It's That Time of Year!

This is around the time of year where I start getting really anxious for eventing season. Especially now that I've decided to drop down a level to start, I feel so ready and so pumped! So to keep from going crazy from the excitement, I do things like organize my trunk and start making my infamous 'Eventing Checklist'.

I am a big list person. When I clean my room, (which is tiny, by the way, maybe 12' x 12', maybe even 10'x10'... my sister got the good room...) I make a list of the order in which I will clean it. Such as, clothes first, then make the bed, then vacumm, etc. So as you can imagine, there are about fifty billion lists made for going to an event. And that's just a one day, forget about staying overnight. Of course, I am famous for leaving all these lists at home instead of bringing them to the barn with me. And then I freak out thinking that I am going to forget something because I can't quadruple check my list.

I have been known, on more than one occasion, to torture my dad and ask him to read me every last thing on my list that I left on the table, or the counter, or in my room, or downstairs to me over the phone.

I bring this up because I am sitting here, right at this very moment, composing my checklist for the 2012 eventing season! I haven't gotten very far because I keep getting distracted but so far I've got about half of my stuff down; like my boots and clothes. I haven't even begun to list my tack or anything belonging to Ben yet. We've got a long way to go!

Writing this post is basically a result of my procrastination of finishing this list. While I enjoy doing it, it takes a long time because I am obsessive over making sure it is perfect, and sometimes I need to take a break. Like now.

I also thought this would be a good a time as any to give a little update on the little brown horse. I did end up squeezing that ride in the other day when it was raining which was good because he had been inside all day. Besides getting rained/sleeted/snowed on about halfway through, he was actually really good considering he had had a day off before that, and was inside for the day. A little quick but really pushing from his hind end.

The next day was similar, not quite raining/sleeting/snowing this time but misting. It was dark and gloomy and apparently there were terrifying things beyond the hill outside the ring fence. The trot work was actually really good. The canter work was really bad. But, at this point, all things considered I'll take the trot work at the moment.

Today I took him to my lesson. I got on early to work him alone before all the other horses came in for the lesson and he was awesome. But the more horses that came into the ring, the worse he got. It's not like he gets excited, he gets distracted and want nothing to do with me because he's too busy looking around at other things. Plus, the indoor makes it hard because its small, there are five horses going at the same time, and there are jumps everywhere. This makes it really hard to do much more than just go around the edge of the ring, and he gets bored with that fast. Oh well, I have kind of come to accept that when he's in a lesson like that, the flatwork just isn't going to be that great.

I jumped him one round over a teeny course and he was really good but he was tired. I've been working him a pretty good amount lately and so I let him off the hook after the first course.

I'm changing the event schedule up a little bit so if anyone is interested in that, it's up at the top of the page. Tomorrow he's getting the day off and I'll probably jump him some time this week because I hardly did anything today.

42 days until the first show of the season!