Happy Three-Year Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo!

Today is the three-year anniversary of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog!


As always, I am completely amazing to find that another year has already come and gone. We all know the story of the origins of the blog by now: it all started three years ago as nothing more than a little something to keep track of my training successes (and failures) with my wild little mare, and it turned into so much more. I've made countless contacts and friends through my writing, and the unwavering support you all have shown me in my time of sorrow has been so helpful and so meaningful to me. Thanks to everyone who has followed this journey... this chapter in my life is closing, but there will be many different adventures in the future, and those of us who took part in Gogo's life will never be able to forget her. Without further ado, here is a review of the past year, from where we left off last November until now:


November 2010:

Gogo has finished her tendon rehab completely and is back in full work. She also gets to go on hacks to the beach regularly! I announce that I am leaving my current job, and find another to take its place, this time in Southern Pines, NC. I am looking violently forward to getting Gogo back into some real event-type training when a mystery misstep suddenly leaves Gogo very lame again. Ultrasound confirms a reinjury of the area, and we decide that it's time to stop what we're doing and give her a few years out in a field. The news is devastating, but not the end of the world. She might come back, but she might not... only time will tell.


December 2010:

My job offer in Southern Pines falls through, and instead I take a job outside of Fort Worth, Texas. (Still not sure what I was thinking at the time, but so glad I did it anyway!) Between November and December I manage the incredibly complicated feat of moving the menagerie all the way down to the deep south. We spend our last few weeks in Connecticut taking snowy walks and trimming feets. Gogo goes into 10-hour turnout as per our rehab schedule, and she managed to not freak out or kill herself... well, at least not too badly. I discuss breeding or buying my next horse, and start much heated debate. And of course, we move!


January 2011:

Daily life for Gogo is pretty boring for the first half of the month.... out all day, in all night, rinse lather repeat the next day. She gives a message to all of her followers on how to get your human to spend more time with you, spends far too much time on her hind legs trying to kill her neighbors, and then finally moves to the 15 acres behind my house for 24/7 turnout. She doesn't approve at first, and tries to kill herself on the fence, which doesn't surprise anyone. I talk more about Metro, and end up with a new Dobe/Rott pup and not one but TWO new cats!


February 2011:

Texas has a deathsnow deathstorm, and I am without water and heat for an entire week. I try to bring home a free lease project, and it goes pretty horribly wrong, so he goes back home within short order. We lose a good horse to a freak accident. Gogo finally stops trying to kill herself and settles into her new daily routine just fine. Aside from that, I don't write much.


March 2011:

The weather begins to break in March, and I lament not being able to keep a pasture horse clean... coming from show barns, this is a very different lifestyle for both of us! Gogo starts to gain weight as the grass comes in, and meets her ultimate nemesis, the grazing muzzle. We change some maintenance issues, and cut grain from her diet completely. I reminisce on the good old show days of 2009. The blog has 300 official followers... I can't hardly believe it.


April 2011:

In the beginning of the month, I announce that I am finally, FINALLY pursing a career in natural hoofcare! I roach Gogo's mane and am delighted with how it turns out. Denali's Mom's gift finally gets finished, Gogo's soundness and strength out in the field continues to improve, and I almost die in a tornado. As the grass comes in, Gogo's weight gain gets out of hand, and her feet go through some unpleasant changes. I start to realize just how much diet has to do with hoofcare (everything).


May 2011:

I write about missing Quincy as I always do in May. Gogo has a minor brainfart meltdown about her shed and refuses to use it in a hailstorm. She then of course sets out to prove me wrong when I make the generalized statement that she'll never use it under any circumstances. Her lameness improves! She is still not sound, but she is getting better and better as the weeks and months go by. Her feet improve. She permanently destroys her grazing muzzle. And I sit on her bareback once or twice! Temperatures reach 100 degrees, and don't cool off again for the next five months.


