My Date Nightmare

Oh lord- so now that I have some time to sit back and reflect on how my life has been crazy for the last week, I can finally tell the story several people have asked for.

I mentioned last week in a quick post that I had a date.  Mind you this is the first date I have gone on in two and a half years.  It is also probably the first real date I've gone on in almost 5 years- one of those where you meet someone and he asks you to lunch or dinner, not one where you've been talking for weeks and hanging out in groups then you grab a meal just the two of you.  To say I didn't know what to expect was a bit of an understatement.

For starters- I met this one in person!  Kudos to me for being at work and not looking so homely that I scared off every guy in my plain black button down, hair in pony tail, and black slacks.  Now, if I knew what kind of person he was maybe I would have hoped I had scared him off- kidding it wasn't quite that bad....  Anywho, I met him in person and he very discretely obviously asked for my phone number before he and his buddy departed for the evening.  Approximately 24 hours later I had a lovely little text message from the handsome blond at the casino.

We flirted a bit through texts for a couple of days when he dropped the question that had been hanging above both our heads- would I like to get together sometime?  Gulp.  Now I immediately blew him off for that day, my only day off for the week, because I really did have stuff to get done.  It is also kind of fun to see if they are interested enough to wait a few extra days, or just looking to get something quick (which clearly comes from all of my dating experience, right?).  He was just as happy to wait until Monday as I was, so it was set.  We were hanging out Monday night.  This is where everything began to go wrong.

I agreed to meet him in Cape, which was wrong on my part because by golly he should have come to me, but there really is nothing to do in Anna, and with it being a small town I didn't want a useless date being seen with me.  Monday rolls around and it gets to about 3 in the afternoon and I have to ask him what time we are meeting- now I don't know about you but if I wanted to go on a date with someone, and I was the one who had asked, I would probably be the one making the plans, no?  Apparently he had other things on his mind because not only did he end up having to work late-which I can deal with, it gave me more time in the barn- he didn't plan anything for us to do.  So at 6:45 I am leaving my house, not sure if I need to stop and grab dinner on my way, and headed to Cape.  I get about halfway there when he finally answers my question about food by responding "well I could cook you dinner so I don't have to finish my food before you get here."  Hold  the phone!  You are telling me to come to your house?!?  But, it is free food and I am starving, plus I can beat a dude down if I need to, so why not?

I show up to this little house that sits in the middle of nowhere, where I have zero cell signal, and get out to be greeted by this adorable 6 week old puppy.  I immediately hit the ground and get myself covered in puppy kisses, which I'm sure was really attractive, but I don't really give a care, because its a puppy!  After pulling myself off the ground I make my way into his house and he has not even began cooking yet, ummm dude?  Some people enjoy eating their dinner before breakfast the next morning.  He then wants me to pick out a movie, and after I make him give me 3 choices I settle on James Bond.  Just enough action without being scary at all, so no reason to cuddle, and nothing romantic, so one again no reason to cuddle.  We get all set up for dinner and a show, when he looks at me and says "I have to ask you if I can do something before we eat."

I, the good little Christian that I am, (actually I'm laughing on the inside at another friend's past date experience) think that he is asking about praying.  "Yes?" I respond.  He leans forward and puts a hand on my knee.  "I have to kiss you."  HOLD THE PHONE!!! WHAT?!  Now, I have been out of this scene for awhile, but since when is kissing before dinner protocol?  I thought this was like, let me walk you to your door/car/buggy/whatever and tell you goodnight.  Well, better before the garlic bread breath than after, right?  It wouldn't have been so bad if this poor fellow was not the worst kisser in the history of kissers.  I'm not even joking when I say that I think my teeth got knocked back into my head and it was like an urchin trying to latch onto a rock.  I pull back, grimace smile a little and quickly pick up my fork.  Thankfully the rest of dinner went without him trying anything.

