Happy Derby Day!

My pick? Creative Cause, though there are a few I like. For the first time in years, I think this is actually a really nice, talented field. Also rooting for Liaison because my amigo from my track days is his exercise rider. Go, Georgie!

Now for a less talented Thoroughbred....

ohh, robert.

I didn't post yesterday because I was having one of those days where everything was going wrong, and if I'd been in a good mood, it would have been NBD, but as it was everything was like, "What the fuck, world?! Why are you out to get me?" It was only fitting that I walked into the barn before my lesson and my horse was a total mud pit.

One he was clean, I headed down to the arena early to set my dressage saddle two point baseline. Thank goodness Sarah pulled in because after about thirty seconds I was bored off my ass and making airplane motions with my arms.

waiting for bo to show up, bobby got decked out
in sarah's dog's new shirt.
gtl, baby.

She stopped to talk with me as I made big, boring loops around and around until she was finally like, "What are you doing?" Don't judge. Especially not when I'm timing myself with THIS:

damn right those are unicorns!

So baseline two-point in dressage saddle? Ten minutes. My ankles were aching and I probably could have pulled off another minute or two, but I wanted to save some mediocre leg strength for my lesson.

And it's a good thing I did because it was 80* and humid as all get out. I had to take a water break every time Bobby got a walk break. It was sooo nasty out. Also, our lesson was less than inspiring. In BO's words, "He's being a tool!" I have other words for it, but call it what you will.

We spent the first twenty minutes trying to get his head out of the clouds and then next ten minutes trying to give him a crash course in remedial steering. All things he knows, and really all things that shouldn't even need to be touched upon in a lesson at this point. We finished up with twenty minutes of real work, focusing on a good halt and non-fall-on-your-face trot to walk transitions. I would have prefered Tuesday's lesson over Friday's, but oh well at this point, right?

Today he got a quick (really quick--like 20 minutes total riding time) jump school over a few 2'6 fences. Baseline time for two-point in a jump saddle is seven minutes. I took a walk break once around the arena after trotting and plunked my ass down since my calves were hurting, but I did the rest of the ride also in two-point as I was cantering and jumping.

This two-point challenge is fabulous! Even with just the 7 minutes to start me off, my heel was like, "Oh? Stay down, you say?" over fences. However, to compensate for good lower leg behavior, my upper body was like, "Let's go this direction! No this direction! Weeeeee!" Let's work together here, guys.

Despite a lack of coordination, Bobby was very well behaved and was jumping like a serious pro. We didn't miss a distance and he felt super smooth over every jump. But maybe that's how he always jumps and I just couldn't tell because my leg wasn't jumping with him....

He got bathed and kicked out to graze while I cleaned the trailer and gathered my piles of crap for tomorrow.

"you left me outside?! with no friends?? horrible woman!"

Now I have to go clean the mountain of tack waiting for me and refrain from eating all the candy I bought for tomorrow. Wish us luck! It's only a 2' division so it can't go too badly!

Ha. Ha ha.

Famous last words.