Stone Place

Saturday was boot shopping day! Lauren K. and I left for The Hitching Post in Middletown around 10 on The Great Boot Hunt. It turned out not to be that 'great' of a boot hunt as it took a grand total of about 20 minutes. But I settled on the Mountain Horse Venice Field Boot. I've always had mountain horse boots in the past, just not tall boots. So, they are ordering them for me tomorrow. hopefully they will be here by Wednesday... giving me not very long to break them in before Gemwood this coming weekend............ :-/ but.. ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

After boot shopping we went down the street to this GREAT little local restaurant called The Cottage. If you are ever in Middletown and need somewhere to eat lunch, look this place up, it's fantastic. I'm definitely going back to eat there next time I'm in the neighborhood.

I rode Hickory dressage when we got back... trying to practice/memorize our test for the next day (today). It was the worst ride ever. We hadn't practiced riding a test in SO long. And then I started to get really confused about the lesson I had had with Lauren and the extent of the not using my hands rule.. and i couldn't get him to pay attention, and I couldn't get him to trot in a straight line down the sides of the ring and our corners were teeeeerrible and it was just a mess. And then I tried to change my stirrup length but in my stupid saddle when you try to do that while you're sitting in the saddle the stirrups always end up popping off. And so I'm hot and frustrated and my stirrup leather pops off. And of course you can't get it back in. So I just quit. And then I was supposed to do a trot set on Ghost but it started storming. So I did the barn instead.

But I had a great surprise when I got a text from Jason (my friend who went to Kenya/London with me) who was in the LaGrange area playing softball. Ended up at a cool place on the river for dinner.

And as a result got home way too late and had to get up waaayy to early to do the barn in time to leave for Stone Place at 8:30. Gave Hickory a bath and popped him in the trailer with Lilly. John drove the two horses, myself, and Lauren K. over to Stone Place (a little less than 15 miles down 42). Martha rode Lilly and Laura's filly Izzie in the Starter mini trial division. They won 1st and 2nd! I got on an hour before my ride (maybe a little early?) to warm up. It was super hot. I warmed up myself. I tried to be very thorough but at the same time not pick a fight with Hick or get myself frustrated. And for those two reasons, I'm glad I took so much time to warm up, because I felt like I had time and wasn't rushed. Our test went well. (Minus the part where I forgot what came next... definitely did not spend enough time learning this test, oops) I think I rode my test a little passively--as a result of how Hickory has behaved in dressage previously (can't do much with him because he will get too excited or too forward and then will curl up and everything falls apart). But all in all it was a decent test. Nothing BAD happened, none of the old BAD mistakes/habits showed up, and I think that is a great place to start. It could have been more spectacular, I coud have definitely ridden much more actively and given it a much better ride, but it was a good place to start and I was happy with it and so was Martha. The judge stopped me and talked to me before my test, she is a fellow Percheron/TB owner/rider and we bonded a little before I rode, lol. And her comments to me afterwards were that I could develop my trot a little more--make it more "passage-y" because she said she thought he looked like he was capable of it, and also to get the canter more uphill, more up in the shoulders. So, good comments! But these were just verbal comments, I haven't actually gotten my test paper back yet, I will have to run back over there one day and get it, so I dont' even know what my score was.

The end.