Not knowing when the dawn will come...

I open every door. 

This week was honestly really rocky. I was sick. Really sick. I have very messy things going on in my life. I'm frustrated, tired, and burned out even though I literally just went on a vacation.

And then, like a shock to the heart, a new opportunity has appeared. It will require some exploration and maybe a gigantic leap of faith - but stay tuned. I will write more about that when the time comes.

For now, let me tell you about progress towards my first event on the west coast!

Camou pretty much took himself out of the running when he cut himself in the trailer. The two weeks off + the slow recovery means that little thoroughbred will not be in fighting shape by mid-Februrary.

Yeah.

February.

I'm getting perilous close to the event.

Like, I should have printed out my entry forms and mailed them in already. I'll do that Monday.

I felt sort of silly only taking one horse. It's three days off and a whole lot of hassle just to drive around with an empty spot in the trailer.

E set up a jump course and I figured I'd just play around with the available horses. I might be a bit laissez-faire this way, but as long as we can jump all the things and I don't get kicked out of the dressage court, I'm feeling pretttyyyy good about this. I'm certainly NOT going to Fresno to be competitive. I'm going to play!

So Jimmy - first up on the list to experiment with for trying out eventing - pretty much blew me out of the water.

I know he's fun to jump, but I guess I'd forgotten how fun?

Not my best riding... Forgive me, as I was still feeling pretty stinking nauseated while riding.

Jimmers and I had a real discussion over who got to pick which lead to land on. He basically thought I was just 'suggesting' leads. We'll work on that. We also have no (and I seriously mean zero) longitudinal or lateral flexion.

Do you need those things for dressage? Who knows. We'll find out in five weeks!

Then we moved on to Danny, who has long been a planned ride for this event.

He was awful.

Like... crash and burn everyone is going to DIE awful.

If you listen closely enough you can actually hear me yell at him when he refuses the one 2'9" jump on the course.

So that's disappointing. It'll get better, I hope.

Danny is getting a TON of course work and a diet until the event, and Jimmy is going through dressage 101.