saw more upper level riders and horses there than I have at any other barn in a LONG time. The arena was also really nice, big, and had fantastic rubber mix footing. It was also really busy the entire time I was there from around 6-8:15 with at least 3-4 dressage riders in the arena at all times. I would ADORE being part of a community like that.

The less good? I’m on a waiting list with a few people ahead of me and it’s a tough place to get into since even if a sale horse there sells the new owners often keep it there. I’m also slightly nervous about the intensity. I feel like over the past few years I’ve discovered that there is a sweet spot for me where I can work, make progress, and be motivated but not shut down and still have fun. As I’ve had more things happen in my life outside of horses that balance has shifted slightly so while I REALLY want to ride consistently, make progress, blog more, and for heaven’s sakes finally show more!!! I’m also really conscious of the fact that if I swing too far into that sort of environment I may burn out and it might stop being fun. I’m doing a TON of thinking about the last point and still figuring out where/what type of barn I’d fit at best in the long run.

One big thing I’m considering is that J’s farm (not Jane although Jane’s was a close second) was my absolute favorite environment to be in. If J hadn’t been such a heavy handed person I would have stayed in a heartbeat. Part of me thinks that ever since being there I’m really looking for something similar and this place is so similar it’s eerie. Everything from the set-up of having a heated grooming area but unheated grooming area, to having more trails, to there being primarily dressage riders, to the level of the instructor (J had her silver medal when I was there but shortly after I left she got her gold), tack lockers, pasture board for most horses etc. It’s so similar. That is really encouraging. Add to that the fact that I had the most fun riding and made the most progress/was most motivated when I rode with J and Jane and I think this could be a fit. I've also asked my bf and he thinks I should go for it and I put a lot of stock in his opinion.

But I did get these cool socks. Consolation prize?

In other updates I also went to a tack sale at a great, local tack shop last night with K and another barn friend. That was awesome! Lots of horse talk and shopping. It's been a long time since I got to do something like that and I had so much fun. Again, making me even more sad that K is leaving :(

Bittersweet Return

Kentucky in the early morning on the flight home.

First off my trip back home was really long. I got to the airport at 3:00am CST and didn't get back home until 1:30pm CST. There were delays due to weather, delays due to a plane needing repair, then after already taking longer than it should have I got to the airport in MN and needed to take the light rail home. Normally this is really, really easy with just one transfer from the "blue line" to the "green line" but both were shut down towards downtown Minneapolis so I needed to take the blue line for awhile, then climb on a blue line shuttle bus, then switch to a green line shuttle bus, then get on the green line and then get home. All while toting a rather large suitcase and computer bag.

Only probably was that the green line shuttle bus driver got lost, really lost. We were lost for nearly 45 minutes. It was horrible especially since we kept getting stopped at lights so the air conditioning on the bus wasn't working very well and it was hot. At any rate I made it home safe with all of my personal belongs so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

I LOVE Kentucky and already miss being there. I'm making it a goal to get to Rolex next year so I'm hoping to be back soon :)

Gorgeous bronze nearly life sized horse outside of an antique store.

I'm also really happy to be home! The trip to Kentucky was a great beginning to my long 10 day total vacation that I've been needing so badly. I can't believe how much I got done just today on Monday and that's on the beginning. My plans for this week go something like this.

Monday and Tuesday is the Suzanne Winslade clinic at my barn. I'm not riding this time, mainly budget but also because of the KY trip, but on Sunday L raved about how well Katai did for her ride and also mentioned that her young horse was slightly lame (after being a goofball and getting a couple of big cuts on his rear fetlocks) so she asked if she could ride Katai at her lesson with Suzanne. Katai was sort of on hold since she was hoping that her horse would be sound enough for the lesson.

I had planned to audit for awhile and to watch L ride but with the chance that she might ride Katai meant riding I definitely wanted to be there. I got some grocery shopping done in the morning and did some cleaning (my roommates are pretty good for guys, but still young guys) and laundry.

I got to the barn around 2:00 and L was riding at 4:00. I watched both earlier lessons and talked to the BM and some of the other boarders. L showed up about 40 minutes early but they'd been running early so she asked for my help to get her horse tacked up while she went to talk to Suzanne to see how she wanted to handle the lesson. They decided that L would ride her horse for 30 minutes and then Katai for 30 minutes. I watched a bit of her lesson and then got Katai ready so that I could walk her and warm her up for a bit before she needed to switch to Katai.

An exciting picture of Katai's back that I need to send out for saddle fit help. I think she's looking pretty good here

I got her all tacked up and warmed up but L's horse was doing so well that she stuck with him for the full lesson and I was happy for her that she was able to ride her own horse. However, I'd handed her off and took her horse to cool him out before we realized that the hour was up so L offer to just put a ride on her. I certainly couldn't argue with a free trainer ride and although I had wanted to ride it was 75% humidity and I was dripping sweat just getting Katai tacked up and so I'd lost some of my motivation.

I quickly got L's horse untacked and cleaned up and then put him back in his stall and went back to watch Katai. Despite not being very enthused about working in the heat and still being a little tired from the previous day's ride with L Kati was really good. She listened well and only had a few minor resistant moments. Mainly she was really, really, really good! She was soft and through and was really doing a great job. L started off, after a brief trot to really warm her up, by working on transitions within the trot. She was getting some really nice lengthening and, the tough one, some really nice collected work AND she was getting it by sitting. Normally Katai loses her mind when you sit the trot because she's waiting for the canter cue (that's the only time I sit right now) but she was doing really well with it today.

Then they did counter canter!! So, so cool and she did really well especially for a second time. L was playing with that, half steps, and shoulder in yesterday during her ride and just wanted to practice it with her since she normally doesn't get to ride Katai twice in a row. I did end up hearing from a couple of people at the barn how L was raving about Katai and how she did yesterday. My little superstar :-)

Now I'm even more motivated to ride even if Katai is going to get a few days outside of the sandbox and a well earned day off before I get to do a dressage ride.