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.

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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!

It's Gonna Be a Happy New Year

Yes, indeed it is! 2010 is here and we can finally let the last decade die in peace. How weird is it that ten years ago I was still in middle school, standing around at Epcot in Disney World waiting for Y2K to shut off all the fireworks and lights? Aaaah, ten years come and come. We've learned many things in the past decade, answered many burning questions such as... how does one unfreeze an iPod? Should I shake it like a salt shaker or a Polaroid picture? Should I vote for Kerry just so Bush won't win? A decade where somebody finally realized that skinny shirts were out, skinny jeans were in, and skinny models should finally eat some more sandwiches. A decade where buildings got attacked, space shuttles fell out of the sky, and long wars started. A decade that gave us Facebook, Twitter, the iPhone, publicly available hybrid cars, and the pinnacle of human achivement, the Snuggie. A decade where I entered and finished both high school and college, owned all three of my horses, and saw many pets, family members, and friends come and go. It's quite remarkable to look back on it all and realize just what a huge amount of time a decade really is, especially for someone like me who is not quite two and a half decades old. That's practically half my life right there. That's crazy.


As is tradition, it's time to go over all the 2009 goals I set for myself and for Gogo, and to come up with new 2010 goals. 2009 was sort of a hazy year for me - started out SO strong (winning three events in a row!) and then ending on such a crappy note (a RF, a last place finish, a 5th after a rail, and a tendon injury!), so it wasn't quite what I had hoped for. Most of these goals didn't get accomplished at all.

2009 Goals:

1) Qualify for and attend the AECs at Novice – place top 10
Well, we easily qualified for them, and we attended them, and we WOULD have finished 4th out of 40 people. I suppose I consider this goal not totally a failed completion. Freak things can and do happen, things we would have never guessed could have. The fact that she kept going through that challenging course while being seriously injured unbeknownst to me and never questioned a thing or hesitated anywhere means more to me than any placing could, because of the heart and guts she showed. She just kept going. That takes a special horse to just keep going.

2) Break 70% (at First Level or Novice/Training)
We did in fact do that! But only once, which was a little dissapointing. While the average of our overall scores went down - and was VERY consistant - our lowest score was still only a 29.5. That's not as low as I want it. We'll work harder at that this year,

3) Show First Level 1-4
Nope. I just didn't have the finances.

4) Hopefully show Second Level 1-2 (not an official goal, due to money constraints)
See above. Hopefully this year.

5) Show Training Level eventing
Again, we WOULD have done this had she not injured herself at the AECs. She was mentally ready and she was definitely fit enough. So not a TOTALLY failed goal, just an uncompleted one due to circumstances beyond my control.

The goals I set for myself last year are also for the most part incompletions, or total failures. My problem ended up being this: I spent too much time focusing on my horse, and not enough time on myself. Which you know, certainly could be worse, but I am a firm believers that all people should have other things they love and enjoy to do away from their careers and career-like things. If I had a desk job somewhere, then of course my horse would be the perfect outlet away from that, but she's a large part of my daily career work, as are all her horsey comrades. I think it's very healthy to maintain other fun pastimes too, because of focused I get on just her. For most of this past year, she's been my entire life. Everything I've done from waking in the morning to sleeping at night has revolved totally around her. And that's great when things are going swimmingly, but extra devastating when things aren't - I had nothing else to turn to that I was putting any sort of emotion into. One of the (very) few good things about her lay-up has been that I've had so much extra time to do all the stuff I enjoy but don't have time to do when she's in heavy training. I focused a lot on myself. I go to go on small vacations. I traveled a bit, I spent more time with friends, I painted and wrote, and I did a lot of yoga and reading. It was nice, just getting to go for a stroll in the woods and not think about my next upcoming show. So this upcoming show season, while I won't be any less driven in the slightest, I fully intend on letting myself be a multifacited person. Sometimes I get so focused on one thing, I forget all the other aspects of my being. I'm crazy about skiing. I love to exercise. I love getting my hair done and a new pair of shoes. I adore sailing, travel, and walking up to total strangers to strike up a conversation. I have to allow myself time for these things this coming year. That way, if something else happens that's not in my favor (but it WON'T because I SAID SO), my whole life won't feel totally ruined.