June 2011:

Gogo turns 10 years old on June 2nd! (And Tonka turns 1, and Snidgey turns 3!) We go in to see Dr. H for our six-month ultrasound, and it doesn't go particularly well. There are a lot of adhesions and lots of scar tissue within the tendon sheath... something turnout unfortunately did to her. Dr. H tells me to sit on her w/t/c and I do... she feels very good to start. But not long thereafter she blows a suspected adhesion and I despair. I talk about the unfortunate and harsh realities of turning a horse with a soft tissue injury out. I leave my job (with much relief, as it turned out to be quite a lot different than it was supposed to be). I'm not feeling particularly great at the halfway point of the year, and hope that it improves from here on out.


July 2010:

Gogo moves barns (and I move too), and finds herself in with a herd of her own to control and boss around. She has some sort of odd discharge from one of her teats that doesn't improve with anything we do, hardcore antibiotics included (she will have this strange discharge for the short rest of her life). She is ridiculously sound all things considered (not SOUND, but better than she has been since her last reinjury). We talk legs, and we talk feet. Gogo and I celebrate five very eventful and wonderful years together at the end of the month.


August 2011:

At the beginning of the month, I try to sit on Gogo again in order to hopefully eliminate some of her enormity (walk only). The first day of this, she turns up with fill in the leg and serious lameness. We talk about fatness, feet, and the problems of turning out a horse with a soft tissue injury again. I start talking about the prospect of eventually getting another horse, and about regretting my decision to turn her out. I also face the reality of what might happen if she doesn't get better. We get some bad news from the vet and have a brand new and very bad injury. I start to consider the possibility of not having my mare around for much longer.


September 2011:

In the beginning of September, I get my hopes up about giving everything one last ditch effort. The blog reaches 500 posts, and we pass the two year mark from the original injury at the AECs in 2009. I sit down and make a Go or No Go plan for potential rehab, and we have some gorgeous photos taken of us together. Gogo gets her tubba, homeopathy, and some AquaTread time and we think that this might possibly be our magic bullet for restoring her to some level of soundness. But her left leg ends up with compensatory damage, and she becomes bilaterally lame at the end of the month. I can be hopeful all I want in my head, but when I look at her, I know there is no real hope.




October 2011:

Gogo goes back to the vet for a final checkup with Dr. H, and the news is bad. Her entire suspensory apparatus is failing, and her distal sesamoidean ligaments are fraying with alarming rapidity. We discuss the final decision that we must make, and I decide to let her have a few final weeks of happy retirement before letting her go. Her legs have other ideas, and her right hind fetlock begins to sink shortly after our vet appointment. Her entire demeanor also deteriorates, and she tells me she is hurting and ready to go. I have one final bareback ride and one final wonderful afternoon with her, and then I let her go on October 11th. She went peacefully and with nobility, like a true lady should.


November 2011:

On November 11th, Gogo has been gone for an entire month. Gifts come flooding in from friends and readers, and are still coming in as we speak. There will not be another year of Eventing-A-Gogo after this, but it will remain as a tribute to her and to all the memories we shared together.









Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo, even though it's a bittersweet one. The blog has 411 official followers as of today and I can't hardly believe it. I miss her so much, and sometimes still can't believe she's really gone. Thank you to everyone who has shared in this journey... you don't know what it means to me.



"Somewhere in time's own space
There must be some sweet pastured place
Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow
Some paradise where horses go
For by the love that guides my pen
I know great horses live again."

Wait a minute, when did 2011 happen?

Tada! It's the New Year! I can honestly say that I have absolutely never in my life cared less. I made only one single goal: to not rely on my goalmaking success for happiness. I have spent the past three years of my life meticulously planning out my year from January 1st on through show season, painstakingly setting up monthly and yearly goals, and planning to a T every clinic and show I planned on attending right down to every finance. It's pretty obvious that I can't do that this year. Every other New Years resolution I ever made complimented my competition schedule - exercising, dieting, etc. I made other small goals for myself too, of course, but nothing I didn't ever really regret not completing if I didn't.

This year, everything is different. I woke up on January 1st and felt exactly the same as the day before. I did not have any goals I was excited to get started on. I did not have anything in my forseeable future to plan for. We spent the night before down at the river, throwing away pieces of 2010 into the water as a symbolic letgo. I tossed in an old vet bill (paid of course!) to sybolize letting all of that endless heartache go. It was an incredible night, and a cleansing moment. Of course we were then nearly skewered by a wild boar who showed up on the riverbank. Or at least that's what we think it was... we heard crashing and squealing and decided we better not stick around long enough to find out.

