Photo Adventure Fridays - with a twist!

This week's Photo Adventure....




DDDAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. DEATHSTORM. An adventure in running panicked trying to get horses in from turnout as a giant storm literally develops RIGHT over your farm, lightning striking the trees on the property perimeter and thunder cracking so loud it sends all the horses into a terrified galloping frenzy. I think they said there were three tornados in all with these storms, one of which was the one that developed directly overtop where we were - thankfully it passed!! We've had something like six tornados in the state this year alone, which is five more than I remember ever having last year. Connecticut doesn't get tornados like we do in Michigan, but we're giving them a run for their money. Hell, even where I was in Ohio didn't get tornados like we've been getting!

Honestly though, this year's weather has all been so ridiculously stereotypical month by month. January it was FREAKING FREEZING with many random blizzards, February was cold and dreary, March was GORGEOUS and warm and spring-y, April was very warm and fresh and green, May was bright and beautiful with a rainstorm every day and massive plant growth and sunshine all around, June was HOT and very, very dry for three weeks, and July has been utterly terrifying with amazingly HUGE thunderstorms every few days and soaring humiditiy levels and temperatures in the 90's every single day. You can NOT get more predictable than that for this area. I'm enjoying being terrified every day of my life, but honestly, there is a limit to it somewhere. And I'm also starting to get a little sad because it's now 5:15 and it isn't totally light out anymore. We may be in the thick of summer, but it's still kind of sad to know that it won't be here forever.

Another reason I'm a little sad about losing my daylight hours is that I've been using the precious hour between five and six AM to go running in the Avatar shoes. I LOVE THOSE AMAZING THINGS. Because of them, my entire running form has changed. No longer able to land on my heel (because of the extreme pain involved if you run incorrectly in a shoe with NO padding), I've completely changed my stride, and find that by landing midfoot, I save my entire system from a painful shockwave. I'm running extra efficiently, and find that my recovery rates are far better and my body hurts far less. Where is that hip pain, those eternal aching knees and burning shin splints I used to live with every day of my life? Gone, unless I don't stretch properly. I spend most of my morning runs on one giant eternal hill, and find I can do it without getting utterly exhausted and winded like I used to. In fact, I still feel fresh as a daisy at the top.
The most exciting thing for me is that I plan on running my first every competitive road race on August 19th, a 5k. I've never run competitively before! I ain't no Stacey triathalon-ing her way across the universe but hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere! I was supposed to go to California that week, but that vacation plan got blown out of the water. Oh well... maybe in like.... December I can go. Sigh.
I also have plans to try eating more Primal like Tamara and more recently Funder. I am in no way going to be severely hardcore about this - damnit, if I want some ice cream that badly then I'm going to have some - but there is a lot to be learned here. There are things about the Primal diet that don't mesh perfectly with me, like the fact that I think coconut is the devil's food of death and I won't touch it, but there are plenty of other ways I can make simple changes for the better. Stay tuned for a little more on that.


I was just treated to the most magnificent pink sunrise rainbow out my window. I ran around the house trying to find my camera, but my honey appears to be sleeping on it in the bed. By the time I came back out to take a picture with my phone, it had gone. Sigh....




More on Gogo's week of boring-ness coming soon!

Better Me Now = Better Mare Later.

I had a bit of a rough time this past Rolex weekend. Not being there brought a lot of things to my attention that I wasn't quite ready to face, and I subsequently spent a lot of time sleeping and pretending like I honestly didn't care about the things that were bothering me. But I do. I kind of snapped out of my weekend funk yesterday finally, and realized I haven't talked about any of the important or interesting things that have been happening to me in the past week. Despite the financial difficulty of doing so, I've finally taken some initiative and am working to fix some of the things that have always plagued me but I've never really bothered to do anything about.

In short, I finally went to go see a chiropractor for the first time in my life.

