Emotional Swings

The past month or so has been hard for me, mentally. Work has been super busy, I've been stressed about another horsey endeavor (more about that later), and the weather has gone between the 60s with thunderstorms to 85-90 and back. I felt like I couldn't get into a routine or ride consistently.  

Peebs and his new friend Trask

 We were supposed to go to a show last weekend, but didn't.  My trainer was originally going to go with me, but had to back out due to her real job. I tried to see if I could get someone else to go with me because I don't like going by myself.  I feel better knowing there's someone on the ground to help if something goes wrong.  So I set my sights on doing one of two shows in June, and of course, neither one works for my trainer. I pouted for a couple of days before coming out of it. And luckily  one of the teens in the barn has agreed to go with me as my groom so *fingers crossed* we'll be showing on the 17th. Still trying to figure out what classes; it'll either be the 18" or 2'.  And there's a show in July that works for both me and trainer so that's on the calendar too.

We really didn't jump for a couple of weeks and then last week jumped three days in a row. I didn't plan it that way, but when offered a last minute lesson, one doesn't say no.  I had jumped a little last Tuesday and Wednesday, just working on a few fences each day.  Tuesday we worked on a line and Wednesday we figure eighted two diagonal fences.  We're starting to put together canter courses but Peebs is pretty sure we should still be trotting every other fence. It takes a lot to keep him going and I wanted to stick with a few fences and establishing that yes, he has to keep cantering.  My plan worked, except that on Wednesday we had our first run out.  We were coming up to the fence when another boarder drove down the road and parked her car. Super scary because he's obviously never seen a car before. I think Peebs probably just caught it out of the corner of his eye, but he scooted to the left and went past the fence. It was very slow-mo and I was in no danger of coming off.  We walked past the offending car and circled back to the fence without any problems. Peebs did seem a bit sheepish.

But he's not ashamed of his awesome bee fly sheet!!

I was expecting Peebs to be super lazy in our lesson on Thursday, but he was actually great.  He was behind my leg, and I got reminded that my whip is functional and not just something for me to hold, but he wasn't nearly as tired as I was expecting. We started with cutting across the center of the ring to the second jump in an outside line then rolling back to a diagonal fence.  I had some trouble finind our distance to the first fence, but once I was able to control his outside shoulder and turn a little earlier it flowed really well.  We moved onto a bending line that was much easier than I expected.  The footing coming to the first fence was a bit deep and Peebs no likey deep footing.  He kept wanting to break to the trot and that's when my trainer had to remind me to get after him.  We cantered a few circles at that end of the ring to establish that yes, he has to canter through the deep stuff, and once we found a good track we continued to the line. We quit with that as both Peebs and I were getting tired.

I was super happy with how good Peebs was that it killed me little to not be showing.  But I've been telling myself that with a few extra weeks Peebs and I will that much better when we do make it into the show ring.