Wednesday: Michelle’s day to ride and it was a but of a hectic day for me. The better half needed a new helmet my Troxel which he had been riding in was not working anymore for him and my Tipperary didn’t fit quite right so we went to Dover at 10am mind you and spent all the money. He got a One K (its pretty awesome) Then a mad dash to get to the barn by noon and meet up with Tina and Sammy. Tina is still thinking about selling Wasabi and i thought hooking her up with Sammy to this end was a good idea. So varoom the the barn we raced and Michelle was already riding Jez in the upper ring. I know this because i got a text “I’m in the upper ring with Jez bring your helmet” which of course i didn’t get to do because Derp, i double booked people. When Michelle was done with Jez and back at the barn she told me that i had to give her Jezebel because she was so good today. Which is a big switch from the millionth time Jez reared with Michelle on her and she told Jez she didn’t like her anymore. So yanno improvement. Michelle then rode Circe and the whole brood (me, my better half, Tina, Sammy and the two kids) all watched Michelle ride. No pressure there!
Thursday: I decide hey I’ll take Circe out alone on a hack on the trails that surround the property. I tacked her up and off we went. We started out walking and trotting around the paddocks on the bridle path and she was doing great. We moved up to along the back side of the property past the big house and past the corn field. Circe was was being a superstar, calm, engaged, walking and trotting. A deer (a big one) jumped out in front of us and Circe was all “oh was that a deer, i hardly noticed” and on we went. We turned around at the end of the corn field because i wasn’t sure about which property i could ride on as its all private property. We headed back, we were about 30 minutes out from home. We got to the end of the corn field where in front of us to the right was a huge open space and we could see the top part of the barn when Circe suddenly stopped and her head went 50 feet into the air. She was sure something was out there in that big open space where you could see everything. Maybe an invisible cubacabra, or maybe Circe just sees dead people. I encouraged her forward, gave her her head and squeezed with my legs all the while telling her it was alright and she was a good girl. Nope Circe wasn’t having it, she started to back up at the fastest pace like one of them reining horses (new career?) and then she turned and bolted. Now this was new shes never bolted before and she was bolting away from home! I wasn’t going to have it so i one rein stopped her before she could get up the full racehorse head of steam and thats when it happened. My rein snapped. Mid turn, mid stop and i went flying off. I landed and yelled out “REALLY?!?!” Circe to her credit didn’t run over me or run away she stopped and gave me one of those “what are you doing on the ground looks” I took an assessment and i was fine nothing broken, just my pride. I got up and looked at my snapped rein and began the long walk home. Circe was good on the walk of shame home, she walked right past the scary spot with just a tiny bit of trepidation. I made her work on the way home, lots of stop and back up so that this walk home wasn’t a vacation for her. As i walked hone I thought about our mishap and decided that had the rein not snapped the odds were good i would have stayed on. Also yes, Circe sees dead people. My supersensitive mare must have seen the ghost of General Lee or something.
Friday: Sammy’s day to ride both girls Circe was up first and Sammy took her down to the gymnastics ring and did some flat work then some jump work. Circe is becoming quite the jumper. Shes careful and i’ve only seen her knock a rail down once. Shes still figuring things out but shes doing really great. One of the other trainers at the barn was watching her too and comment on her continued improvement. I was a wash in pride for my redheaded mare. Next up Jezebel who it was clear from the start was pretty up and excited to be out. She also went down to the gymnastics ring and was soon joined by two girls (one Sammy’s daughter) in a lesson on their super cute ponies who were going to jump too. Add to that a group of small boys running and playing and one puppy who was sick of the boys and well you have a lot of commotion. Jez was unfocused and for some reason thought the 18 inch jumps were gigantic. Huge, enormous and they only way to get over them would be to jump off with all for feet in some kinda weird giant hop. Sometimes jumping the full height of the standards. It was kinda amazing to see but i was a touch worried she would start to get too upset and start acting out. Thankful she didn’t and Sammy kept her as focused as possible. Jez needs to work on resilience and become better at not being phased by outside elements that are beyond her control. Like kids playing outside the ring or other horses in the ring jumping as well. It will come with time i think. Not her best day but not her worsts, thats for sure.
I ended the week with two bottles of wine… between my first fall off Circe and my typical end of the month crunch for getting my work done and my better halves work stresses, i felt like we needed a vacation in a red wine bottle. So i made Lasagna (which i rock at) baked some mini bundt cakes and my better half and i sat out in the back yard at sunset finishing off bottle number two.. soon after that i passed out cuz my booze tolerance is pretty low these days… Derp. Getting old sucks y’all