It wasn't pretty. A week ago Monday was my first appointment, and I completely love the practice and the doctor herself. Dr. B is a fun, bouncy, bubbly, singing, funny woman with a good soul, and all her techs are always smiling, which I severely appreciate at the end of a long and stressful day. At my initial appointment, they were very thorough with me - they did a physical exam, a thermal scan of my back, and a few radiographs for good measure as well. While doing my physical exam, Dr. B tested my ranges of motion (which are extremely poor), felt for pain on my part, found what was out of alignment, and told me what a huge disconnect I have from my brain to my nerves to my organs. She could tell from what my body was doing which side of me was worse, but I honestly couldn't. There was such a disconnect in my mid-back that all I could do was identify that something was hurting. Dr. B took all the information from the physical exam, the x-rays, and the thermal scan, and formulated a blueprint with it. What she found wasn't very pretty. I have degenerative changes in my mid-back and neck, and quite a number of things out of alignment, torqued, pinched, and in general not-where-they-should-be, including a section of my lumbar spine that was completely locked (probably a byproduct of when Metro kicked me in the hip so very long ago). Given the incredible daily pain I am in, all this makes a lot of sense. This could have been corrected long before I ever got painful. Fortunately for me, we caught it at a pretty good time where we can realign everything properly and prevent further serious damage from happening in my back. I mean honestly, I'm 25. Should I really have the beginnings of arthritis in my spine?? Awful. As added fun, I also have very mild scoliosis. Sweet! I guess maybe that explains why I wake up crying in the middle of the night in pain - and also why I sit so crookedly to the right in the saddle. Seeing the degenerative change on the actual films was the scary part. I certainly don't want that to get any worse than it already is.
I'm on an intensive program right now which takes me in there 3 times a week for a month. My honey commented in a rather alarmed way last night after my appointment that I was suddenly ridiculously taller (it was scary, I felt like one of the Avatar people), and that's the way it has pretty much been after every appointment. I am taller! I am standing straighter, I am more comfortable. THAT is a very new thing to me. I had honestly forgotten what it was like to not shift uncomfortably every few seconds while standing or sitting. However, this isn't a quick fix by any means. Even after my adjustment last night, I was sitting in a chair in the office for awhile afterwords getting a bit of a lecture on spinal nerves, and the normal electric pain returned. Simply sitting upright in good posture is so foreign to my joints and muscles (did I mention I slouch like a sack of potatoes?) that it causes me excruciating pain right now. I have to try, I have to practice for my body's sake, but good lord. Thankfully, once I got up and moved around, my back felt like a hundred bucks again. Not a million bucks, mind you... but it's a start.
The bad news is that my insurance offers me pretty much no help at all for this, so I am on my own. And it's not cheap. I think I can manage to do it, but yikes. It's not easy. BUT I'm not showing this year, so I'm not trying to squirrel money away for show season and feeling crappy about spending it elsewhere, so if there was ever a time to get this sorted out, it's now. I have to do this. I can't live in pain any longer. I am starting to feel really, really good after my appointments - which currently include getting adjusted, getting electro-stim and also getting heat therapy - and the prospect of being able to live and function pain-free is so, so, SO exciting. I honestly don't remember what it is like to not hurt day in and day out. I can't wait to find out.

(A super-sexy picture of my dog and I wearing questionable outfits and hiking in questionable places)
The second thing I am doing - running in the Avatar Shoes, as a few of my readers like to call them! I've really only just begun in earnest, and I've been taking it pretty lightly until I got my chiropractic situation sorted out, but now that we are under control there, I feel more comfortable getting a little more serious about it. Running in the Avatar Shoes (or Vibram Five-Fingers, as they are actually called) is different from anything I've experienced. I am still adjusting to them slightly, seeing as I am so used to the old incorrect running style used with big, squashy running shoes - a heel-first landing. Yep, with horses this is the proper way, but with humans, it is not! Landing mid-foot first and then letting your heel make contact with the ground is shock absorbing, efficient, and comfortable, versus a heel-first strike where all the shock shoots directly up your spinal column, or a toe-first landing which makes your calves want to explode. Running improperly in these minimalist shoes is impossible to do, simply because it hurts! A padded heel takes a little of that uncomfortable shock if you land heel-first while running. When you have zero padding there to save you, it just KILLS! I'm working this week on formulating a better workout plan; I will keep you updated.

And lastly, for those of you wondering, I AM actually riding some right now. A few of you expressed concern that I wouldn't have much time in the saddle while Gogo was off, and for the most part, this has proven to be true. I'm not really much into riding other horses unless there is something in it that I can then take and put into Gogo at a later date. I never wanted to be a trainer or a teacher by any means... I really just don't enjoy that sort of thing beyond doing it for myself. And riding horses while on the clock is good, but I usually have so many other things to do in a day that it just seems like one more thing that will make my very long workday even longer. However, I've found that I actually have been enjoying my random bits of saddle time on other horses for once. The one horse in particular that I've been on a bit and that I hope to ride a bit more is this one, James:



James is a silly guy.




