Tell me are you a badfish too?

Ohhhhhh Gogo. My silly little mare was moderately lovely yesterday, with some evil tossed into the mix. I love her little spunky side, but I hope her little bits of nonsense don't make any sudden appearances in the showring this coming summer. Our dressage was momentarily interrupted yesterdayby some wicked bad bracing and head-in-my-lap nonsense, although there was no rearing. I think I was getting a little in her face, and it irritated her, so it's quite possible it was my fault. She settled down and eventually gave me some pretty relaxed work, but it was nothing stellar.
And today? OYE. I think after I rode Rena yesterday (which was after Gogo), I got into a Rena mindset, and got on Gogo this morning in the same kind of mode. Which doesn't work. With Rena, you need to get up in her face a little bit, to actually make her go somewhere. If you get up in Gogo's face, she tells YOU to go somewhere - like to hell! She started off pretty relaxed, but like I said, I think I was overriding her, which pissed her off and led to an enormous, half-hour long fight which only ended after I halted and stood and relaxed with her for a long while. Then, we walked. We walked on contact, quietly, for another half-hour, with about five minutes of gentle, quiet, stretchy trot in there, just to chill the hell out. And the MOUTH NONSENSE! After she got tense, it didn't matter how relaxed she became, she was still champing her teeth LIKE CRAZY. We halted for five minute, so long that she started to close her eyes (she was pretty tired by then), but what did she continue to do? Champ, champ, champ. Nonstop. IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY.
Tomorrow's plan? Get on, do something relaxed before the mouth stuff starts, get off. That's all I want to do. Ugh, today's ride was horrible. AWFUL! On the plus side, I did have an amazing ride on Rena later, so that made me feel slightly better. But not much.

Two not so good dressage rideas in a row are not helped by the thought that the opening date for our first event is now less than a month away, and our first actual show of the season is in a little over two weeks. It's just a schooling jumper show at Mount Holyoke, and we're only going so I can cruise around some full courses with her (which I can't do here), but it's our first technical off property activity done under a judge's eye of the year, so it counts for something. From what I hear about Area I, you need to get your entries mailed ON the opening date, or else you are not going to get in. It's interesting too - Connecticut law sates that you must have a rabies certificate with your entries (for CT shows only). I've never heard of that before. I checked up on the results from last spring's King Oak H.T. and wow... there were SIX different sections of Open Novice. SIX. With between 20 and 25 people in each. That's between 120-150 people doing NOVICE ALONE at ONE SHOW. HOLY CRAPPERS.

Gogo got her feeties done the other day! Again, no good or new pictures, but her feet look pretty damn good if I do say so myself. One thing is happening though - she is wearing her feet almost too fast due to all the work on pavement we've done lately. Around the toe area, especially on her LH, she's worn a little bit past her wall into her toe callus, which tells me that we need to get out and do some damn x-country schooling on softer ground instead! I don't think we need to go out and invest in boots just yet, but I think I'll be a little more careful about how much pavement hacking we do. All I did for her trim this time was pretty much tidy up her heels and roll each foot. It literally took less than 15 minutes to do everything. Easy!

Check this out: USEA Gives Amateurs a Boost Towards the AECs. This is a great concept, especially for someone like me who shows in the Horse division instead of the Amateur division. Professionals can - and do - show in the Horse division a lot, so this is totally helpful for me.


And here's a little clip of munchkin eating a yummy cookie the other night after her trim (and vacuum, and scrubdown, and general cleaning up cause she was muddy!!)


Hopefully tomorrow will be better than these past two days.


PS - Hooray we're going to Rolex! Or well, my fiancee and I are going to Rolex. I'd LOVE to mean Gogo and I are going to Rolex, but, well, I think we need a couple more months training before that happens ;)

PSS - Gogo came in from turnout today not only covered in mud, but also with a funny lump on the back of her SDFT on her LF. Nooo bad lumps! She's not lame, and it's not hot and not reactive to any sort of poking or prodding that I did, so at least there's that. It's not a swelling of the tendon. It was poulticed and wrapped today, so I'm hoping that tomorrow it's all gone. We'll be keeping a seriously close eye on it though.