The other problem with last year's list? It wasn't specific enough. It was very vague, and so therefore I had nothing concrete to hang on to or to focus on. Things never got done because I didn't have enough of an idea of what I really wanted to do in the first place. I'm starting over this year with a more difinitive list, both for myself and for Gogo. And for both of us, there will be a bigger list of things that are NOT just sport.

So, without further ado, our yearly goals.

2010 Goals:

Gogo:
Qualify for and attend the AECs at Training Level, top 10 finish
Break 70% at First Level or Training Level (Score in 20’s)
Show 1st level 1-4 (Schooling or recognized)
Show 2nd Level 1-2 (Schooling or recognized)
If finances are available, show in GMHA’s N3DE (do the T3DE next year!) – or at least attend/support/volunteer/donate to it
Take her to Holsteiner approvals and get into the MMB
Do some fun competition type things: the 2010 Equine Affaire Versatily Horse & Rider Competition, a competitive trail ride, hunter trials/hunter paces
Go foxhunting!

Me:
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
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

Now there's two or three things in there that might have caught your eye. First, it's true - GMHA is running a Novice 3-Day this year. THAT IS AMAZING. If I am still point-chasing, it's unlikely that I'd be able to do this, as they're running it a couple of days before their regular event. But if I can't ride in it, I still fully intend to support it, either through volunteer work or financially. With the time we've lost and my inability to really find someone out here that I'd really like to train with (any suggestions?), doing the T3DE is not a viable option this year, sadly. I don't have the qualifications or the knowledge to do that alone. I need a teacher and a guide. But you never know, maybe someone amazing will come along and we'll try for it!

Secondly, did you say breeding? Yes, that's the plan - finally, I'm in a situation where I will be financially strong enough, as well as be in a stable living/job situation, where I will be able to breed her in the summer of 2011. The goal all along has been to breed her before the age of 11, then go back and compete for several more years before retiring her as a broodmare. It is infinitely easier to get a younger maiden mare pregnant and mainain it to term rather than an older maiden mare, and it's actually quite common in Europe for a mare owner to breed the mare at the age of 3, foal out and see what's she's capable of producing, then break and train the mare until she's older and ready to be retired to be a full-time mom. Young bodies are good at these kinds of things, and old bodies are more concerned with keeping just themselves healthy and going. So for mid-late summer 2011, I am finally setting it all down in stone. Two and a half years from now, expect to be introduced to a bouncing, rearing bundle of joy. I can't WAIT already!! BUT, clearly that is a long way away, and I need to start planning and saving now if that's what I really want to do. All the pieces are ready to fall into place - I even have an inexpensive place to keep the wee one when he/she is weaned for very cheap... right here in my backyard! Turnout all day and an arena and everything! If that's not a great situation, I don't know what is.

Thirdly, did you say... running barefoot? In all the commotion in the past few posts about barefoot horses and barefoot human athletes, I got to thinking about it. Here's the thing: I LOVE to run. But I've essentially stopped every time I've really gotten into it because of the horrible pain it caused me. Knee pain, back pain, shin splints, cramps in my feet, and let's not even get me started on my bad hip. I was running in crappy shoes at the time and attributed it to that. I went out and got myself a fancy pair of running shoes and tried again, and strangely enough, the pains in my feet got way, way worse. I would have to stop mid-run sometimes because of the shooting cramps I'd get in my arches. It was weird, it didn't make sense. So now here I am, getting fat on the couch while my horse gets fat in her stall. I'm not running because my feet and my body hurt when I do it regularly. I have pretty good form... so what's the problem?
And then I had a lightbulb moment when everyone was bickering about it. Why not try running barefoot myself? It sounds ridiculous really, when I write it down, but I'm serious. If it worked so well for my horse, maybe it could work for me too. It's quite the same set of principles - nature gave us these feet and intended us to use them unfettered, and it's quite a growing movement. The human evolved as a bipedal walking/running machine, meant to be on their feet and going all day long. If I want to try this, I need to do some serious research and ask some very real questions. If it hurts me too much to run in shoes, maybe I should just try without them, and see what happens. Who knows? I might come back swearing with glass in my foot and write the whole thing off. But maybe, just maybe, it'll change me as an athlete for all time. I'm a novice runner - a very novice runner - but I want to do it and I want to do it a lot. I love it. I am no Stacey but I do want to try, late in the year, a 5k road race. Maybe I'll end up back in running shoes - who knows? But maybe not. It'll be an interesting experiment, and a sweet way to run a little bit of a parallel to the nekked hooves movement. I know what it's like to be an athlete limited by my shoes! So stay tuned to see what happens on that front.