As far as New Years Eves go, this one was amazing. I wish it had never ended, but of course it had to. I headed off to work the next day same as always, working a day that was just the same as before except quite a lot colder. I didn't make any goals. I didn't make any particular plans. I have ideas, but nothing concrete to name. It is oddly liberating, to tell you the truth. Something will come to me, I am sure. But as for right now, I am happy to just move with the wind until something comes clear.

I didn't make any goals for Gogo either. In fact, I think I am going to try and make a point of not making goals for now. She is happy being a chinchilla rolling in the dust every day, and her leg looks the same. Since I am once again her primary feeder, I am annoyed to find that apparently over the past year she has relearned her total attitude at feeding time that I had all but squashed out of her when I was her primary feeder before. It's nothing bad at all, but she makes some pretty surly faces that she never used to make before, and paws. I don't tolerate any sort of attitude from her, even if it's just an ugly face, so I have been creatively chasing her off with the mixing spoon we use to stir water into grain meals. I also refuse to approach her when she's making an ugly face. Only when she pricks her ears and looks at me in a friendly way do I bring her grain over. The spoon technique seems to be the most effective. The pawing has all but stopped after a few days of this, and the nasty faces are way less nasty and more quizzical. Hopefully we'll be back to normal pretty soon.

I also put her on the lunge yesterday for all of 25 seconds, just a few trot steps in each direction. She's still lame, but a fair bit less than she was when the injury first happened. We're only a month and a half our from the reinjury, which is nothing in the grand sceme of things. If we were still doing stall rest we wouldn't have even gone back yet for our first vet recheck. I think I will probably do this once a monthjust to see what she looks like, because it really can't hurt much at this point. Baby steps.


Really, there isn't much else to report. She's getting a thorough grooming, but not every day. She likes to be dirty and a horse for once, I think. She is happy to be out all day, and she completely trashes her stall every night. I for one really hope to get her out 24/7 in my backyard ASAP, seeing as that will be an additional perk.... not having to be on the receiving end of that pitchfork every day!



Big news-related things may or may not be coming soon. Pertaining to Gogo's living situation, I now have the option of keeping her in my landlord's 15-acre paddock, whcih also joins to a second 15 acres if I am interested. It's not quite my backyard, but it's close, so I will have to think about it and will have more on it later. I also may have something to ride! I don't know anything about the potential horse yet aside from his name, which is Trout. I dunno about you but I LOVE a weird name! More details as they come.


As for right now...

I am not making goals anymore for this year for Gogo. This may change at some point, but I have absolutely no expectations and I am not going to set myself up for failure and dissapointment.
I am not making resolutions for myself yet. I will when I decide the time is right.
I am letting things come as they will, and letting my interests point me in the right directions so that I can take the next step from here.
I am happy as a clam in this town and state. Really.



2010 feels a bit like it was a complete and utter waste, but I have a feeling that 2011 will be a total turnaround. I'm not sure why I get that feeling, but somewhere in my gut I know it's true. Something good is coming. Something really good.

Happy New Year!

Happy Two-Year Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo!

Today is the two-year anniversary of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog!


Once again, I am totally shocked to find that another year has flown by so fast. This blog started two years ago as nothing more than a little something to keep track of my training successes (and failures) with my wild little mare, and it turned into so much more. So many things have changed in the past year - many of them good, some of them not so good. My list of blog-related contacts and friends continues to grow, and hardly a day goes by when I don't get little notes of encouragement, questions, and general friendly comments from all of you amazing people. Thank you all for following this journey... it's certainly been a wild ride! So without further ado, here is a review of the past year, from where we left off last November until now:



November 2009:

Gogo continues to settle in to her new fancy living arrangements, treadmill and all. I let another farrier work on her for the first time in a year, and was happy to find that yes, even metalworking traditional farriers CAN perform a nice barefoot trim. I get back on Gogo for the first time in two months, and she behaves perfectly - until she doesn't. Gogo gets turnout for the first time in two months, even if confined to only a 20x20 area. Our day by day schedule is very simple, but steady, and we are both comfortable and happy in our surroundings. Things are looking way up.



