I feel like all I’ve done for the past month is coach. It feels good but is also draining at times. Yesterday I gave in and sat by the pool with friends all afternoon (that would be after coaching at Seneca in the morning). Felt guilty about not riding my horse and putting off resetting stalls till the morning but watching the kids do flips in the pool giggling and catching up on on all things not horse related via great conversations is really what I needed. Plus there may have been a lot of ice cream involved.
So back to the awesome students I get the pleasure to coach… on Saturday and Sunday the Waredaca pony clubbers attended their first tetrathlon rally. Show jumping and swimming was on Saturday with shooting and running on Sunday. They all did so incredibly well and took home 19 ribbons!!!! I don’t have the total breakdown of who won what yet but apparently they swept the Pre-Novice girls division and pretty much took home something in the top three in every division entered and each phase. I can’t even begin to express how proud I am of them. They all worked so hard to get ready for this rally and it really showed. And so did the parents!
Then on Sunday, I was up early again. This time to take Alexa and Jack to Seneca for a schooling horse trials. This was Jack’s first event in two years and Alexa’s first one in a year. I think I may have been more nervous then Alexa was! They put in such a lovely dressage test to score a 29.2 and go into the lead. Then jumped a perfect show jump round followed by a great clean cross-country round. And what was the most awesome part of all of it… they both were smiling the whole time! OK, I know horses can’t actually smile but anyone who knows that expression horses get when they are enjoying themselves will understand what I mean. I’m just so happy for them both, especially the fact that Jack has his own person to pamper him this summer. And Alexa is doing such a great job. He looks fit and shiny and fantastic! Which means I’m going to have to find someone else to lease him this fall to keep him going. I wish I could send him with Alexa back to school at Boston U but their winters are worse than ours and the horses don’t get that much turn out due to bad weather.
Carly and Cal had a great go at Surefire finishing third at Novice. That one she did on her own as I wasn’t able to coach with competing Sprocket the same day. And Sprocket didn’t feel right after dressage so I withdrew from the rest of the day and had the vet check him out at home. Turns out he strained a muscle behind his SI joint. We think it must have happened at Waredaca when he did that slide/leap at the down log. Looks like a week or two of light riding and some meds will clear it all up soon.
I’ll post photos from the rally and Seneca tomorrow once I get them off my camera.
korizzoinc 