Until I grab the dishes and head to the kitchen to wash them off, because I am not a rude houseguest.  He follows me in there then walks up behind me, wraps his arms around my waste, and whispers in my ear "There is just something so sexy and sensual about a woman in the kitchen."  Hold on Mother F****r- why don't you just say 'I want you to make me a sandwich' while you're at it?!  I duck out of his arms and make a joke like "Well too bad this is the longest I've been in the kitchen in a long time!" and run back to the couch.  I proceed to sit down against one arm of the couch, inviting him to sit at the other end, well clearly he did not learn about couch spacing etiquette becaiiuse he hits right down next to me.

After a few minutes and a couple of gay Daniel Craig jokes (ok the man is a sexy Britt, what can I say) he leans over and tries climbing on top of me and kissing me again.  I wish I could say it got better from the first attempt, but no such luck.  Shortly, as in before I can put a stop to just the kissing, he is grabbing things that are definitely permission only things to be grabbing and I throw him off of me, fuming and about to storm out.  I glare at him and he, I kid you not, says:

"Why don't we make a deal?  I will respect this (motions to my chest), and this (tries to put a finger in the waistband of my jeans) and you can do whatever you want to me."  Ha, HA!  Do people really think that this kind of thing works?  I don't remember having 'EASY' or "Totally desperate" tatt'ed anywhere on my body, nice try bud.

"You're going to respect all of this even if I don't want to do anything to you," I reply coldly.  Before he can respond his cell phone rings and I felt a little bad because his grandpa had a heart attack, not bad enough to sleep with him, mind you, but a little bad.  In the meantime I am forming an excuse to have to leave, and thankfully when he comes back I can play right into his hand and leave without being a total bitch, since I was incapable of sending a 9-1-1 text to my escape unit.

He walks me to my car and I just know another terrible kiss is going to be coming, and sure enough he wraps his arms around me and knocks my teeth back into my head again.  I pull back, smile and say I must get going, and duck into my car, slamming the door into his face.  I did feel a bit bad that I was sending a text and laughing before I ever backed up out of the driveway, but I am 115% sure that I won't be seeing him again, so I'm not too worried about it.

Needless to say, this was enough to send me back into my little hole of focus, only now instead of it being horses and work it is horses and school.  Not to say I won't try again, but getting focused for Richland has helped to keep my mind off of being alone in this crazy world.  Hopefully the next time I try this it is with more of a traditional soul, because the whole grouping thing on the first date was a bit too much,

The best quote of this entire experience though came from my wonderful coach and second mother:  She said that sometimes it is like horse shopping, you have to look at a couple in depth before the right one happens.

I love this advice, but to which I replied that this one wanted a test ride and I could tell from the jog that is was lame!

Gotta love horse humor :-)  Until next time- I am currently all stocked up on energy drinks, a pot of coffee set to begin at 1:45am, and FEItv purchased so that I can blog on Eventing Nation in the morning while watching WEG dressage.  Go USA!!!

3rd times (not) the Charm

Well, this year was once again not my year at Richland.  After all of the drama before we ever even left I was beginning to have some hope, just for the curse to come back and slam me in the face.  I once again had to Withdraw, which I guess in the end is a much better letter than an E, MR, or RF.  It is still a letter nonetheless and I am still disappointed.  My horse is home, sound, and happy though so I cannot be all but so disappointed.

We started the weekend off with a BEAUTIFUL dressage test, scoring a 32.3 from the famous Marilyn Payne, who does not give out points for the fun of it.  I was so thrilled with my little thoroughbred who tried his little heart out in the sandbox.  This score tied his best score ever, which we received at Dunnabeck last year, and was easily my best score ever at the Preliminary level.  I was all smiles as I walked around the cross country, which looked very tough and technical.  I thankfully got some fabulous help from Jessica (Hampf) Payne, and I could not have done it without you!  She had some wonderful things to say that I took to heart, and when I took off around it myself I kept those in mind.