December 2009:

Gogo's two/three month checkup at Tufts happens, and everything looks great on ultrasound, but she's still a little wonky on her RH. A partial body bone scan showed that she apparently jammed her stifle during her slide, and we medicate it to the tune of big $$$$$$. It causes her no further issues, and we get back to talkwalking, which turns into a daily bolting, rearing nightmare. We take our first trot steps, which go great, until they don't. Gogo gets booted from her stall when she starts attacking horses over the gate, to a stall with no gate under the loft - hey, she deserved it! I discuss the Elephant In The Corner, and the subsequent clarification needed as follow-up, all in response to the question everyone asked: will you shoe your horse now? The answer was, and always will be 'no' in the traditional sense, but there are many new and interesting options out there, and I think we are getting closer to a real, solid event-type answer every day.


January 2010:

I make a lot of pompous goals for the upcoming years - which events we'll do and whatnot - and experiment with tack (drop nosebands, different bits). Gogo goes on her first 'hack', a 10 minute ride around the barn. I go to the Area I convention to collect year-end awards, only to panic and turn on my heel as soon as I got there... somehow, collecting awards for my lame horse felt completely wrong, and I wanted no part of it. I talk about missing Metro, Gogo moves into the next size medical turnout (about 20x50), and totally wipes out on the treadmill. I start my own barefoot adventure, and pick out a baby daddy for Gogo. Gogo also goes insane trying to attack geldings over the fence in turnout, which doesn't surprise anybody.


February 2010:

I don't write much in February. We go back and have another ultrasound done, and everything is looking spot-on, so we get the clear to canter for the first time - which goes great for the first two days. The third attempt at canter, and she goes dead hopping lame. She makes a rapid turnaround, and the vet suspects a blown adhesion in the tendon sheath - painful, but something that will resolve itself shortly, and life will go on. Gogo gets to be the poster child for the awards section of the USEA website. She also loses her mind several times, complete with spinning, rearing, bolting, bucking, and standing on her hind legs in the stall so high that she actually cracks her head on the ceiling. Steps forward, steps back.


March 2010:

March starts out beautifully, with the outdoor arena returning to use (much bigger than the indoor, and better for Wild Gogo Brains.) We spent way too much time inside, where she was way too wild and spooky, and subsequently also spent way too much time on a circle at one end.... in hindsight, probably an awful choice. We toodle around with some groundwork. Gogo has a day where she feels just so slightly off, and this turns into a sudden, violent three-legged lameness during an amazing ride. I suspect stifle, but when we head back to Tufts, we find that a suspected adhesion has blown on the right, taking a crater of tendon with it. Boom done! Another tendon injury. We medicate the sheath with hyaluronic acid, and go right back to the beginning.... stall rest, handwalking, wraps and coldtubbing. I feel pretty crappy.


April 2010:
I try to keep my spirits up by starting up Photo Adventure Fridays again. I go over the breeding option again, and again, and again. Gogo gets lots of tubba, and lots of grazing time on the clover. I start going to the chiropractor - a LOT - and do lots of hiking in my VFFs. I mope around because I miss out on Rolex, and I SO should have gone. Gogo goes back on the treadmill for the first time in a month and a half, and is shocked!



May 2010:

I write about missing Quincy every day, and about how he died. (Yes, I cried when I wrote it.) I participate in a clinic with Jeff Cook, obviously not on Gogo, and have a blast. Gogo steals the computer and blogs all by herself. My dear friend Lynnie loses her battle with brain cancer. Gogo heads back for her two-month ultrasound, and the tendon looks great, but she's still a hair off, flexing positive at the hock (to no one's surprise; to fill you in if you didn't know, Crazy Abusive Trainer spent 6 months lunging her in a tiny, rutted circle with tight side reins on in one direction only, every. Single. Day. For an hour at a time. THAT will screw up your hocks.) I blog about milestones: my baby sister graduates from college, I get back to tackwalking on the mare, and the blog reaches its 300th post and 191st follower. I write the Ten-don Commandments, and vow to double my efforts in resolving this rehab case: arena work ONLY, straight lines ONLY, NO hacking out, NO uneven surfaces, NO turnout, coldhosing/wrapping/icing at specific, timed schedules every day, and Ace every single ride. NOT worth it to EVER chance anything else.


