Day 235

Sunday

First off, let me say that with only one more view, this blog will have hit 11,000 views! Thank you all so much, it's great to know that someone is actually reading my journey.

I got Brie today, which was nice. I didn't go out yesterday because of a school-related function, but my mom said that she is definitely ordering calming supplement for Harry again because he was ballistic yesterday. She wanted to try him again, so I got to ride Brie, which was nice, because I haven't ridden her for a week or so. She was go, go, go today, as no one rode her yesterday. She was pretty stiff and limping a little, but eventually she worked it out. Poor Brie. She's still so young (11 years old) and she already has arthritis. It just breaks my heart. Once we had all the speed out of her system, we worked on our performance walk, because I want to put her in a performance class.  I figure A) Why not? and B) There are less horses in performance classes so she shouldn't get as nervous as she would in a huge pleasure class. I really hope that I can bring her to State Fair. I don't even care about winning with her, I just want to calmly make it through the whole ordeal and show her that it's nothing to be scared of.

After Brie, I got on Harry for a short bit. He was way better today, but his movements were very vertical. I wasn't really used to that, but he was gaiting nicely and behaving like he should. Now he's been having problems keeping his headset, and I don't want to use a martingale, so I have to keep checking him and reminding him to set his head. His largo broke a lot, so now we have to work on that again. I hate feeling like I'm back at square one with him after that period of him working brilliantly, but I just have to go back to basics again.

I got to ride Nina today! So, we're thinking of going down to this international show with her next week in Florida, and we would only show in three classes: one for my mom, one for my brother, and one for me. Since I don't usually show her and this is not the arena to be testing out pleasure classes when she's been in performance her whole life, I'm going to do a costume class with her! I haven't done costume class since Brie stopped showing, because she is the costume horse, but I thought that it might be fun with Nina and she's so well tempered that it shouldn't bother her that I would ride her with a long skirt on. We brought the skirt today to test her with it and sure enough, she was just fine!

We also brought the shipping boots, as it's about a 15 hour drive, to test her with and she was fine with those too, which is surprising because she hates the farrier so much, we figured that would transfer over into a fear of thing secured around her legs, but she was just fine. When we originally got them, we got them for Brie when she was about 4 years old, and she flipped out, so we never used them. Today we tried them back on Brie and aside from taking a couple of minutes to get used to walking a short distance in them, she was fine. Then we tried Harry. I thought for sure he would freak out, but he was good too! I love when horses give you good surprises =]

Lastly, I rode Taco. The only way that I could bring Brie to State Fair is if we bring Taco in Jane's 2 horse trailer, so Taco HAS to go to State Fair. He was surprisingly good as well! My mom says it's because she rode him yesterday, but usually it doesn't matter how many times you ride him, he does what he wants. He tried to pull a few tricks at the start of the ride, but I quickly corrected him and we went along great! I'm working on not breaking into a canter on the corners and figuring out exactly what I need to do to get him to have a wonderful board, along with making it a goal to slow what I'm now calling his largo into a corto, because his default gait speed is very fast and I'm thinking that if he goes any faster, since he's already breaking on the turns, that he will break into a canter. It might be easier to slow him down rather than try to speed him up. But if he shows like he rode today, he'll definitely place in a class! Which is how it should be, as he was a National Champion in the good old days! 

So now this weekend is the last weekend of practice my mom and brother have before the show next week. I'm so excited, I hope everything works out and we actually go, and that we make it safely down there, and that we win! That way we can prove those people who were supposed to be our friends (no names) wrong and we get to show that our best horse can run with the very best international competition.