I slept through most of the year. Literally. Is there anything better than sleeping? Food, maybe. Taylor has absolutely insisted that I earn my own keep, she keeps mumbling under her breath something about me being lucky to only have to work one hour out of the 24 hour day. She must be confused, I have tons of friends that only have to work one hour per week, if that! That's the life. I started out this year with aspirations of going to "horse trials," one of those silly horse shows where you have to gallop really fast and jump over things that don't fall down if I don't lift my legs up high enough. Taylor had some reservations about my ability to keep us out of trouble on XC. We went to a few combined tests before Taylor signed us up to our first horse trial, those went really well. Novice was easy peasy. Luckily for Taylor I managed to go out and strain my suspensory the day after she paid her entries for our first full horse trial. That kept her from worrying about cross country. Aren't I thoughtful?
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| Showing at our first Novice CT |
After I healed from that injury I convinced Taylor to let me just be a pony and go out and eat food and then come in and nap. That worked for a few months, occasionally I'd get tacked up and ridden out in the field or hopped over some small courses. Then Taylor told me that Dom Schramm was coming back to town to teach another clinic and she wanted me to be fit enough to ride with him. I would've told her no, but if you could have seen those puppy dog eyes she gave me, you would understand why I agreed to allow her to sign us up. I didn't make it easy, after all, if you want to make a career in the horse world you have to work for it. Most of the work I made her do involved her brushing up on her first aid skills... I poked my eyeball on a branch and got two days off; I talked Roanie into biting me right where the girth goes, which got me off work for a few days; I pulled off as many shoes as possible, I managed to get three off in one night, Taylor really loved me for that one; and (my personal favorite) I laid down and took a nap on a fire ant pile and got chewed up so bad I got nearly a whole week off! Despite my best efforts, however, Taylor was persistent and got us prepared. Dom shouted "SOOPAH" over every fence, I guess that means I did a good job. I got all my lead changes and almost all of my distances. Sometimes I get a little too excited and bolt toward my fences, get way too close to them, and then have to jump like a cow to get over them. Taylor doesn't like it when I do that. I don't know why it matters, I got to the other side didn't I?
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| Riding with Dom |
Not long after the Dom clinic Taylor started showing her other horse, Roanie, at USDF shows. While she was there she learned about pony dressage. Oh boy. Turns out, at USDF shows, they have entire classes dedicated to equines that measure under 14.2 hands. Crap, that's me. Before I knew it I was back in full blown dressage training. We went to seemingly endless dressage shows all to prepare us for our National Dressage Pony Cup debut. I did fairly well at our schooling shows, judges always comment on how nice and relaxed I am. Honestly, I'd just rather get home and take a nap.
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| We rocked our schooling dressage shows, putting up scores in the 70's. Scoring that high will exhaust a pony though. |
When the time finally came to go to my first USDF show, I was so excited I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was laying down in my stall getting my daily beauty rest when Taylor came in and tried to get me up to get on the trailer. I begged for just five more minutes, but she would have none of it and drug me to my feet (which is no easy task.) Once we got on the trailer Roanie told me that while we are traveling at overnight shows we get fed much more, oh boy, I love overnight shows.
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| Five more minutes mom. |
What Roanie failed to mention was that we get fed more because we got ridden more! Unbelievable. Taylor rode me FOUR times in TWO days. It was practically animal abuse. She tried to make some sort of excuse along the lines of "I can't help it Dot, that's when they scheduled your tests" to make up for the fact that she was putting my tack on me for the second time in twelve hours. Call the ASPCA I won't stand for this abuse. To make up for the excessive exercise I had to endure I put in as little effort as possible while in the ring. Apparently, there was a comment on my test from the judge that said "the free walk is a movement, not a rest break." I beg to differ. I had no idea how much more torture was in store for me, I had to conserve as much energy as possible. In the end, I pulled off placing fifth in the National Dressage Pony Cup and was the highest scoring in the Adult Amateur division.
To finish out my year Taylor proposed we move up from training level to first level. That's a lot of work. She asks a lot of me. After lots of thinking, and lots of napping, I decided that I couldn't disappoint her, and allowed her to start working towards first level. Those puppy-dog eyes that she gives me when she asks for something are going to be the death of me. We had a couple of months to get in shape and boy oh boy was that some hard work. It all turned out well in the end, and I got a 66 at first level! I guess Taylor was right that all the hard work would be worth it. I don't really care about the score, but I have noticed that the higher I score, the more cookies Taylor gives me. That's motivation for me.
That wraps up my year! Now to nap and eat all winter!