June 2010:

Gogo turns 9 years old on June 2nd. We spend exactly four weeks at this schedule: tackwalking 6 days a week, 30 minutes on the buckle/loose rein, straight lines in the huge outdoor arena ONLY, with 5 minutes of on the bit work added every week. (35 minutes of riding the 1st week, 40 the second, 45 the third, and 50 the fourth, to make a total of 30 minutes on the buckle, and 20 on the bit) 'On the bit' work includes straight lines only, REALLY shallow leg yields once or twice in each direction, walking over poles, and... that's about it. We do our seasonal glam shots, and we walk. And walk. And walk. And walk. And walk. The blog does its first Sunday Success Story, and they catch on fast and go strong for a good long while (I miss them, send your stories people!). I write about the first leg of the barefoot journey, and Gogo gets the all-clear from the vet to TROT! The first trot this time around feels SO much stronger and better than the first trot over the winter. Yay trot!


July 2010:

We stick to a rigorous schedule: four weeks of a 6-day a week schedule, 30 minutes of loose rein walk, 20 minutes of walk on the bit, and 5 minutes of trot added every week, to total 20 minutes at the end of four weeks (1:10 ride). Gogo looks awesome. On National Helmet Awareness Day, I write about how a helmet saved my brains. I do lots of Sunday Success Stories and Photo Adventure Fridays. The humidity makes Gogo's legs get HUGE, but she stays sound, so we keep at it. Near the end of the month, we win more blog awards, and my hip completely blows out when an old injury gets reaggravated. I am completely lame, but in very good spirits. Gogo heads back to the vet for her recheck, and we go ahead and medicate her hocks. I spend the following two weeks bringing her back to her former level of work VERY carefully, in case her new hocks made her feel a little too awesome. We are two happy chicks in the summer sun.


August 2010:

I celebrate (a few days late) my four-year anniversary with Gogo. Four years of Picture Poses, four years of striking poses, and four years of 'special moments.' We CANTER! I am understandably nervous given what happened last time, but I didn't need to be. We again stick to our set-in-stone schedule: four weeks of a 6-day a week schedule, 30 minutes of loose rein walk, 20 minutes of walk on the bit, 20 minutes of trot, and 5 minutes of canter added every week, to total 20 minutes at the end of four weeks (1:30 ride). Near the end of the month, at the 15 minute mark, I start to realize how totally exhausting this schedule is (and how totally fit she is), and decide after yet another stellar ultrasound that it's time to back WAY down. We get the go-ahead to carefully begin hacking out, jumping, and turning out. We go on our first hack in many months, and participate in an in-hand clinic with Bettina. I write more about the barefoot journey, and say goodbye to another dear old friend. Gogo goes back into the medical turnout, and life is good.



September 2010:

Gogo feels amazing, and gets back to a vaguely normal schedule. We take our first tiny crossrail! We also recab the entire year since the original injury (Sept 12th, 2009). Gogo goes on her first few trailer-out trail rides, and is a perfect angel. She is totally weaned off the Ace (FINALLY), and is great. I talk more about the barefoot journey. Gogo tells me, yet again, that she wants a baby of her own:
Adorable.


October 2010:

I almost go to the WEG, but don't at the last second (who has that kind of money?) Gogo jumps a few more tiny crossrails, but not much. Gogo goes for a walk on the beach, and has a blast. I talk about gayness. I also contemplate whether or not I should give Gogo a few light, easy months before returning back to real work, or if I should stick to solid things. I decide to take the middle road. Gogo gets out of her stall and demolishes the barn, and subsequently gives herself huge fat legs. We head back to the vet, and thankfully she is still sound as a dollar, so we skip the ultrasound. (Maybe a mistake now? We'll never know.) We take some more glam shots. Gogo rejoins a herd of mares in turnout, and is one happy cookie.



