Fantas-aweso-amaz-fabu-unforgett…
No single word can express my past two weeks in Ocala. Even though I already recapped last week, I’ll start from the beginning again.
Arrive in the sunny, beautifully colorful Ocala to barns filled with friends, new eager faces and lots of horses with potential bursting out the yin-yang. Run through a week with the best instruction you can imagine, going both ways too. Not only did the campers learn a ton from Karen and David, but they also learned a lot from the campers. If you don’t believe me just ask Karen and David to Cat-Daddy or Bernie it out at the next competitors party-- you will be impressed.
The next week was kicked off with 8 of us left over from the camp spending two hilarious hours at the bowling alley discovering all the different ways we can almost get kicked out of a bowling alley. Not that we were destructive, at least not purposefully. I’m sure those gutter bumpers will make a full comeback.
that would be miss rowdie adams on the right who is not touching the ground while swinging a bowling ball
Over the week I had two lessons with Karen, one flat and one dressage. (yes I’m beginning to notice just how many 2’s are in this post). The flat lesson was mostly about getting him stretching into the contact and really moving forward, something I’ve been working on for almost two years now and we finally have progress! In the jumping lesson she had me focus on really getting the right canter and not accepting any antics with his head.
Finally the show came around:
Something you should be briefed on first is that the zippers on tall boots completely and totally hate me. I don’t know what I did to deserve such detest but there it is. Before FL my schooling boot zippers finally gave out. No big deal, I got some winter boots and it’s kinda cold. Well one of those zippers went after cross country on the penultimate day (ooo fancy word with more than two syllables! Maybe college is making me smarter). Well that was unfortunate but I still have my dress boots, we’ll pull through. As I’m about to go to my jump lesson with Karen I pull those boots on and the tab of the zipper breaks. I vet wrap it onto my leg and we take it up to be fixed. Long story (I know this has already been a terribly long tangent but bare with me) the zipper breaks again, we get it fixed, then we realize that it’s Friday and maybe I should go buy a new pair of boots, just in case. The zipper breaks AGAIN right before dressage. Throw on the new boots and ride on over to warm up. By the time I get there my feet are losing circulation because the boots haven’t been broken in and are still too tight. Well after jumping off, unzipping then jumping back on I trot on into the ring, barely any warm up, not able to feel my toesies.
And yet somehow I got my lowest dressage score at prelim ever!
For show jumping I electrical taped my broken boot onto my leg, worked great.
David came over just as I went into the ring and I knew that if after 6 camps and 2 private lessons with Karen, if I screwed up then I would never hear the end of it. So I worked really hard on getting to “that spot”, you know the one, the Goldie Locks of spots, not too long, not too short. Except for a rush at the triple bar everything went really well with 0 poles, but a few time.
Cross country was fun. Apollo is really becoming very adjustable out on course and cleared every fence like it was baby green. With a double clear xc we finished in 4th, and I am so very proud of him.
Our next event is Rocking Horse, and while I’m superstitious about saying this I’m also really excited to say that we’re entered in Intermediate there.
So until next time just remember:
When in doubt, Bernie it out!!
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