One Heck of a Birthday

Featuring three warmbloods and one giraffe.

Friday was my birthday. I woke up at 5am nervous as hell and already mentally exhausted from the previous days of the week. Bacon was hauled over to Prisoner's house Thursday and I had an interesting ride. Apparently when you are in heat, you have more of an opinion. Who knew? I figured Friday might end up too interesting for my tastes. I would be riding in the Nicole Cobb clinic with three other very good riders. Riders with waaaaay more experience and knowledge than me (with one of being named as a top ten event rider in the US). Jumping sticks in a pattern is already scary.

Whoa man. Trotting stuff.

We introduced ourselves and before I could say anything, Nicole looked at me and yelled BACON! She already knew. Oh god. Who told her? What did they tell her? Don't pee my pants. I told her what we are working on (getting to the base of the jump, not getting flat, etc) and that most of my jump/ride time is spent in my 50ft arena with one jump and we had been new to this jumping thing for about a year. And then it was time to jump some stuff.

Now canter stuff.

Bacon was a wee bit excited and strong that day. The most nervous she had ever been at that facility. I am guessing the hormones weren't helping, and neither was my radiating anxiety. We started over some trot poles and Bacon was all WEEEEEEE TROT STUFF and then we cantered through them and WEEEEE CANTER STUFF was happening so Nicole immediately called me out for being too nice. "You seem like a really nice person. A person who would never hurt anything, but you need to get meaner". Well, alright. If you say so. I had to do some strong half halting through the poles and Bacon picked up on it after a few times through. High fives!

Horse yoga. You wish you had a hind end like that.

And then there was the gymnastic. I knew we would have trouble with it because we have only done them three times I think? Oh well, I knew it was coming. We had to work through it more than everyone else, but that was ok. I was getting very tired but I still had enough gas. Bacon also figured out the half halting through there too. And then we got to string some stuff together.

Entering the gymnastic.

I was feeling kind of down because we needed the most work out of us four, but I told myself that I had been jumping for only a year (BOTH of us, for that matter) and with my current arrangements, we were keeping up alright.

We like oxers!

The rest of the course work had Bacon and I establishing our canter and ride a few strides out before the jump, and my job was to keep it the same all the way to the jump. And we did that quite well. Of course we had some awkward distances and things, but we were able to work through them and just keep going.

Lime green for lyme disease?

I really really liked riding with Nicole. She always had positive things to say along with her constructive things. And they all made sense. I was trying my hardest to do everything she had asked and it was working pretty well. She had some sass to her too, and I liked that! The weather was brilliant, my horse was good and it was hard to ask for a better day. But thank goodness I had the next day off and was riding Sunday because I was EXHAUSTED.

My fav pic of the day!

Coming out of a one stride!