Alarm clock... zeppo(my dog) is taking up more than half of my single bed in the carlton arms. My phone comes to life.. boyfriend text ( he starts work at 5am so text begin early)... email from pnut in NZ ( they are in the middle of the day when we are in the middle of the night)... facebook message from someone in Aiken curious if I need I am there and need my horses acupunctured?....text message from a student curious about putting her horse on dream horse or equine now..... Snooze or Dismiss..... Dismiss.....brush teeth .. cup of tea.... blackberry messenger from Megan... " are you on your way Tate has some fill in his hind legs".... " I'm five minutes away"- me....7:15am ... today started like any other day......
Today I had my last training session with Mark at 9am and thank god we got to jump! I have only had a few jump schools with Tate since Boekelo and the focus has been more on single fences than course work. When horses get to the advanced level every jump counts. Meaning that I want my horse to last as long as possible so I plan every jump and what I want that jump to accomplish. I don't waste my horses legs trying to improve "my eye" or "my position" or to "try it one more time to be sure".. every jump counts. I knew today I would be putting some jumps together and was eager but also not entirely sure where Tate's confidence stood after his trip abroad.
So I arrived at the barn and looked at Tate's legs which to me are like the back of my own palm.. but Megan being good at her job and new to Tate was aware that there was a change and quickly informed me. We trotted Tate up and as I had assumed he moved perfectly but just had some fill from a hard work out and a night in the stall. I then put on the kettle, sat down on the Haygain ( which not only removes all mold spores from hay and pretty much eliminates respiratory issues caused by mold, dust and other allergens... but also makes a warm seat in the morning!) and discussed with Meg the plan for the day with the other 11 horses in the barn other than Tate ...
I went over for my lesson and I was greeted with the pleasant surprise that Karen's lesson on Mandiba was running late. I got to watch most of this flat lesson which not many people are lucky enough to do at 9 am on a Saturday morning. Tate felt great through our whole lesson and fortunately there is not much to discuss. He jumped like a million bucks and the main topic of conversation was the possibility of double studding him on the outside of his shoes for Kentucky and possibly Burghley in the fall... I like that conversation....
After my lesson I got on a young horse that proceeded to try and drop me in the field about 20 times and then my phone started making those familiar sounds.... you are only as good as your last ride.. for about 15 minutes I was a four star rider on the track to the Olympic games... that was fun... then back to reality and back to the balance of it all ... which makes those 15 minutes of High Performance so so sweet.....
I have come away from these sessions a better horseman, communicator and hopefully competitor. I am looking forward to the next few weeks where I can put what I have learned into practice and then start this whole thing over again! xx
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What's double studding?
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