OH YEA.

YES.
FINALLY.
WE GOT AN X-COUNTRY SCHOOL IN.
AND IT WAS AWESOME.

I feel SO much better now!! I was completely wigged out about the possibility of not getting to school before King Oak next weekend, and I feel completely and utterly relieved! She was honestly and truly PERFECT. I could not have asked for a better school.

Now it's been raining. It's been raining for like, a month straight. Where am I, Washington state? What's up Mother Nature, seriously? This is the precise reason why we HAVEN'T been able to school so far. Yesterday, I had my two-hour conditioning hack, and it rained pretty much the entire time - we were dressed to the nines in a waterproof quarter sheet, waterproof saddle cover, Gortex pants, and raincoat over all our normal clothing. We got pretty wet... bleugh! Even today, the place I was supposed to go schooling, Mystic Valley, was rained out. I spent the morning playing vague phone-and-email tag with the President of the hunt club, and finally, late afternoon, I felt like I was going to give up, because I hadn't heard if the course was open or not. That's when one of our awesome boarders walked in, heard me out on my dilemma, called her Area I friends, and suggested going to Frazier Farm instead, where another one of our boarders keeps her horse during the summer (except not this summer, because she's crippled and staying here instead). I called them up, and they said sure, come on down! (Mystic then e-mailed me saying that their course was for sure closed, so that sealed the deal). Shannon and I rushed through our afternoon chores, loaded up, and headed out.

Frazier Farm was pretty simple. It had a bunch of connected fields with a bunch of random jumps in each, stadium and x-country alike. A few of the jumps were a bit rink-a-dink, but for the most part they were pretty good. Gogo was SUPERB. Didn't look at a THING, never a hesitation. There was a tiny little ditch and a few banks, and she did some totally complicated things for her level, like three strides up a REALLY steep little hill over a log at the top to two strides directly back down the steep little hill - never done anything like that before. She also did her first Training-style up bank one stride to a down bank. She had a little hesitation on the way up, and a little hesitation when she went "whoa we're already going back down?" but it was totally just a little greenness and she did it gamely anyway. Perfect. Just perfect. And then we hacked around the property on the buckle, just having a grand old time.






As you can see, one or two very minor burbles but for the most part, really solid and quiet. Love it!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


All right, here's my list of caca I have to do, which kind of makes sense only in my own head, but oh well:

TO DO BEFORE KING OAK:
Don’t forget show BELT - Friday
Put show clothes in trailer - Friday
Air in trailer tires – Sunday AM
Air in Shaker tires – Sunday AM
Gas up – Friday/Saturday
SNACKS! – Monday/Tuesday
Get baby oil – Monday/Tuesday
Make up Laser Sheen – Monday/Tuesday
Clean dressage tack – Friday PM
Clean jumping tack – Friday PM
Head count – boots, gloves, spurs, helmet – Friday PM
Bathe – Sunday AM
Clip - Saturday
Trim – Saturday
Trim feet - Friday
Braid – Sunday AM
Put sleazies on – Sunday AM
Polish boots - Friday
Don’t forget Supracor – Friday PM
Don’t forget bits, both!! – Friday PM
Metal polish – Friday PM
Get directions - Wednesday
Clean helmet - Friday
Put helmet in trailer! - Friday
Charge cameras - Friday
Don’t forget cameras!! - Saturday
Memorize dressage test – ALL WEEK!
Go up on Friday – Friday
Inventory ALL MY STUFF, make sure I have it all! - Friday

DONE:
Get ride times
Clean out trailer tack room
Clean out trailer back
Organize show clothes
Clean out brush box

RIDE TIMES:
Dressage: 05/10/2009 01:45 pm
Stadium: 05/10/2009 03:20 pm
Cross Country: 05/10/2009 04:32 pm

We're counting down. T-minus five days and counting! There's 20 people in Open Novice F.... can we best what New England has to offer?


(Oh, and one more thing. Remember the ProMotion EQ joint supplement? Yeah, just so happened to glance at the label one more time today - just NOW noticed that it has yucca in it. Yucca tests at shows. Had to yank it.... I'm splitting a big huge thing of Cosequin ASU with another boarder instead, which is the superior products... but it's like a zillion times more expensive. Thankfully this boarders gets it super cheap, 80 days for $125. Oye...)


(Oh wait, one LAST thing. I promise just one more. Aren't these freaking awesome? Just one of the many things I picked up at Rolex this year. They're light blue AND they have little jumping Gogos on them! My old polos had holes in them, so it was time for some new ones.)