He feels a little like riding a wet noodle (he is 6 going on 3), and he is your typical goofy goob type of gelding. I am so not a goofy goob gelding lover - I am all about those snarky mares! - but James is a ham and he's a NICE horse. I rode him in front of my boss the other day, which is extremely nervewracking but apparently went well enough because she asked if I wanted to ride him in our clinic with Jeff Cook next weekend! (She even said she'd pay for half!) She did pick on me for being a defensive rider (well come on, do I really want to ride Gogo like a sack of potatoes?) and for riding "like a dressage rider"... well, maybe because I ride dressage! XD This will be very good for me, although it might be horribly embarrassing because the last time I jumped was in September. Hmmmmm we will see.


As for Gogo, she is getting spoiled rotten with baths and primping, grazing and cold-tubbing every morning and every afternoon, and her treadmill of course every day around noon. She is feeling good - a little too good even, remember what happens when she feels like that? - and as a result has been more obnoxious as ever. The other day I didn't come over and day good morning soon enough apparently, so in order to get my attention, she clamped her teeth down on her stall door and rattled the thing. She NEVER does that because she knows I will knock her brains into next Tuesday if she ever so much as thinks about putting her mouth on anything that isn't food. Cheeky wench.

But I have to say, her feeling good is making me also feel very, very good.

The start of my own barefoot adventure.

The Eventing-A-Gogo blog has reached 150 official followers! That is mind-boggling. Thank you, all of you, for supporting this great journey. I've said it many times, I really can't tell you how much it means to me.

Gogo is getting the rest of this week off, for a few reasons really. First of all, my boss is coming home next Monday for a brief stint, so I need to fully focus my energies on working her five horses that she left behind and making sure they are all looking their very best for her return. Secondly, I scheduled Gogo's next ultrasound with Dr. C for next Tuesday in the morning. It's a week earlier than I had originally planned (I was shooting for more like the 10th, because we were set to start cantering on the 11th), but I always start to get exceptionally antsy around the time of an approaching vet appointment. I start to get paranoid - is there more fill in the leg today? Is it warmer than it was? Did she just take a funny step getting on the treadmill or did I make that up? Am I seeing things? Am I not? - so I figured I needed to just stop everything and wait until the ultrasound. She'll be treadmilled and turnout out until next Tuesday, where we hopefully will be getting more good news. I just always start to seriously imagine the worst whenever a vet appointment approaches, so I'm just going to stop worrying about it and just continue with the daily routine until then. I will be seriously glad when this daily paranoia is over. (Even though, at this point, it will never really be over for the rest of her life!)


In the meantime, I am beginning my own version of the barefoot adventure. I've been researching more about the human foot and its mechanism, and the parallels I've found to the equine barefoot movement have been mind-boggling. It's seriously a nearly identical process with nearly identical motives behind it. And now that I've discovered the human barefoot movement, I get to relive the entire process by which I found the equine movement - only this time it's a little different. When I found the equine barefoot movement, I was more ready to jump in wholeheartedly because of the way shoeing had crippled and, crudely put, killed my last horse. There's no way around it, he's quite dead now in large part because of some cocky choices my farriers had made with him, and because of that I was ready to try something new. With my own bare feet, I was much more skeptical to start, with a lot of the same criticisms that the anti-bare hooves people have.

For instance, I thought people that went without shoes were nuts. (People say that barefoot-only people are nuts.)
I thought that humans needed shoes given our lifestyles and the stresses we put on ourselves and our feet. (People say the modern sport horse needs shoes because of their lifestyles and stresses we put on them and their feet.)
I thought my soles would be too tender to ever try this because I've been wearing shoes for as long as I can remember. (People say their horses can't go barefoot because they get too tender and have been wearing shoes forever.)
I thought that everybody wears shoes, that's just what we do as people. (People shoe their horses sometimes because well, that's what everybody else does too, so who would think otherwise?)
I thought that human athletes needed footwear to give them a competitive edge. (People think horses need footwear to give them a competitive edge.)
I thought people with flat feet needed the support of a shoe. (People think horses with flat feet need the support of a shoe.)


Sound familiar?


(Daun sent me a link today, by the way, about a new study out concerning the way running shoes have changed the way we run, and Nicole called me pretty much simultaneously to tell me she was listening to the same story on the radio. Go read the study. It's really, really interesting.)


What have I found in my research and personal experience with the barefoot movement, human and horse? More parallels!

