Here Goes Nothing

Tomorrow kicks off back to back weekends of showing...and the start of June in which every single weekend there's an opportunity for a pony party activity. Fortunately for Opie, most of those are hunter paces before July restarts a large block of dressage shows.

he is a pro on the trails

First we have to survive this block though. Which, at the moment, feels a mite questionable.

not that we haven't been working super hard...

Last week Opie was over it. Over work, over life, mostly over leg yields. Not, however, over his annoying propensity to rear when he doesn't wanna. He's a naturally lazy horse so usually his rears are half hearted at best. Last week, he almost got me off multiple times, hi-ho silvering every time I asked for sideways.

Or a longer neck that wasn't in my face.

Or a trot that wasn't mimicking the world's fastest sewing machine.

Or, you know, anything that resembled normal horsing.

I've never been nervous for a dressage show in my life. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was feeling sick to my stomach. I didn't want to take this psycho asshole into public. I was sure I'd broken him somehow, and there was going to be no coming back from it.

Fortunately, last weekend a few people from the barn had set a date to go play in the park, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

splash fest 2019 is where it's at

After a few hours frolicking around the park and a good swim (Dopie is officially a dolphin. As soon as I jumped on bareback he plowed right past everyone else for a swimmies.), a day off, and then a day of light longeing, I got back on yesterday morning after he got his feet done.

Praise. Fucking. Jesus. for #childgenius.

just had to wash away the bad 

He was soft, relaxed, and totally had his head in the game. I had to get after him for a second over the halt on center line, and he popped up once in protest, but he came back around and did what I was asking for before going to work without holding a grudge. I didn't do much and ended after running through 1-3 with perfectly normal leg yields. This afternoon I'll push for a touch more while trying to keep it short and sweet. And then bathing, braiding, and tack cleaning to get ready for Day One of showing tomorrow!

"i am the goodest boy about trailering now."

But because things couldn't go completely normally, I had dropped my trailer off to get checked out and tuned up before all my serious hauling starts. After paying the ultra douchey shop owner $300+ for a couple new bearings and replacing/fixing some of the marker lights, I brought it home last night...where the left blinker stopped working.

I may or may not have gone postal.

Hubby spent over an hour fucking with it to no avail. This morning I dug into my repair kit where I pulled out the unopened tube of magic grease Emma recommended in a blog post forever and a year ago. A quick smear to the connector of my truck and two seconds later I had a working turn signal.

best $10 ever

That crisis over, I'm feeling slightly less neurotic going into this weekend. If nothing else, I've already paid the show photographer for tomorrow so if things go batshit then at least I'll have fun bloopers to share?