Happy New Year, everyone!

TALLY HO!

First of all, I'd like to announce that today is National Do Something Totally Random With Your Best Friend Day! This was a picture of Nicole, erm, dumping me into Niagara Falls. Sweet.

Also, the Eventing-A-Gogo blog has reached a new milestone - our 100th official follower! We're not even a year old yet, and this offical following doesn't count all the people who follow anonymously, or just read on their own. I never had any intention to ever create something like this - I had no idea in the slightest that it would ever take off in the way that it did. People have really responded to this wild ride Gogo and I have been on, and it's been awesome to get to meet and talk to so many interesting people over the course of this past year. I get a lot of e-mails filled with encouragement, stories, and thanks for writing about all the things that we do from day to day. So really, thanks to all of you, because you're all a part of my life now. I have so much fun with this, and I'm glad you're all a part of it, from those of you there with me in the very beginning to those of you just reading now.



And now for something completely different.





Two weeks ago, I headed up to the Great North (Connecticut is pretty much the Deep South of New England, at least longitudinally) to go foxhunting with Daun. However, due to Mother Nature's bipolarity, we had to settle for other fun things instead. I must have been a decent enough houseguest because Daun insisted I come back up again in two weeks for the meet at Tamworth, this time on a guest horse so we all could ride. I had one hell of a whirlwind weekend, and after this first hunting experience, all I can say is I hope Gogo's legs are good enough to give it a go next fall - it was serious fun.

My Friday started out on a happy note - Thursday was my last day of work at this job ever, and it had been my 9th day in a row of working, so I got to sleep in that next day. Let me tell you, not worrying about an alarm is THE BEST FEELING EVER. I woke up feeling refreshed and happy, and spent a large chunk of my day happily packing away. That evening, Shan and I were invited to go over to Judy's house, who is one our fabulous boarders, for a delicious homemade dinner and a haunted hayride. The company was excellent, the spiked cider even better, the hayride totally enjoyable (and freezing), and the ice cream that followed THE BEST. But needless to say, I still had to depart for Daun's that evening, and after Judy insisted I shove even MORE food into my mouth (she gave me a bag of cookies for the road too), I finally headed out at around 10pm. Now, my ETA at this point was midnight. Very late, but I had warned Daun that my arrival was going to be either very early or very late. Not ideal, of course, but I was assured that it was all right, and since Judy has been staving off my starvation and attending almost all my horseshows this year, I certainly was not about to turn down her dinner invitation. Anyway, so I'm on the road. I'm cruising steadily up I-84 when suddenly there are a million brake lights. Oh, for REAL? What is going ON? Apparently some sort of accident had happened, so then we sat. And sat. And sat. FOR TWO HOURS. Finally, after what seemed like a very long eternity, we started to move, and eventually crawled up to the scene of the crash. As it turns out, the crash was on the OTHER side of the highway... and that side of the highway was moving along JUST fine. It was just our side who weren't being shooed away by police that all wanted to stop and gawk at the carnage. WHY.
So now, it's past midnight and I still have at least 2.5 hours to go. I'm utterly exhausted, so I take a break and doze. I don't feel better after this, so another hour down the road I have to take another break and doze. Caffeine isn't helping either. Even though I was in contact with Daun during all this, I'm sure she was probably peeing her pants wondering if I had crashed and died by this point. 3am rolls around and I am STILL not there. By this time, I just couldn't physically drive anymore without slipping into unconsciousness behind the wheel and crashing and dying, so I just gave up and pulled over, snuggled into my coat, and PASSED OUT. I managed to very woozily rouse myself a couple of hours later, continuing on to Daun's farm and arriving a little after 6. As I stumbled out of the car, I was met by a totally incredulous Daun - "You're CRAZY! You have to hang onto a galloping horse today!" - and of course, with a little breakfast in my system, once we were on the road with the horses I was OUT again. We pulled up to Red Horse Farm in Tamworth a little early, and I opened my eyes to a full-fledged New England autumn morning glittering before me with the remnants of frost, our breath steaming as we shivered our way down to the main farm, our bellies filled with hot cider and rum once we got down to the main farmhouse. After dressing (in many, many layers... it was DAMN COLD!), we located Dana, the woman whose huband's horse Media Luna was to be my mount for the day, and I helped finish tacking and hopped up. Media Luna was once upon a time an Argentinian polo pony, and came complete with some seriously ragged hair, an ill-fitting and horribly slippery saddle (one of those generic ones that you get out of a Western catalogue with the label "English saddle"), and a totally sweet disposition. After a brief speech by our fieldmaster, we hacked down the road to the field where we would be releasing the hounds, and I had a chance to socialize a little bit with the other members of the hunt in the first field with us. What a hack - we traversed backcountry roads beneath great overhangs of golden leaves, flirted with the flanks of a crumbling stone wall, blinked and smiled as the dazzling morning sunlight flashed through the swaying leaves overhead. And suddenly, we were in the field, and the hounds were bounding about the feet of the staff horses, leaping straight up into the air to catch cookies tossed to them by Sue. She rallied them about her, calling each by name, and then we made to sort into our fields and move on.