Many people and horses may need a little help transitioning from shoes to bare - there is a steadily growing market for hoof boots and transitional human footwear, both of which are designed to give tender feet a chance to start moving naturally without being in pain.
Feet change in response to bad footwear, good footwear, environmental stresses, and movement.
High heels = pain, in both humans and horses.
Flat feet, heel pain, and tender soles often rapidly and beautifully resolve when taken properly bare.
A very large majority of foot issues in both species stem from improper footwear.
If feet are being inefficiently used due to pain or improper footwear, it can lead to injuries higher up in the body. Mother Nature designed feet to do their job perfectly just the way they are, so anything we add to that proportionally decreases efficiency, and increases the possibility of issues.
Once feet are being efficiently used, the entire body's efficiency improves. A pain-free body is healthy body.



The one REALLY big difference? A healthy bare foot is supposed to land heel first - a toe first landing is indicative of a problem. A bare human foot, on the other hand, is supposed to land ball or midfoot first, and a heel first landing is painful and jarring. Our modern day running shoes are very heavily padded around the heel area, which encourages a heel-first landing. I myself am guilty of running heel-first, probably because I assumed that it worked for my horse, so it should work for me too. Wrong! I was plagued with eternal issues, from sore feet to shin splints to unbearable hip socket pain on my right side. Which, of course, is what led me here. If going barefoot worked so well for my horse, then why not try it myself? If I can simultaneously increase my efficiency and decrease my pain, then I've done exactly the same thing for myself as I've done for my horse.

My own barefoot experience began today. I finally had a chance to get out and get my pair of Vibram Five Fingers, a piece of minimalist transitional footwear designed to mimic the bare foot. Not quite ready to take the fully barefoot plunge (or sure that I ever actually want to go fully barefoot), I wanted the benefits with a little added protection to allow me to walk on difficult surfaces without being crippled or injured.

These, my friends, are my new favorite shoes:




Now for those of you that don't know, this is how my feet often look in the winter:



Obviously, this is a huge transition for me.

I tried on a few pairs before choosing the right one. And of course, I picked the blue ones ;) I have to say, it's VASTLY different from anything I've ever had on my feet before and I LOVE IT. They're going to take some getting used to, but they're really comfortable, although I can see how for a more squashed foot they would be uncomfortable because of how they spread the toes. My pinky toe felt a little pulled away from my other toes, but not uncomfortably so. I broke in the shoes on a quick trip to a very rocky Connecticut beach down the road from the shoe store, and got some awesome pictures while I was at it:






By the way, let's state this one for the records: wearing skinny jeans and VFF shoes is insufferably tacky and makes you look like THE dumbest person around. Won't be doing THAT one again!



But by far the most awesome pictures I got were when I befriended a very crazy old man with a loaf of stale bread who was feeding the seagulls. I stood there and snapped away while he cackled and held out the bread for them to take right from his outstretched hand. Boy I love making friends.






Walking 'bare' immediately showed me that the way I normally walk is WRONG! I found after a very short time that landing on your heels sends a very uncomfortable shockwave up your entire leg column into your spine. When I walk in regular shoes, I tend to slouch along, landing on my heels and dragging forward. Yea... that's quite painful in minimalist footwear! So, I thought long and hard about everything I have thus far studied on the efficient foot biomechanics, and changed to landing more midfoot. WOW. That was eye-opening! Suddenly, the pressure I was absorbing all the way up into my spine dissapeared. Everything dissipated in my foot. And not only that, suddenly I was using an entirely new group of muscles. I had to engage my abs while walking. I've never felt that before.

All in all it was very humbling and exciting. I intend on just walking for probably the rest of January and a good part of February, and then we'll think about running once I am comfortable. Then, we can lay out a plan for what I'd like to accomplish.


Until then, walk on!

An Exercise in New Year's Resolutions

I did in fact go back and delete my last post after having second thoughts about it. I know it's been requested of me to write about my awesome job but that's not what this blog is about, and shouldn't be. I certainly did not mean to gossip about my boarders by sharing that last story.... it really just was too funny and I wanted to spread a little joking cheer. In retrospect, not particularly appropriate of me! Won't happen again. If you want to know about the hijinks that ensure while trying to keep 31 horses, 23 owners, 2 cats, 4 trainers, and 4 staff members happy all at the same time, well... you'll just have to get to know me personally!