The cross country had several things my horse had never seen before; canter across the water, up a mound to a log, down the mound back into the water.  A sunken road, big rails into a coffin, a Normandy bank.  All of the questions were set to height, but rewarded a nice forward ride.  I absolutely love Ian Stark's cross country courses, even if they are filled with ditches- que Intermediate trekhaner and ditch/brush on the preliminary course!  Goose came out on Saturday, after waiting all day, and rocked around the first 3/4 of the course.  He never waivered when we came to the big water by vendors row, and when I went to my stick at both the sunken road and coffin he just jumped bigger, proving to me that now I can hopefully just close my leg and trust him a bit more (although NEVER at the water!).  I unfortunately let my bay horse down though by not giving him the best line to the huge corner coming out of the second water, and his greenness caught up with us, resulting in a glance off.  But he came right back around and jumped it once he saw it, so I am not worried about it.  We are going to set some big corners at home later this week and make sure we know to jump all things.

Goose also pulled a shoe on the cross country and galloped at least 1/2 of it missing the shoe.  We went through our ice, found the shoe, and I packed the foot.  He was still a little bit sore on it Sunday morning, but I had the shoe put back on hoping that it would fix the problem.  It was still pretty clear that he was a bit sore, so I figured I'd get on a just see how he felt in warm-up, fully prepared to withdraw if he did not feel 100%.  Almost thankfully I did not have to make that decision, as we took a funny step headed to warm up and re-pulled the shoe.  I immediately got off and walked him back to his stall, not wanting to risk him hurting himself or pulling the same shoe 3 times in a weekend.  We came home, and although he was confused as to why we weren't jumping, he is a fantastic show jumper and I am not worried about it.

Even though the curse is determined to run me away from the event, I cannot say enough good things about Richland.  All of the volunteers always have smiles on their faces, the organization is on top of everything, the courses are beautifully constructed and run, and everyone is in a good mood all weekend.  They run 500 horses with the ease of 50, and I would tell everyone to go if they have the chance.  You have the added bonus of great shopping, watching the upper level horses run, among a great competitor party.

While the curse tried to claim all of our group I must say that Deb and Jester are freaking rock stars and I could not be more happy for them and how their weekend went!  They brought home a fourth place with some of the best work I've ever seen out of them, and I cannot wait to have her beat me at Dunnabeck in a couple of weeks!  Haha, well, I hope that I win, but if I don't I want it to be her that does!  It has been so great to watch them develop over the last six months and I cannot wait to see what the future has for them.

I am back to school this week, and hopefully running, all while the heat is killing us here in southern Illinois.  I am actually hiding in the ac right now, trying to prolong heading to the barn to ride all three.  I may not update for awhile, as I will be busy getting 3 horses ready for Dunnabeck and organizing the TB awards.  But I hope to see everyone there!

Kick on!

It's Richland Week! and some other horse-related updates

AHHHHH!!!!!  This time last year I was sitting around, packing my trailer, but I still couldn't ride my horse.  The little turd ran through a fence and I hauled him down on Monday to the vet to see if we could still head up to Michigan and compete on the weekend.  While we got the go-ahead for that, when I got on him Wednesday we had a freak accident where he caught his girth with a shoe and ripped the saddle out from underneath me.  Goose then proceeded to panic and gallop all over the place, including 3 miles down the asphalt road, with my saddle between his hind legs, while I chased him, unable to move my left arm.  Needless to say I ended up in a sling and had to vetwrap my shoulder in order to compete a couple of weeks later, and no Richland for us.

This year my wonderful princess decided to pull a shoe on his final gallop, which actually did not set us back at all.  It has just locked him in a stall for three days, and he walked for about 20 minutes with it heavily wrapped yesterday.  Today and tomorrow we are taking lessons, so that will hopefully eliminate any chance of shenanigans.  I am making it to Michigan this year!  And then once I get there I am finishing with a number!  This event also marks the 2-year anniversary of Sunny's injury, when I had to withdraw before the show jumping on Sunday and thought I'd never compete the horse again.  I am putting all that taboo behind me this year and am going to go rock it!

