Hacks, Jumps, Water and Rain

I am lucky to have very mild flexibility in Gogo's schedule on the weekends. Over the course of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I have a choice as to the best way to rearrange these three things: conditioning hack, jump, and a day off. I had planned this weekend to hack early on Saturday morning, but I let myself sleep in til 8am (YES), and when I went out to the barn with my dog I found that they had already turned her out. I wanted her to stay out for her full turnout, so I went back in the house until she came in. And then, it started raining. And raining. And raining. And it rained allllllllllllllll day. At 5:30pm when it finally stopped, I had long given up on the idea of going on a very unpleasant downpour-y hack and had decided to give her the day off instead. She got a good grooming and a 20-minute handwalk instead. I like to give her two 20-minute handwalks on her days off, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but that didn't happen due to me thinking I was going to get to hack!

I had to work on Easter Sunday (not that I celebrate it anyway, so it didn't bother me). The other girl that works Sundays also doesn't have any family here, so we were invited to go to her hairdresser's house for dinner... I know, how totally random and sweet of him. Because we were planning to book out as early as we could, I decided that instead of hacking, I would jump instead, and I wanted to keep it simple and playful. Due to the deluge we had gotten the day before, the outdoor was a lake. Hmmm, lake you say? Well, I've got an idea...



Yep, let's make a water obstacle since we haven't been able to do any real x-country schooling yet! Thankfully Gogo is sane enough not to associate dressage arena with craziness if I do any jumping in there. Gogo's been through tons of water, and she takes to it very easily, but at BN every water crossing is just that, a lope through some water. She's jumping in and out of water off of and onto banks, but she hasn't ever done any JUMPS in or out technically. So, I wanted to ask that question of her and see what she did. And what do you know, she took to it with ease. I knew she would :) She was almost lazy loping around to the jump too, it was very nice. I kept it at around 2'6", just small and simple, and let her do the rest. I focused on my position too, and I found that when I do that, I can manage to actually have a pretty nice position over fences AND do a passable automatic release too. My position is better when I do the auto release for whatever reason... I like that. Yay mare!

And today, of course, was the conditioning hack. We're up to 20 minutes of trotting now and 1:40 of walking. She's still wearing her feet faster than I'd like, especially her LH. I know it's all a bunch of crap that white feet are weaker than dark feet, but that's her only white foot and she wears it faster on the bottom. Weird. I tried putting some duct tape around the edge of each foot, but as expected, that didn't last all that long. I'll be using a crapload of duct tape and vetwrap next time. I hope to get back to the Larkin Bridle trails now that the trotting is about to be amped up to 25 minutes. That's a loooooooooong way to go on neighborhood roads. She was a hair balky when it came to going away from the barn, but only in a crooked kind of way. I put some bute in her dinner and added a splash of oil to try and mix it in enough so that she would eat it, but of course, she turned up her nose. Princess.
I didn't get to go running today sadly, due to my hack and it being dark by the time I got back, but I did get to do my situps and pushing. Now they're doing a new one - 200 Squats! I did my initial test: 30 squats. I'm sure I could have done more, but I didn't. Ah well, on Wednesday.
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Tomorrow and Wednesday.... dressage!! The weather will hopefully hold for our gallops on Thursday, then more dressage, and then MAYBE we'll get to go schooling x-country at Mystic Valley!!



In other news - the BEST news - I sold my old saddle on Ebay. Yep, that saddle I was hoping I MIGHT be able to get $500 for? Yeah, it went for $900. AMAZING. There's my entry fee for the AECs right there! I'm so pumped! I'll miss the saddle but I'm so in love with my new Prestige that I'm just glad it's going to a good new home. $900.... can you BELIEVE that? Amazing!

Also, our entry for Mystic Valley H.T. went out today. YES.


Wow I'm exhausted.