In other news, I've been doing my best to integrate my New Year's resolutions into my daily life. These are all, for the most part, life changes versus one-time events, so I've been playing with them and doing my best to make my life and my world a better place. As a refresher, here are my 2010 resolutions/goals:

Travel as much as I can – Madagascar/Egypt/? At the end of the year
Complete the 100 Pushups/200 Situps/25 Pullups/200 Squats challenges
Learn how to run barefoot and compete in a 5k barefoot (maybe!)
Do yoga once (or twice) every week
Eat healthier – buy fresh food every week and learn to MAKE IT
Save money for other things than the necessary – shows, and breeding next year
During the winter, ski every Wednesday that weather allows
Complete Metro's scrapbook
Have a poem published
Finish Patrick painting


Well, so far I've done my very best to ski every week, but it's quite a bit harder than expected. Unfortunately for me, Connecticut is on the temperate end of New England, so while my sister is up skiing in Vermont and Maine all weekend every weekend, I struggle on my one day off to get out to our tiny local hills. I went skiing two Wednesdays ago and the hill I went to SUCKED! The snow was terrible, there were only two chairlifts open, and I got SCREAMED at by some maniac chairlift operator when I didn't put the bar on the chairlift down. (Seriously? Is that a rule now? I thought it was a suggestion.) Last week I wanted to go on Wednesday, but I didn't actually have a day off last week, so that didn't work. This week, I've had to contend with the fact that it's been 40+ degrees all week, so ALL the snow is gone. Can't exactly ski with no snow! I HAVE done yoga every week though, which is great. We have a very nice small studio in town that has classes every evening, and while I was doing a very intense hotroom Vinyasa class, I also tried a few Naam classes with my roommate, just because it's always more fun to exercise with a friend. Our Naam class is.... not like any Naam yoga I've ever known. We do lots of chanting, obviously, but we don't really do much in the way of actual yoga poses. Lots of fitness stuff, but it's just not... yoga. It's a bit weird, but actually quite tiring, so that's good. On the barefoot running front, I've been researching a bit and I do agree that I want to get a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. A lot of barefoot enthusiasts say that getting a transition shoe is not ideal if you're going to run fully barefoot, but I'm not quite sure that I DO want to get to that point just yet. It's the same idea as getting hoof boots in my mind. Movement is critical to creating the bare foot that you want, and if you have a hoof in transition, forcing the horse to hobble painfully over rocks just isn't fair. That foot will come in time, but you need to help it get there. Same with barefoot running. If I'm hobbling over rocks with my pathetic feet that have been wearing shoes since I could first walk, I'm not going to get very far am I? My feet need to strengthen, and I need help getting there.

An interesting comparison: here are some healthy bare human feet versus unhealthy "shod" human feet, and healthy bare hooves versus unhealthy shod hooves.

And:

Don't be fooled by the width of the shod foot. That is a hoof plagued with paper-thin, pancake-flat soles, serious flares, and a very contracted heel. Nothing at all like the rock-cruncher on the left.
As you can see by both the human and horse examples, the foot will adapt to compensate for improper footwear, and will also adapt to a more natural lifestyle if given the opportunity. To what extent it will adapt is dependent on everything - environment, exercise, diet, proper trim, genetics, etc. But every foot can change in some way, shape or form.

EDIT: I forgot to add in one more thing, and it's very important, maybe the most important part of the whole post. It is quite clear to me that if you were to take the unhealthy "shod" foot in that picture and set it to walking around barefoot, aside from the obvious pain factor from those weak, uncalloused soles, that foot will never turn into the big wide one pictured. Why? Because more likely than not, that unhealthy foot has been crammed into shoes ever since it was young. It's similar to the very outdated foot binding custom: a young, growing foot will become permanently deformed if forced into something unnatural. Countless doctors agree that improper footwear for children can be exceptionally damaging and unhealthy. And now here's a thought: what about that idea of the tiny, boxy Quarter Horse foot? The eternally crappy Thoroughbred foot? Quite obviously, genetics DOES play a part in this, but you don't see crappy feet in ALL QHs or TBs. You DO see a lot of crappy feet in OTTBs and QHs who come from young sport backgrounds. Those TBs get shod for the track when they are long yearlings. Those halter, western pleasure and other young western sport type QHs get shod when they are weanlings, and I've heard it's desirable to encourage a horse to put out the tiny, upright boxes that seem to plague our QHs today. I certainly hope that's not the real case. Regardless, those young feet are not done growing, and do they get the chance to develop a thick digital cushion, a dinosaur hide frog, thick walls, and a tough sole callous? No they do not. If you have a completely outstanding farrier, the damage probably won't be huge. But unless your farrier is God, it's quite possible that the fast growth of young hooves will quickly outgrow their shoes - but be unable to adjust for their size. They'll be stuck the way they are. Actually, Bowker did a study on this, dissecting hooves that had been kept bare and hooves that had been shod at a young age, and he found that the internal structures of the feet shod at a young age were essentially "frozen" in a state of immaturity - they were permanently stunted. (If anyone has a link to that study, let me know so I can put it up here.) This is why I think a lot of people won't - or even just can't - take their horses barefoot and expect them to be able to perform. Those feet were deformed when they were still growing, and never had the chance to develop what they needed to make it in the natural world. A majorly "deformed" foot taken bare will change for the better if given the opportunity, I assure you. But will it ever really be fully barefoot and sound and comfortable on all types of terrain in all situations? Maybe! But, maybe not. I wish we could take two cloned TBs, put them in the exact same diet, exercise, and turnout program, and shoe the one and leave the second barefoot, just to see what would happen. THAT would be an interesting study.