Deb is coming with me- so she and Jest can kick some major butt in the Training.  Maddie is out and about with her main man Milo again, hoping to knock some rust off and beast around that Novice course before Dunnabeck.  Miss Faith is bringing Kip so they can be fancy-pants all weekend.  Liz from Indiana is bringing her stunning grey Apollo and I cannot wait to actually get to watch them and not have her beating the pants off of Goose on the flat :-).  I am also thrilled to have Cheryl and Sunny back with us at another event! I had such a blast running the preliminary with this chick at River Glen, I know this weekend will be even more fun!  Hello getting to play with the big kids!

Unfortunately St. Louis is in a state of emergency- and I wasn't even talking riots.  The mini event I was going to take the boys to got over 3in of rain in 12 hours and so they cancelled.  While I was extremely bummer, it did mean that I got to sleep a little (6 hours) longer than originally planned on Sunday morning.  I then loaded Cullen up and took him over to the River to River hunter pace to get him out again.  He was a perfect gentleman for his first trip off the farm alone!  I could not have been more proud of him, and as a result he is now going to Dunnabeck, and in the NOVICE!  I must have fallen and hit my head somewhere along the line because I also sent in an entry for Louis!  Haha.  I now have 3 horses entered for Dunnabeck, but thankfully there will be about a million people running around, so I'm hoping I can recruit help if I need it :-)

I also got everything approved and all of the money raised for our Thoroughbred awards!  I am so excited.  I am working on another $120 to get some really nice overall awards, so anyone who could even give $10 or $20 I would appreciate it!  This is a chance to win back something really cool!  You all know that you want Dunnabeck to have the reputation as a kick-a event with bad-a prizes, so lets get on it!  And hopefully someone from our barn wins the cash and the overall prize!

My last little bit of news is that I went on a date last night, and all I'm saying is that I do not think there will be a second one.  He is nice and all but ummm yeah.  I'm just leaving it at that for now.

Until next time!  Send us good vibes for the weekend!  I'll try and have a quick post or two up throughout the weekend

Courtney

Lots to be Happy for on this Friday!

Ahhhhh!  Friday.  Finally I can say that and it not be the beginning of my work week, as today is my last day of work at the Casino.  I am- for the first time in 9 years, going to have a normal Mon-Friday life.  I start school on Monday, holy shit I start school on Monday!- and with that my wonderful mom is helping me out some so that I am not obligated to work and can focus on school.  I am still planning on working one or two nights a week just to help myself out some, and to have some extra cash, but as far as bartending or serving every single Friday and Saturday night, no more!!!

While I am going to miss being around people all the time, I think having a real life and getting to do things with friends occasionally is going to be healthier for me.  Also, not having the stress of working on top of school and riding, yeah I'm digging that too.

So wow, I start school on Monday.  That is something to be quite excited about as well.  I am finally going back for what I want to do, and I went yesterday to get all of my books (not so happy about that bill), my student ID, and some cool SIU gear.  I am excited for fall now that I have a super soft SIU hoodie to wear, football games (yay finally a school with a football team), and having a nice, set schedule.  I think all I have left to grab is a parking pass, find my classes, and a new camera for my photo journalism class (which I will get to play with at Richland next weekend!).

Haha, and oh geeze I just realized that I went 3 entire paragraphs without writing about horses!  I believe this is a new personal record.  To begin my happiness of the horse I must mention that the USA WEG squad flew out last night/early this am!  My best friend, Meghan O'D is headed to France!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!  Go team Meg/Pie, Go USA, and I am anxiously awaiting pictures that all of the horses and riders have landed safely.  I wish I could be a part of this experience, but I will be writing all about it from the nervous perspective of best friend- lets go team!

My second bout of good news is for our horse trials, Dunnabeck.  I have gotten together and become a very determined little worker ant, and I have raised $500(+)  to get enough money for Thoroughbred sponsored awards at Dunnabeck.  I am waiting on the final approval from the organization before we can order the ribbons, and I am hoping to raise another $100 to get overall awards made up as well, but how exciting is this?  We love our thoroughbreds and I love being able to give back to the breed, and the riders, who work so hard and possibly get beat out by the bigger moving breeds.  Go OTTB's!