November 2010:

Gogo does amazingly well, and continues to go on hacks to the beach and up the road. She gives me some amazing dressage work. I announce that I am leaving my current job, and find another to take its place, this time in Southern Pines, NC. I am looking violently forward to getting Gogo back into some real event-type training when a mystery misstep suddenly leaves Gogo very lame again. Ultrasound confirms a reinjury of the area, and we decide that it's time to stop what we're doing and give her a few years out in a field. The news is devastating, but not all bad. She'll be all right, and she's not going anywhere. The blog has 254 followers, we've had stories published about us, been plugged all over the web, met some amazing people, made some fast friends, and have loved every minute of sharing all our ups and down with all of you, even more than we did last year.




Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo! It doesn't matter that Gogo's current career is hayburner and pasture puff. She's not going anywhere, and neither is this blog. Here's to another year of more ups, more downs, more friends, more fun, and MORE GOGO!


"You see the world in black and white
No colour or light
You think you'll never get it right
But you're wrong. You might."

How Do You Measure a Year in the Life?

How do you measure a year in the life?

In handwalks?


In ultrasounds?


In coldhosing, in eternal wrapping?



In progress? In setbacks?



In stall rest?


In freedom?



How about love?




A year ago to the day, Gogo and I tackled our tough course at the AECs and slipped up momentarily before the fourth fence. Somehow, some way, during this slip she seriously injured herself, and the rest has been history. The slip as caught on video:



Hard to imagine that in that instant, a year's worth of damage was done. Hard to imagine how miraculous tiny events - like sitting on your horse for the first time in months - can feel. Hard to imagine where we would be had this never happened, hard to imagine where we will be this time next year. I spent today with Gogo just bathing and clipping her all up, making sure she knows just how lovely she really is. She was a bit surley coming in from turnout (she really does seem to hate it, I don't know what else to do!) but once we started primping she was her old cheerful self again. Mares! It's gotta be all about them.



I am entering week three of a major staffing crisis, so nearly all my attention and energies have been completely focused on that, but hopefully I will be able to exhale soon enough and put my head back on straight. Then we'll talk fall. I want to change Gogo's schedule again but I honestly don't think I have more than two brain cells to rub together at the moment, so I need to let my head settle first.

For now, it's time for bed. Congrats to all competitors at this year's American Eventing Championships, you are all champions in my book.

Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo!

Today is the one year anniversary of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog!

I seriously cannot believe it's been an entire year since I started the blog. It began as nothing more than something to keep track of my own little successes and failures with my crazy mare. I was inspired by blogs like Daun's, and I wanted to do the same. From the first few followers and commenters (all of whose blogs I still read today), to now, when I have so many followers I can't even keep up with them, it's been a wild ride. So many ups and downs have happened over the past year, so many things I never thought would happen, could happen.... good and bad. So without further ado, here is the review of a year in the life of Gogo, from the very first postings to now:



November 2008:

Gogo and I prepare for the move to Connecticut from Michigan. We did lots of work in the chambon, went for fall trail rides, and bid ado to a barn with real places to trail ride, gallop, condition and jump. I got seriously into trimming her myself and am very glad I did. Ironically today of all days was the first time I let someone other than myself work on her feet in a year, but I'm glad I did and I will have more on that tomorrow. I get my first ever follower on the blog. Photo of my first trim on her hinds (went back and worked on the LH again, but the right hind looks pretty good):

December 2008:

Gogo and I arrive safe and sound in Connecticut and start our new New England life. Work is an adjustment for me but it goes pretty well for the most part. Gogo has her first tummy upset ever and I blog about how much I hate bran mash. I write a lot about letting go in dressage (meaning releasing her front end and being soft and forgiving with my hands), and make my views on the barefoot movement clear, and get a lot of interesting reponses which in turn make me rethink my ideas a little. I write a little about compromise, and a lot about goals. I spent my first Christmas away from my family and had to work all day all by myself, with no one but my pets to keep me company. I was very lonely but excited for the coming year.
Schooling trotwork during a lesson:

January 2009:

January gets freezing cold in CT. We hack like maniacs in the bitter cold and I get a chance to talk about how amazingly tireless the barefoot horse can be. I talk a little about ration balancers, long-term Gogo goals, and how much I missed my Metro. Gogo learned how to remove both her stall gate and the big metal gates in the paddocks from their hinges, and went wandering a couple of times. She also had a massive accident on the lunge, which was partly due to bad judgement on my part and partly due to her overreactions to random stimuli. I tried again a few times to work on the issue, but she continued to freak out and flipped herself right over a couple of times on the lunge, so we went back to rudimentary lunge work. I have since lunged her with sidereins but not the chambon. I meant to readdress this issue in the fall - meaning now - but obviously that can't happen for a good long time. A big training fail on my part, but not the end of the world. We'll correct it yet. We just have to wait til she's totally sound.


