Part III – Week VI / the kids
Week V in the desert brought with it some wind storms and a considerable amount of rain considering our location. Week VI was definitely an improvement with more of the “summer” weather we were expecting!
The early part of the week was the first time I started to feel that we had moved into a comfortable rhythm. The babies got out every day for their walks and hacks. I had a couple of top notch hunter trainers sit on Clinton, and they raved and raved about what a fabulous prospect he is (with offers to sell him for me – which would be fantastic if that wasn’t my job already!). Clinton got the opportunity to walk into the ticketed schooling ring for the first time and wowed us all by loping around over all of the scary gates/boxes/flowers with nothing more than a little peek at the very first jump we jumped. Once he figured out that his “job” is to jump flowers he took to it like a duck to water!
We took it slower with Evita. She is what I would call “hyper aware” of everything, and with the higher degree of sensitivity I didn’t want to push her too far. So we stuck to the schooling rings with her and she happily cantered over little 2’6″ – 2’9″ jumps with both Danielle and me.
The big horses continued to impress.
Cassiana SR competed in only the YJC 1.30m 7yo classes (where the week prior we had done a 1.15m and an open 1.20m before joining the YJC on the second day of YJC classes) and again picked up great ribbons, including a 2nd on the qualifier day with a beautiful double clean round.
William L remained in the top 4 in the AO Highs and then reminded me why I consider him “my champion” when I started to go off course in my 1.45m High AO Classic and tried to pull him off of the wrong fence and over to the right fence at the last possible second, causing him to jump/crash through a vertical, start to fall (which pitched me off) and then caught himself and continued down the 4-stride line to jump the oxer without me. I’m positive that he landed from that riderless oxer and went, “what the what? Where’d she go???” That seemed like a perfect summary of horse sport – great, great, great, great……OOPS!!!! And then back to great, great, great. Or something like that 😉
Rasen BHS schooled over a 3’6″ – 4′ course and was even more fun to gallop around the big fences than he was over the littler ones! Though his week was directed towards a much smaller goal involving much more precious cargo. He carted my 9yo daughter around all weekend. She had only ridden him once before we shipped down to Thermal, so she wasn’t feeling brave enough to show, but had an absolute blast with his caretaker nature!
And then on to Disneyland. Having my husband and both children at the show was a bit of a challenge that added to the chaos of our schedule, but it was wonderful to get to see them in the middle of the trip, and taking two days to visit Disneyland while other people took care of the horses was absolutely fabulous!
So the wrap-up to week VI was as good as it was for week V. Every horse grew and improved upon the prior week. And that’s all you can hope for in the best circumstances!