One more horse-related news and then I will get to the juicy stuff.  My horses all jumped yesterday, and they were fabulous!  Goose felt great in a small jump school that consisted of some angles, a one-stride, and a couple related distances.  Then Louis and Cullen were both champs just schooling some questions before the event this weekend.  Cullen really had a breakthrough on the flat and warmed up better than he ever has at home.  I am keeping everything crossed that he can keep a lid on it in the dressage warm up on Sunday because I have lots of hope for this little dude!

Alright- my juicy news that has me nervous/excited/I don't even know what.  I have a date next week.  Yes, a real date with a real man.  One who has a college degree, a real job, and doesn't have a 2nd nose, or RED HAIR!!! (Everyone who knows me well knows what an accomplishment this is in itself).  I also met this one in person and he asked for my phone number- holy cow that still happens?  So we shall see what happens from here!  If I am not too exhausted on Sunday I will get a recap of Nancy's show up and hopefully have the verdict from the THT group.  Fingers crossed for all these good things!!!

Courtney

Hey West Virginia, hey Oklahoma, I think I love ya

Wow- this last week and essentially flown by.  I came home from River Glen to go back to 5 straight days of work, which isn't terrible until you have to drive 40 minutes one way, stay until 11 pm or later, and then drive 40-45 minutes home.  On top of that I have all the horses in work right now, so 5 horses a day along with barn chores and trying to get ready for school.

But despite being completely exhausted and wanting to do nothing but crawl up and sleep for a couple of days, I plugged along and turned my lemons into lemonade, making it a hell of a week!

Saturday was the benefit show for Meghan and Pirate to help get them to Burghley, which went over superbly and was a smashing success.  I show both of the "young" horses and had a great time.  Cullen- who had been a bit of a shit head earlier in the week- showed up and was a total professional.  There were no crazy antics in the warm up, and he went into the ring like a champ and came home with two red ribbons and the reserve champion for the division!  Louis was another story and the success of this ride was that we survived.  He was just in a bit of a mood after standing on the trailer all alone, and then not having jumped in 4 weeks or so, and I moved him up to the 3' class without anything to warm him up.  We had a drive by and a couple of really ugly fences, but both rounds got better as they went and I have a couple of things to work on this week before they both go to the mini event this coming Sunday.

Sunday then was the benefit show for a kid who I went to high school with.  He recently passed away, and thankfully I had the day off so I could go to that.  I missed his visitation and funeral due to work, and I felt like I needed to go do something.  So I hung out and saw some people I haven't seen in awhile, then came back home.

I decided to take my horse for a run with me Sunday evening and what a funny fail that was!  He either went way too fast or stopped to try and eat, essentially jerking my arm out of socket no matter which option he chose.  Then of course the flies were eating us both alive, which led to his aggravation and my discomfort.  So I called it quits at just under a mile and laughed at my failed effort to be creative.  He was a very good sport for heading out there with me to begin with, and I am thankful that my fit thoroughbred would rather act like a lab!

I have made some great developments in my life as well.  I sat down and read the wonderful blog from Meredith Halas about her being reinstated into the dating world, and laughed my head off.  But of course this led me to talking to one of my friends who is just as busy as I am and has no time to meet anyone.  So she suggested we get Tinder accounts together and we can talk about the creepy people we meet and laugh!  I mean, what harm could come of this, right?  We set up accounts together and immediately began swiping left and right to find a couple of matches that may work.

I have split my results- some good and some creepy.  One guy sounded promising, he plays music, teaches 8th grade, and coaches football.  Has his life together, right?  Well, come to find out he is a part-time nudist and I had already let him get my snapchat handle, because phone numbers just weren't in the cards yet, I started getting naked pictures.  Ummmm hello?  I have never sent a naked photo in my life!  Not even when I was in serious relationships- I don't trust phones or the internet, let alone what an angry ex could do!  Goodbye dude!

