Long Time No Blog

Phew! It's been a long time since I've able to blog about our adventures. The weather keeps taking detours to Crazytown, going from snow to sun to extreme heat to rain and a bit of hail today. But we just suit up and head out anyway.

We've slowly been working our stuff now that everything's melted. The Big Field has fairly good footing, so we've been doing a lot of stuff there. The first time we rode out there, Royal just wanted to run. So I let him run until he started snorting and sighing and gave me a stretchy springy trot. I asked him to pick up the contact and boom! He took the contact and pushed with his hind end like I'd never felt before. I'd didn't want to push it too much, so I only ask him for it a few times, but apart from a few bobbles here and there, he held the contact nice and steady.

We've also gone for lots of nice long walks and ride on the road. One day there were some crews cutting down branches on the side of the road. There was a lot of fuss and commotion and loud noises, but Royal kept his cool.

We also encountered some horse-eating boxes

And found out the Sheep of Death have lambs!

I think they're cute, but Royal is of the opinion that they are Demon Spawn.

All of this is in preparation for Carriage House, which is in a week.

I know! It snuck up on me this year. I think with the crazy weather, it's been hard to think spring, but the Three Ring Circus is just around the corner. We're finally doing dressage this year, although just staying in the walk-trot test, Intro B and doing the 2' jumpers. We could probably do Training level tests and higher fences, but considering how sometimes Royal can get a little... over-enthusiastic at the first outing of the year, I decided to keep it simple. Hopefully we can have a nice easy experience which will set us up well for Roebke's Run in July. This year we'll do it! We finally have the experience and I have the finances, so it'll be our first event of the year. We'll definitely do Steepleview again, both the schooling days and the horse trial. Maybe we'll make it to Otter Creek. but we'll see.

First step is getting Royal looking all show ready, especially his mane.

Oh dear.

I've been v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y pulling his mane using the Lynn Palm method, and once it was a good thickness, I got out the thinning shears and shortened it to a reasonable length.

Before:

After

A bit longer than I would like, but show-worthy.

Sexy Tail is back, thanks to copious amounts of detangler.

This week, we keep training! Here comes Carriage House!