I really enjoy the relaxed pace of the post-season, pre-holiday time period. And this weekend was no exception! We had a really fun couple of days with visits from friends who hadn’t seen the horses since earlier this show season.
Maddy is someone I consider family. She was my childrens’ nanny in the summers and my frequent horseshow companion for at least a couple of weeks worth of shows every year since. She’s been to Sonoma, Thunderbird, Monroe, and Thermal with me, working tirelessly and possessing the rare gift of being able to guess what I’m going to ask her next before I say a word. Now she’s an attorney and has much more important things going on in life than just the horses. So it’s extra special when she finds time to come for a visit and gets to peek in on how the horses are going.
I was planning on having her ride Clinton (FF Clintaro) as a fun “spot check” since she was one of the people who helped me out when I broke my ribs in May and hacked him between the two weeks of shows, and I thought it would be fun for her to ride him again with a season of showing and training under his belt. But my 9yo daughter, Sadie, got upset because she had been waiting all week to ride him (seriousy, how many 4yo horses have kids and amateurs fighting over them?!). So Sadie got the ride on Clinton and Maddy got to ride and jump Evita and Cassie….everyone was happy with the arrangement! But possibly the best part of the weekend (from a purely selfish standpoint) was having Maddy on the ground to help my with my 3yo filly, Tori, who came over from Germany last year and got put on the back burner when I broke my ribs this spring. Maddy has been my help when starting horses more times than I can count, and I was excited to have her there once again.
The next day brought a visit from a young trainer friend, Courtney Palmer, who helped me at several shows this season, but never got the chance to ride any of my horses. She was eager to sit on the two black horses, and we had a blast bumping the fences up a bit. It was educational for me as well. I’m a jumper rider through and through, and I’m still studying and learning the art that is involved in producing a true hunter effort over a jump from a young horse. We coursed Clinton at 3’3″ and he was spectacular under her, showing a completely different side compared to his total caretaker/packer mentality when carrying Sadie around the day before. The video below has both days – first half is Sadie doing flying changes and then cantering a short course and then Courtney jumping some of the lines I had set up in the ring. This horse is truly one in a million and from day one has done literally anything and everything asked of him without ever questioning his rider’s input. Truly a unicorn in every sense (except the horn, of course, lol!).
I don’t have the same distaste of Mondays as I did during my decades in Corporate America, but I am sad to have the weekend over. It was so much fun hosting rides and seeing friends I see far too infrequently once the show season ends!