CAMELOT: A Journey- The Beginning of Time

Uh oh. Penis.

Ok. I can't even. I am so so tired. You don't even know. I am going to try and tell you, I haven't even caught up on my recaps, but I figure I better get this out there because CAMELOT.

Ok Bacon. Let's do this.

We had a crew of five horses, four riders, one husband, and three dogs headed out to California early on Wednesday morning. We weren't totally sure how long the drive would take but we estimated it would be around 10 hours. It ended up being about 11.5 hours. The lead truck spent a good chunk of time in first gear through some of Donner Pass, had a brief period of brake anger, a gas emergency, and then we arrived. It took a while to get everyone situated, but the ponies looked content when we left them to get our camp set up.

Maybe if I was less tense in my back, my horse would be less tense in hers?

When we came back, Bacon decided she was no longer calm or happy in her stall. I was trying to hang her grain bucket when she blew past me and bulldozed through her wooden stall door into the night. She ran wild and free, knocking down a panel and hitting her legs on things in the blackness while we tried to catch her feral ass. I was less than amused, but we snagged her. Images of her breaking free danced in my brain as I tried to fall asleep. Around 3am, it started to pour and I shot awake. Being a light sleeper, I was never able to fall back asleep and pouted when I wandered over to our now completely soaked stalls. Bacon was standing in a puddle and was soaked across her back. So much for having a covered stall. The California sun is an asshole to tent top covers, I am guessing.

We canter coming up here, right?

There was not much we could do that morning except dig trenches, so we all went to see Wonder Woman. After that, we bought some mulch for the front of our stalls and headed back to the venue. Fortunately, it had stopped raining, so we got ready to hop on. Bacon was banging her knees so hard into the wooden door from weaving that I had to put her hobbles on. A little later, while I was in the dog pen, I heard "LOOSE HORSE" and knew it was mine. Sure enough, there goes Bacon trotting past me. With one hobble undone. She had somehow managed to get the metal hinge off of the door and undue her hobble and escape. What the crap. The horse next to her managed to get the whole wooden door off of its hinge. They must have been plotting.

Ok, Try not to mess this up Alyssa!

I hopped on for a brief ride and was actually really pleased with the horse under me. I rode her in a waterford pelham without the chain to see if it might work for cross country, but she was waaaaay too heavy in the arena, let alone out galloping at jumps. Still, I thought the ride was a fluke, shook my head, and put her away. I was hoping maybe dressage day would be the same, but wasn't expecting it. The next morning rolled around, a little more rain, and a quick little lunge set our prep for our test. She was a bit more tense than the previous day, but still willing and listening on the lunge, and fairly quiet to tack. Hmmm.

Use that big ol' butt

I hopped on and hoped I wouldn't forget my test. This was our move up to Training, and I was feeling the butterflies. The horse I got on though was chill, able to walk on a loose rein, and ready to go to work when asked. We could bend some, canter politely and even lengthen the canter and bring it back when asked. You know, all things I needed for my test. But these were all things that weren't happening currently for whatever reason at home, so I was floored that I was getting them at a show! We were able to go in early, so I did. The footing was quite uneven and sloppy, so I tried to be conservative with everything. Plus, I was still riding conservatively to try and not piss her off (which happened a lot at the Spokane HT). I haven't quite gotten to that recap for you yet. Spoiler: it was NOT good.

This was our impression of a stretchy trot. Ack.

And our lengthen. Whoopsie.

There is much MUCH to be improved on in our test. But we had no head flipping, balking, total bracing, and I was able to actually ride here and there through it. So, that was kind of cool. I had the most relaxed horse I have ever had for any test. We have NO lengthenings and we had no stretchy trot to be seen, but that is alright. We can work on that. We came out of our test with a 34.3 and a big smile and lots of pats for a very very good girl. And high fives from three awesome bloggers (more about them later)! At least dressage was off on the right foot!

Good good girl!

Look at all of us! Just look!