I did have a bit of good luck though and have started talking to a couple of guys who seem nice, even to the point of where I have given out my phone number so as not to run up my data charges while talking to them.  One guy lives really close and has had me laughing and smiling so much I actually would meet him in person.  The other two are ok, one lives in St. Louis and I just don't know if I could go back to that situation-after the whole long distance with Oran and all.  But he is pretty cool and I told him if I make it up that way I'll let him know.  So fingers crossed something happens here!  I begin school on Monday too and then hopefully I'll have other things to keep my mind busy.  But I'm good- I feel good, I love the way things are going right now in my life, and I have a lot of other really good things happening!

Maggie and I even got up and ran this morning.  Well- we kind of died while trying to run, but hey we logged almost 3 miles before 7am!  That is some progress.

My last thing that  I have is a song I am absolutely in love with- "Best I Ever Had" by Gavin Degraw.  It has a wonderful beat, and a good message if you listen to it.  It helps me to know that Oran was good for me in many, many ways.  And so far in  my life he is the best thing I've ever had, but there is something better there for me, yet I will never be the same and I can't get stuck on him and what we were.  I love it- if you have 4 minutes check it out.  And it's fun to dance to!

That's all for now- I'll have a weekend wrap up and a Richland preview next week!

Courtney

A Weekend of (Move) Ups!

Hello!  I feel like I have not written in forever and I apologize for that.  This past weekend we took a small (only 10 horses) group to River Glen horse trials in Knoxville, TN for what we hoped would be a confidence building weekend.  I have to say that minus a couple of blips here and there the horse show was a huge success- with our group coming home sporting huge smiles.

I don't even know where to begin because I am still smiling and so proud of everyone.  I am trying to get videos uploaded of everything- so hopefully I can attach the link to them at the end of this page.  I guess first and foremost I have to once again congratulate Sunny Greene and Charli.  This duo has been working so hard for the last year, and especially hard this summer, to make great things happen.  I don't think she could have complained about anything all weekend, and in true Sunny fashion she continued to say that she had room to improve.  This amazing young lady went out and won the dressage in a huge division with a butt-kicking 23!  She then continued her quest for world domination by jumping a beautiful double clear around a big, tough show jumping track, and finished off her weekend just adding some time to her dressage score on the cross country.  She looked nothing short of professional all weekend, and Charli looks like a million bucks.  I was honored to be beaten by her this weekend, and I cannot wait to have her at Richland in a couple of weeks with us.

Just going down the line I can now brag on my horse.  I brought Goose into this weekend with the hope of just finishing his first Preliminary.  Of course, being competitive I wanted to do well, but I just wanted a number at the end of the weekend.  We were very fortunate to have Keri from Voltaire Saddles at the event and she let me borrow a wonderful Dressage saddle for Saturday morning, which was like riding in an easy chair and I did not want to give it back!  Goose tried his little heart out in the ring, and once we get rid of some tension I think he will really be able to be in the top 1/4 after the dressage at this level.  He still managed to pull a 39 out and lay it on the table, which had me smiling from ear to ear.  I then began to panic and my heart began to thump out of my chest as the show jumping approached.  I am utterly terrified of the show jumping ring, and I don't have much success at River Glen.  But my horse is a jumping machine, and even when I went in and made a couple of mistakes he jumped out of his skin and pulled out a clear round.  I took some wide turns to calm myself down and reorganize, and the time is always tight here, so we came out with 7 time penalties.  I was so thrilled though that I could of had 30 time faults and still been smiling- I may have even been crying.

 

It was so great to have the barn family there to cheer us on all weekend.  That is one great thing about this event- everything is quite close and everyone can come and watch.  We also had some long lost friends from St. Louis who live in the area now, and they got to come over and watch.  It was wonderful to see them.  Sunday morning came after some long grazing sessions and four leaf clover hunting with the other girls, and I have to say I was actually nervous!  I don't know the last time I was nervous for the cross country, but I wanted to give my horse a good ride and do right by him, and for some reason I was worried about that.  No reason to though, as he went out and rocked his handsome butt around it like he was made for the job.  I went very slow as the ground was hard and I wanted him to understand all of the questions, so hopefully now we can put on the gas some at Richland.  I accomplished all of my goals for the weekend, however- and exceeded all expectations for my baby horse.  Not only did he come home with a number instead of a letter, but there were 0's all the way across the board in the jump columns!  I honestly don't know if I have ever even done that at the Preliminary level- maybe one time with Bubba.  While we were just shy of bringing home a ribbon, I feel like I have won the AEC's with this kid, and now I am looking forward to bettering myself for the next one!