February 2009:

February acts totally bizarre. We have no precipitation for weeks and weeks and have temperature spikes into the 60's, which leads me to go to the beach, where there is a lot of unintentional rearing, delightful galloping, and an accidental swim in the ocean. I do a SWOT analysis for Gogo, it blizzards a lot, and Gogo alternates in her dressage work from amazing and about ready for 2nd level to insane and leaping around and trying to kill the other riders in the ring. We experiment with feed shortly thereafter and find that it is the Ultium making her absolutely bat-shit crazy. I get a whole mess of year-end awards in the mail from Area 8 and from the USEA... I've never gotten a single one before.


March 2009:

March doesn't start off too well. Gogo continues to be explosive until we totally take her off the Ultium (which we hadn't done just yet), and had another huge explosion on the lunge, resulting in some major chest edema that gets rubbed raw. I have some very, very bad rides but realize that all I need to do sometimes is just CHILL OUT. Gogo also had major chiropractic work done on her, which continues throughout the rest of the summer (about every 3 months) and I become somewhat fanatical about my awesome chiro. My 24th birthday happens (!!), we have our first show of the season, and I get to start conditioning canters for the first time (but then of course have to put them on hold or do them sporadically because it starts raining at the end of the month and doesn't stop until July). We get some great dressage work in, and participate in Gogo's first clinic, this one with Sharon Schnideman. I also got my new Prestige Eventing saddle (woooo!!) and sent in my entries for our first event of the season, King Oak. March might have started out crappy but it ended amazingly!


April 2009:

Gogo and I attend our second show of the season, another schooling jumper show at Mount Holyoke. It is a bit scarier than the last time seeing as we bumped up a table and Gogo apparently can really fly over 3'6", and sometimes I can not. The standards in that picture are about 4'6". The blog reaches its 100th post and has about 30 or 40 followers. It rains.... rains..... rains.... and rains, and I have to get a bit creative with all my schooling. I run a poll to see if I should do the event at Groton House or the Heidi White clinic, and I chose the show. (VERY glad I did.) The first bugs of the season come out (oh the humanity!), Gogo gets photogenic, I write about modern eventing for Daun and go watch mares kick some ass at Rolex Kentucky. I also prepare for the first event of the season at the start of the next month, and freak out a little when I find out there are 115 people competing at Novice.



May 2009:

I write a lot about Quincy, my first horse and best friend, and the long years that he has been gone. Gogo and I got our first XC school in in the pouring rain, and prepped for our first event of the season, and her first ever Novice. I about had a heartattack when I saw the course for the first time (not a move-up course that's for sure), and looking back at it now it's funny how I thought those jumps were soooo big and soooooo tough. They look like cake to me right now. After months of preparation, Gogo and I take on our field of 20 to win our first ever Novice (her first ever, my first in several years) on our dressage score of 31.1. I get my new truck (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I get to clinic with Kerry Milliken and have an amazing weekend of trail riding and yoga, and we prep for our second event of the season. We attend the Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T. and have a repeat win, this time on our dressage score of 30. I am on cloud 9 like you don't even know.


June 2009:

Gogo turns 8 years old on June 2nd. We start hacking religiously to Dunkin Donuts, and are really in the swing of a weekly conditioning schedule: three days of dressage, one 2-hour conditioning w/t hack, one gallop day, and one jump day. I start to get nervous as I get e-mails from the secretary at Groton House saying they've received my entry but they were overbooked on the first day and needed to do a draw, so we waited on pins and needles for about a week. And then.... WE GOT IN! I start to have deeper concerns about Gogo's hock changes, I get creative with my gallops when the field we were using didn't get mowed for a long time, Gogo jumps her first corners, and a pipe bursts in my room and floods the entire house. (I spend the next two months sleeping miserably on the unconfortable couch with all my stuff piled into a heap in the living room, sneezing and wheezing as the humidity sends my mold allergy into a frenzy.) I joke about gayness. And then the highlight of the season happens.... we attend and have a three-peat at Groton House Farm H.T., beating out everyone in our very competitive field of 23 to win on our dressage score of 31.5. Daun and her SO come to cheer me on, and I am on top of the world. Life could NOT get any better. (So of course from here on out it gets worse.)


