Hunter Trial

So Allie and I have entered Equestriad Hunter trial on the 31st January!

I entered one cross country run and two showjumping rounds, all only 60cm. The show jumping was only $10 a round so I figured if she's too tired I'll just scratch the last one but she should be fine - she's getting fitter every day.

Very excited!

Finally

I finally registered my horse for open competition.

To say I'm excited is an understatement.

Canter

Canter sets on the racetrack today with Natalie and Gracie. Not much to report other than my horse is getting a bit looky, not quite spooky, the fitter she gets. Today, it was the breeze through the long grass that was of concern.

Fun times.

Well we got to the indoor yesterday. I didn;t realise just how small it is for jumping. Poor Allie got a workout, tight turns and jumping out of deep sand.

Ah well. She was fairly good natured about it.

This video was our first jump since I had had a baby (and since the whole broken leg this 2 years ago). That was 3 months ago, I'm posting here for a bit of comparison. The canter has improved out of sight.

So at the indoor yesterday, We started out with some poles on the ground (then cavaletti height) 5 strides apart. It was a little messy if the approach wasn't perfect and I needed to use a bit of leg to get her there, because the turn was so small. We ended up jumping both jumps to about 45cm I think, so just small, but it was the exercise of counting strides I wanted to do. It was harder than it looked!

She did good. She made me proud.

Today I have the conundrum of "what to do?". The ground is soaked, I can't take her back to the indoor today as a friend is borrowing the float for some float training with her youngster. I can;t take her for a hack or ride on the racetrack as I have Evie with me today. I was thinking I might try long reining her over poles? Or I could use the round yard and pop her in the lunging training system. I don't know, I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. If Evie is asleep in her car seat I'll probably just drive around the property leading her out the window, doing long slow work.

She's not having another day off, that's for sure.

Puddles and Splashing

Today is the 4th day in a row of near torrential rain. We got 103mm of rain in my area yesterday!

On the first day, we TRIED to take the horses to Mulgoa for a trail ride because it's all sandstone and sand there and the footing is excellent in the wet.

We got there and it was raining but we tacked up anyway. I figured that I'll be competing in the wet at some point and I don't want to have to scratch just because it's raining. We were all soaked by the time we got on but it was warm so we headed off. We hadn't bothered to ask the ranger to unlock the gate for us (we never do) as we intended to just jump the low barrier. It's about horse knee height.

Well, Allie jumped it. Gracie, however, after an hour of trying and trying, absolutely refused to even walk over it.

What a waste of time. We were soaked, all our tack was soaked (and would require oiling) and our boots had collected a fair amount of rainwater. We had to untack and just take them home. Natalie was NOT impressed. Gracie normally loves jumping low stuff. We think she wasn't happy at first because of the wet and because she had a breast collar on for the second time ever. But once we started pressing the issue she just got more and more stubborn.

Anyway. The second and third days of rain Allie has had off. I'm trying to get a spot at the indoor to do SOMETHING with her today and tomorrow but I'll probably have to go and have Evie with me in the travel cot and I'll probably have to try to keep her entertained too. I don't like my chances of getting much productive done.

I'll be sure to bring a lunge lead. At least I can lunge her with a baby strapped to me, right?

January goals

I'm resurrecting goals. You can skip this, it's just going to be for me.

January goals:

- continue to develop the canter. Start working on canter-walk-canter transitions.
- go out on a ride off site at least once.
- dressage lesson with Linda
- jumping lesson (with Emily maybe?)
- try to work her 4 days a week

5 goals will do I think!

What I've learned

I want so much out of my life. I want to get a degree. I want to event my horse. I want to raise my family. I want to go on holidays. I want to live on acreage. I want to be a scientist. I want to be the leading hoof care professional in my area. I want to save horses lives.

That's a lot of wants.

What I've learned is how to chip away at all these things. Doing everything at once, that's too much to ask out of 24 hours a day. I've always been a busy person, I can't just sit at home and do nothing all day. But I know I can't be THAT busy!

I can get a degree but I can't do it full time in 3 years. I can do it part-time over 6 or more. I can event my horse but I can't go out and compete every month. I can't even go out and ride every day. But I can ride 2 or 3 days a week and I can lease her to someone who can ride 2 or 3 days a week. I can have children but I can't have a baby and toddler at the same time. But I can have 1 baby and then 5 years later have another baby. I want to live on acreage with my horses at home but we can't afford a mortgage that big right now. But we can agist the horse and we can save and we can pay off the mortgage we do have and eventually the perfect property will pop up. You get the idea.

What I've learnt over the last year or 2 is that I can have it all, I can do it all.

Just not all at once.