 

 

Now I have to brag on our other rider's.  Miss Amanda has learned how to tame the wild beast that is Van and put in (what I am guessing, sorry I missed it) a lovely dressage test to sit on a 31, which I believe is their personal best Dressage score.  They had a rocking weekend in the jump phases to come home all smiles, double clear on Sunday, and add a yellow ribbon to their collection.  Amanda's good mood is always contagious, and it is impossible to not root for this pair every time they come to an event with us.  I am so thrilled with their success, and I hope they continue to kick some butt and have a great time at the 3-day in October.  Molly took Trevor out and had a good weekend, unfortunately I did not get to see much of them due to our times being close, but they looked awesome through the water jump- this horse is such a cool horse on the cross country, I have enjoyed watching them throughout the years.

 

 

I have too many people who I am thrilled for from this weekend!  I wish that I had more pictures, and while it is a little late I am sorry with how long this post is.  Birdi is probably my hero of the weekend- she came and tackled her first training with a determination I have never seen from her before.  She and Lucky looked really good in the dressage warm-up, to fall victims of an error and a stiff judge in the ring.  She dusted herself off though and prepared for the show jumping with a smile, to go in and have the ring kind of get the better of her.  I have to say though, even when things looked dark she found the light at the end of the tunnel and she kept on kicking until she was through the flags after the dreaded triple combination.  It was a night and day difference from watching her in the show jumping ring to seeing her on the cross country.  She sat up, kept her leg on, and looked like she had been running the training level her entire life.  Even at the big water jump when Lucky wanted to get a bit squirrely, she just went to her whip and kept thinking forward, so he jumped right off the bank and they finished up with all smiles.  I wish I had more pictures of this, but I have video of her ass-kicking performance, so I will share that!  Lucky and Birdi are pretty much soul mates, and I love watching them have so much success.

 

 

 

Our beginner novice crew is who I am blaming for my lack of voice these last two days though.  Molly had Ritter out, and she continues to improve this little horse every time they go somewhere, Maddie had to switch from Milo to her young horse Beau (and come to her first event of the year!) this weekend, and then Shalen brought out the wonder pony- Cracken!- to kick around for the weekend.  I stood on the hill and watched show jumping while glancing over the trees to the dressage ring, and wanted to scream and shout for all of them while they were in the ring.  Then we all hung out in the sun and I worked on tanning my pasty legs to watch their show jumping.  All three of our girls were professionals- with Shalen even going to the whip to get The Cracken to behave his sassy little self.  We have a very talented group of young riders in the barn right now and to see them conquer their goals is great.  Shalen moved this horse up to Beginner Novice this weekend and went out to rock around the cross country like a legit bad-ass, Maddie gave Beau a very confident ride around the entire weekend to get him through his first event, and Miss Molly got Ritter right in the water only to have missed a fence and picked up the dreaded TE.  But thankfully she was close enough to the end that they got to finish and Ritter gets to think he is the man- so all in all it just happens to everyone (I've definitely missed a fence or two!)  I hope that everyone had as much fun this weekend as I did, and I cannot thank everyone enough for the help, cheers, and support for myself and my horse.

 

I wish everyone was coming to Richland with us, but Dunnabeck will be here before we know it and the barn family will be out in full force for that weekend.  I wish I had more pictures from the weekend (thanks Colleen for the picture below, I had to be able to post our lovely YR's!)- but alas I have videos that maybe will be uploaded before the next Ice Age.

 

 

Congrats to everyone on their weekends- including friends that I got to see from afar!- and glad to know everyone got home safe.  We have the benefit show to help send Meghan to Burghley so I will have my camera charged and ready to go for that- and I will have a recap!  Getting down to my last few days of work so hopefully I will have a normal sleep schedule soon.

 

Until then!

Courtney