Now at this point I had a moment of, wait a second now. You're on a horse you know nothing about and have never even seen before, are about to participate in a sport you've never done before, and are going in the first field - i.e. keep up with the hounds at whatever speed they're going, no matter what the terrain. Am I nuts? Well, yes, by mere mortal standards I guess I am; then again, I've done things like this before. For instance, when I drove across the country for three weeks with a friend in 2006, he insisted we go white water rafting on the Arkensas river in Colorado. Sure, why not, I thought. I don't like to get wet but we'll be fine in the raft, it's just like the Lazy River at Cedar Point right? Wait a minute... these are Category 5 rapids? As in, kill you rapids? Well.... okay, sure, why not! And we neither died nor captized the raft, so I am here to tell the tale today. Such was the case with Media Luna... I neither died nor fell off. Quite the contrary - I had some SERIOUS fun. Off we loped, the sparkling green of the fields a sharp contrast against the red and gold on the mountain overhead. We swung round the edges of the fields, trotted single-file through the woods, and followed the occasional direction from a voice behind us ("ware hound left!" as one of the hounds would come bounding up behind us). It felt like a step back in time, watching the huntsmen ahead of us working, and whenever we stopped (and hit the flask, which Daun and I merrily polished off), we were treated incredible views of what every perfect northern New England fall morning should look like. It was gorgeous. At the stirrup cup, we watched the hounds play in the water (and some of the horses too), chatted merrily with old and new friends, and looked out over the pond at the great view of the mountain behind us. And then, it was off again, re-negotiating some risky terrain (which, on the way to the stirrup cup, was the only thing Media Luna had a problem with - a very scary, yawning ditch, and I had to give her some big pony kicks to get her ungracefully over) and doubling back once in the woods when we lost the path. Media Luna was a charm - she trotted when the horse in front of me trotted, cantered when the horse in front of me cantered, and stopped on a dime when the horse in front of me did the same. The second half of the journey, I managed to squeeze my way back behind Brego (got stuck behind some morons capping in from Myopia.. they talked the WHOLE TIME and had a pony that wouldn't stop jigging and rearing), and we crossed some increasingly rough terrain, including a very rocky river and some shoe-sucking mud. When the hounds finally gave cry near the end of the hunt (only the second time they had done this during the whole hunt, lol), we had just unbogged ourselves from a particularly thick section of muddy trail. The staff, hounds, Daun, her SO, and myself were OFF! Unbeknownst to us at the time, however, the horse and rider behind me were mired in mud up to the horse's hocks, and the rest of the fields all piled up behind them. But the chase WE had was WILD! Ducking under treebranches at speed, negotiating all sort of wild terrain, exploding out from the forest, tearing up a grassy hill into the big field, and watching Brego boink around in front of me for a few moments, clearly enjoying the thrill of the chase. (He was on his best behavior for this hunt - only one little dolphin-buck going up the hill, and a brief moment when the war-horse in him prompted him to bounce forward on his hind legs when the staff took off in front of him. That's drive baby!) The hunt ended on his note, once we had rounded up all the muddy stragglers. It happens!

It was OUTSTANDING. I really, really hope Gogo's legs heal well enough to consider maybe going out in the second field next fall. Given the kind of terrain we negotiated, I doubt I'd want her to go in the first field unless it was at an exceptional venue, but still. If you're a good jock with some guts and you ever have the chance to give it a try, DO IT. You'll love it just like I did.

Awesome. Just... awesome. AND I got to see my baby sister that night for the first time in almost a year (baby = 21). Couldn't have been a better weekend.