Thwarted by Georgina Morris

Ugh! It's been busy around here. I was supposed to have Friday and Saturday off, like I always do, but alas, I was called on Friday night to say that I would in fact me working on Saturday because the part time girl was hung over and couldn't come. Awesome.

Friday was my regular dressage lesson, and in all honesty it was pretty much exactly like everything else I've been blogging about for the past week! She started off a little tense ("her eyes are popping out of her head!" said Vicki) but I eventually turned that little bit of tension into some brilliance, which included at the end of our session some incredibly free and up trotwork, which I would not be afraid to call actually collected. I'm SERIOUSLY not okay with people calling this trot or that jog collected when it's not. Even my work that I feel actually is somewhat collected I'm not willing to call collection most of the time. But in this case? Totally was. And it felt awesome. She felt powerful and easy, and so free up front. We also did some rather stellar lateral work, some more counter canter (with success! Vicki had me doing it by just moving my shoulders where I wanted to go, and she stayed straight without changes! Hooray!), and some trot and canterwork that I wouldn't be afraid to call real mediums.

Saturday was little girlie girl's day off. She was supposed to get handwalked twice for 20 minutes each, but since she got turned out for about 8 hours and I left the property long before she came in (they let me have half the day off since it was supposed to be my full day off, yay!), she did not get her second handwalk. She also did not get trimmed as I had originally planned - I was exhausted after going hiking up the local mini-mountains all afternoon and felt it would be better to trim today, after we go for our hack on pavement and she does a little self-trimming.

And yesterday was supposed to be the day we conquered the February jumping goal I set up - put up a gymnastic that leads to a big fence at the end, eventually getting up to 4'. Well, we *almost* got to do that. Unfortunately we were riding in the ring with Georgina Morris, which is a nice nickname for one of our boarders who also jumps and just thinks she needs to Help You Out. Especially when you don't need it. Georgina, right, I really can trot this crossrail without your constant coaching, all right? No really, I THINK I can manage it. Well, she was game for the plan at first, and as Gogo bopped through the gymnastic (which was a simple trot in to a crossrail, one stride to an oxer) easily, she raised it a little and raised it a little. And I mean, seriously a little. Like one hole at a time in the back, then brought it one hole up in the front. This was taking ages and Gogo wasn't even trying. We got up to 3'3" (which she insisted was 3'6" but it totally was not) and Gogo was still sleeping over it, and I was excited for more. And that's when Gergina put the kibosh on my plans - "Well, she's been so good and quiet and relaxed that that is where we're going to stop today!" Um... what? Why? She's asleep! I wanted to challenge her a little! "No no, you can't do that. You need to just stop where you are and call it a day." All right, I understand that you want to stop on a good note, obviously, but seriously? It's 3'3". I know she can do 3'3". I know she can do 3'6". I know she can probably do 3'9" (freejumped that easily but not undersaddle yet). Georgina! Why!

Argh. So I was thwarted, and I had to stop because the jumps I was using were Georgina's jumps, so I didn't exactly have a day. Pooooo.

The worst part? One of the other boarders had a friend with him who offered to take my camera and get some video of us. All you have to do is turn it on and press this button, I told her. Easiest thing in the world do to. So she does, and she films me, and I keep having to look over there and say no no, don't leave it running the whole time, just get little clips. She's not seeming to understand, and I get the camera back thinking I'm going to have to do some serious editing. What do I find? SHE NEVER TURNED THE CAMERA ON AND WAS "FILMING" THE ENTIRE SESSION WITH IT OFF. It's a DIGITAL CAMERA lady. IT HAD NO VIEWFINDER. What did you think you were filming????

So no video, no pictures. Bummer. And no challenge to Gogo either. Also a bummer. Ohhhhhh well. And now, off to smelly work... so exhausted. I just need some quality sleep already!