Hard Work and Dedication

Gogo and I, we're working hard. We're carefully shaping and toning our bodies and minds, preparing us for what may just be our best season yet. No, I take it back. For what WILL be our best season yet.

This week, we worked HARD. The level and type of work has been increased and altered, and fitness work is coming more into play now that the weather is changing for the better (even though as I say this, a severe thunderstorm is bearing down on us.... I can hear it coming!!). Last Saturday was our first two-hour conditioning walk-trot hack, with 10 minutes of trot and 1:50 of walking. Sunday she had off, Monday we jumped that fabulous 3'9", Tuesday and Wednesday were productive dressage days, Thursday we did gallop work for the first time, Friday and Saturday were the dressage clinic days, and today was our second two-hour conditioning hack. That's a very solid week of very hard work. Her back was linimented tonight, as well as all four legs and her hocks, and she was wrapped all around and given a gram of bute. Tomorrow, she'll get two 20-minute handwalks and a nice groom. She's almost shedded out!

We are dedicated to keeping this conditioning schedule. Today, it poured. It was gross, gray, yucky weather all morning, and poor Gogo ended up staying out in a downpour for a little while, looking sullenly at me while I worked in the barn until I felt bad and brought her in. The question remained all the rest of the day - will it keep raining? Should I still go hack? When I got off of work at 2:30 (as I usually do on Sundays, which makes them an ideal hack day), it was still on and off, and I couldn't decide. I knew I wouldn't be able to make it out a full two hours tomorrow, and I also knew that if I didn't go today, I'd have to miss this week's hack. So, I went to the bank, waited for the rain to clear, and sucked it up and got on, damn the rain. Amazingly, it held off for me. We upped our trot work to 15 minutes, and she felt fresh and happy. She seemed to understand that this walking had a purpose, and kept marching all the way through. It began to mist and blow as we made our final half-hour approach towards home, but it was no matter. We had braved the weather, come hell or high water, and we did it. She was chipper as could be back in the barn, even though she was angry that I shoved bute down her throat and refused to eat her dinner for a good long while because of it.

We're on our way.

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Here's a picture Ted, our 85 year-old boarder, took of me on Friday at the clinic doing no stirrups work. I dunno WHY my leg is a mile in front of me and totally off her side, and the moment was a little awkward, but I think had this been taken a few instants later that it would have been great.



Oh she's the bestest.


On a different note, our show schedule has changed. May is still King Oak Farms H.T. (May 9-10) and Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T. (May 30), but in June, we're either going to be doing the Heidi White clinic or Groton House H.T. the 26th through the 28th. I'll need your input on that, my dear readers! July remains the same - Old Chatham (which is Area championships for Novice) and Riga Meadow, but there is a small wrench in my plans. It had been my desire to do Riga Meadow as my first Training with her, but as it turns out... they don't run Training! So Novice it will be, I assume! The other thing that really changed was August - I was going to do Kent School H.T. on the 16th of August, but my good friend from high school is getting married on that day, so I'm going to the wedding for sure. Instead, I think I'll end up doing Millbrook H.T., which appears to be a terrifyingly big deal, running BN through Advanced. NOT a good place to move up. So that leaves us with the AECs in September, and then possibly the Stoneleigh Burnham H.T. at the end of September as my first Training. We're for sure doing Kent and Ethel Walker in October though at Training, so look out!


I'm exhausted, and I imagine she is too. Tomorrow, we relax. Tuesday, back to dressage!