I digress. Anyway.



In this miserable, crappy Connecticut winter weather, I am really looking forward to trying on a pair of VFFs and am dreaming of a warmer, drier springtime.

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

As for Gogo, it's becoming quite clear that I've likely bitten off way more than I can chew financially for the upcoming season! Sure I want to do Holsteiner approvals in the fall and all the bigger events and the AECs and some dressage shows and some jumper shows and a competitive trail ride and hunter trials and hunter paces and OH MAN! that is a lot of stuff. Toooooo much stuff. WAY too much stuff. If I really want to breed her next year, I need to budget for it, and that means not being ridiculously extravagant this year. I certainly am bringing in three times the money that I was (not that that's a ton, but hey, it's a start), but that doesn't mean I can throw money wherever I want it. So, I'm going through my show schedule and scaling back to just include the most important things. The schedule is not complete yet - this is just events and a couple possible schooling dressage shows - but I am not planning to do any competitive trail rides, jumper shows or too many other things. Holsteiner approvals may not happen this year either... it's so many hundreds and hundreds of dollars.


April 18: Mount Holyoke Schooling Dressage Show (CT) First 4, Second 1
May 1: Once Again Farm Schooling Dressage Show (CT) First 4, Second 1
May 29: Mystic Valley Hunt Club HT (CT) (Novice)
June 25 - 27: Groton House II HT (MA) (Training)
July 10 - 11: ENDYCTA/Old Chatham (NY) (Training)
July 24 - 25: Fitch's Corner HT (NY) (Training)
August 5 - 8: Millbrook HT (NY) (Training)
August 14 - 15: GMHA HT (VT) (Training)
September 09 – 12: American Eventing Championships (GA) (Training)
October 2 - 3: University of New Hampshire HT (NH)
October/November: Cap in with Wentworth/Tanheath
October: New England Hunter Trials (Novice)
November 12-14: 2010 Equine Affaire Versatile Horse & Rider Competition

Italicised are the possibilities that I haven't decided on yet. Not included here are any potential hunter paces I want to do. There are TONS to choose from, so I haven't decided yet which I'd like to do. I am happy to report I have a whole slew of eager boarders who would love to join me in these endeavors, so I will have riding buddies, partners and support! Hooray!

As for the events - the real meat of the season - I am planning on starting the season with Mystic's very easy Novice, just as a pipe opener. If all goes according to plan, I do want to make Groton House our first Training. I considered doing the spring GMHA at Training, but it's in early June, and I just don't think we'll be ready by then. So we'll do what we did last year with Groton House - cross our fingers and hope that we'll get in!

Really what I'd like to do is one of those schooling dressage shows just to get her off the property, then go into the eventing season strong. Whether or not I will do Old Chatham entirly depends on how she feels, and how she does at Groton House. Once again, my brain has exploded seeing that every other level has their Area Championships in the fall.... but the level I want to show at? Yep, gotta be held at a spooky venue in JULY! So quite possibly, I will not be attending Areas this year. It just depends on, well, everything.


Gogo is feeling good, strong, and sound under saddle. One of our boarders commented yesterday on how perfectly even she looks behind, much to my happiness. She also mentioned while watching her from behind that she could also tell her evenness from just how evenly her tail waved back and forth while she was trotting. Love that!


Gogo would also like to say that she is REALLY looking forward to springtime and galloping again:

That's a "PLEASE!" face if I ever saw one!