July 2009:

The blog gets plugged on the Eventing Radio show, and on COTH as well, and I write an article about Gogo for the Eventing 2.0 online magazine which gets published. Gogo has been exceptionally hot and spooky lately, freaking out at simple things like Lynnie's staircase and stormdrains, but I think nothing of it at the time and continue to prepare for the Area I Novice Championships at Old Chatham. I spend the week leading up to it feeling stressed and unprepared, and end up choking on XC when Gogo has an uncharacteristic spin out at fence 4 and I get pitched. I chalk it up to a freak thing and prepare for the following weekend's event, Riga Meadow, but Gogo has another totally out of the blue spin at the upbank (wtf simple!), and I start to think something is very wrong. As it turns out, something IS wrong, and she has a Lyme titer pulled and we start her on Doxy. I also get to partake in a clinic with Eric Horgan, and she is great for those two days, but worsens and struggles with the Doxy at the end of the month.


August 2009:

I struggle to get my spirits back up, and simultaneously treat Gogo for Lyme and for potential stomach issues with the addition of aloe juice to her diet. She makes a TOTAL behavior turnaround with the combination of these two things, and I also bite the bullet and inject her hocks for the first time ever. I struggled long and hard with this decision and it was not made lightly. My good karma returns when a whole bunch of good things happen to me, including getting TWO Gold Medals at the Novice level, one for Gogo and one for myself, and we also get a Rider Achievement Award at Novice as well. Gogo's attitude and amazingness returns in full, and we almost win the Huntington Farms H.T. but end up in 5th instead after a rail in stadium (but a blog reader wins our division so that's ok!), and she has a foot-perfect XC which is all I cared about. I go into overdrive preparing for the AECs. We are back in winning form and ready.


September 2009:

The AECs are upon us and we finish preparing and packing. We put down Lynnie's horse Max and it was one of the most peaceful things I've ever seen. We travel and travel, and make it safe and sound to Lamplight. We have a pretty good dressage test and end up in 7th out of 40 people in our division with a 30.5 (imagine if she has actually BEHAVED during the test what our score would have been!), and we make the wicked sick XC look easy. But something is wrong. She is a little odd on XC but tackles everything with ease, but back at the barn those hind legs blow up. As it turns out, she has done bilateral tendons behind on XC. We pack up our stuff, withdraw, and make the long, miserable, and painful journey home. Lots of icing, wrapping and anti-inflammatory drugs occur for the remainder of the month. Gogo has a bad reaction to a vaccine and spends three days trying to die on me. I am a miserable girl.


October 2009:

We make plans to leave CT. We are both broken and need a break. The injury gets isolated mostly to a lesion in her SDFT in her LH, but both SDFTs have some tenosynovitis, which is confirmed by Tufts. We traveled there to do PRP on the lesion, but there is such marked healing the a week and a half between ultrasounds that we decide not to do it. I go up to Daun's and get to eat some amazing food and gallop the Big Perch himself, measure a year in the life, secure a new well-paying barn manager job, go foxhunting for the first time (and am officially hooked), get back to long-lining my mare, catch ride Brego in the New England Hunter Trials (and kick ASS even though the judges hate us), and move. All in all, October is by far the best month I've had for a loooooooooooooooooong time.


November 2009:

I settle in to my new job, and Gogo gets move into a beautiful barn. Gogo gets treadmilling every day, and we start tackwalking again, but after some serious explosions just the other day, we're backing off to just treadmilling until we can get back up to Tufts and confirm whether or not the tendon is still healing nicely or not. Life is very good and it really feels like we've come full circle. The blog has 111 followers, we've had stories published about us, been plugged all over the web, met some amazing people, made some fast friends, and have loved every minute of sharing all our ups and down with all of you.




Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo! Here's to another year of more ups, more downs, more friends, more fun, and MORE GOGO!