Catching up....

So... Monday was an icky day... It rained.. and rained... and there was lightning. I'm not sure if it actually rained at Ashland when I would have been there (after work) or not, but... it just looked so bad I opted out. But Tuesday I was able to go ride. I ended up joining Robin and Alex and we had a good time. We went to the jump arena and played around. It was SOOOO good to be back jumping. Fleck felt great too. He was taking me to them and jumping well. Whee!!! So then we went to the lake for a quick rinse and a short trail ride.

Wednesday I rode before work and Fleck was good. I assume... I can't honestly remember what we did now... flat work I guess. Oh yes.. because they were logging. So we did some more flat work and got some nice work and there were no falling trees to scare us despite the warnings. :)

Then he had Thursday and Friday off and we were scheduled for a jump lesson with Beth Saturday. Yay! Well Thursday morning when I got home he had a big poofy right knee!! ACCKKKK! Luckily it was only a scrape! Tis but a flesh wound. ;) He had scraped it on something and given himself "Rugburn" again. And of course, Princess that he is, it swelled up and was hot and oozy. Argh.. so I cold hosed it, sprayed it with silver spray and gave him some previcox. Then the next morning it looked much better but now he had a chunk missing from his coronary band! Oh for Pete's Sake Fleck! GET YOUR LIFE TOGETHER!! ha ha... Anyways... fixed that up and added SMZ's for the knee as it was still oozy but much happier and crossed my fingers. I REALLY wanted that jump lesson.

Luckily for me... He was sound. Yay!! I hauled him and Danny to Ashland (see Danny's blog for that story!) We got there and Christina and May were there for their lesson too. We double dated. hee hee. So... Christina's friend was helping so when she went up with Sham for their jump lesson, her friend Jennifer took May up there. Fleck was a little sad that Sham left him but he was good. I groomed him and Danny and got tacked up. I took Fleck up to the jump ring as Sham was finishing and surprisingly Danny was awesome. He just stood tied to the trailer like a champ. Didn't even fret. Once I got up there, Christina was pretty much done and heading down to the trailers again. Which was good for Dan. BAD for Fleck. And he let us know it. Hee hee.. It cracks me up... He's so funny because he was soooo worked up, but... you just know he's not going to do anything bad. He's silly.. but not stupid or naughty. So he spent the first 15 minutes screaming, head up, and dancing in place when he wasn't running forward. Hee hee.. I love it! I have to admit it.... He's way easier to ride that way though.. He's so focused on his buddies back at the trailer that he doesn't question anything I ask of him. He just does it... granted, while somewhat braced and inverted, but not horribly so. And.. I got an AMAZING collected canter!!!

We did the square of doom. It was fun! It was basically a square of four verticals, one stride apart. One set slightly tighter than the other because of logistics. We got a very nice rocked back collected canter. A fourth level dressage canter!!! It was seriously lovely. We joked that we would start taking Dan or Sham to shows and then suddenly pull them away so I can get that lovely canter. Only.. I'm not sure I'm joking... it was phenomenal! Anyways, we did the jumps set low and worked on getting him collected and rocked back through them so the distance was easy. And it was easy! So then we bounced the corners of the rails. So instead of jumping straight through, we jumped through the corner but did it as a bounce, not a full corner. It was easy once I got the right line to it. I was cutting my corner too much which was making it too easy. :) Then we raised the jumps to make it a challenge. I started out okay but then she raised them a bit higher and it all fell to pieces. Of course... this was when Debbie, Denise, Nancy, Judy and someone else showed up to watch. Argh.. I looked like a monkey. Fleck was jumping in nice enough but jumping me out of the tack and then having to heave over the second one because it was so tight and throwing me more out of the tack. So.. I worked on keeping him collected and balanced.. and not getting him so collected in the turn so that he got behind my leg and then lengthened. I could let him get a bit bigger in the turn and then almost collect more to the fence. I had to wait for that extra stride, then doing a landing half halt.. where I almost use my hands as a block... or a wall for him to run into as he's landing, but then soften. And then half halt again before the second fence. WHAT?! That's a LOT to do in a split second Aunty Beth! But I must have managed it somehow because we had two or three nice runs at the end. I even managed to keep my feet underneath me some too :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bc05eoqmh9flkwo/MVI_3107.MOV

So yay!!! We quit with that. :) It was most excellent and very educational!

Then on Sunday I paid for all the fun and woke up at 3 am with a migraine. By the time I slept it off I only had a few hours before work and ended up cleaning out the basement with Mike instead of riding. Oh well. Wednesday will be here soon and then it's back to work full force!!
Wed I'll ride and then go see Dr. Brown. Thursday is dressage with Cindy. Friday is trails with Julie. Saturday is XC at Chatt Hills. Sunday is a jump lesson with Kristin Schmolze. Monday is an early dressage lesson. Tuesday is another jump lesson with Beth and then Wednesday will be a relaxing trail day with Sham and Christina hopefully. Phew!! But... we're aiming for Prelim at Full Gallop in August and then Texas in Sept!!! (training level for the AECs, but still!).