Mostly Complete Update

Lots of little things all happening right now. School has been kicking my butt this week but I'm handling it. Unfortunately the ponies have gotten the short end of the stick through all of this. I rode Jetta on Monday. That was it.

But we had a really good ride. I think we're finally making progress!

So, the news (fair warning - no pictures and very wordy post!):

I finally found out how Misty and I did at the trail competition. At the last competition we got third in the Open division! Wow, I was surprised that we made it all the way up to Open! At the show before that one we were 4th I think in Amateur? Like I predicted though, there was no belt buckle :( Basically I had to get First in Amateur or Novice, but since I got First in Novice at the first show, that knocked me into the Amateur division so I wasn't eligible to win Novice. Bummer... I ended up with an overall score of third in Amateur. So close! The lady that won the Amateur division definitely deserved it though. She's a good friend that I've known through JF for years. An older lady with two horses who does natural horsemanship/classical dressage (albeit western) and takes her time with her horses. She did a very good job with her horse Champ, even doing some obstacles that no one else was able to complete! And she's been competing in the trail competitions for as long as they've been going on and has never won a buckle.... So I guess I can gracefully concede the victory to her, seeing as I have 5 horse belt buckles ;)

In other news, I finally got my new dressage show breeches! I've been hemming and hawing over what to get and then ultimately decided my budget ($150) wasn't large enough to allow a purchase of what I really wanted and I didn't want to spend money on something I didn't completely love. Along comes ebay... I've been searching forever for the "right pair" to come up cheap enough. I found a pair of Tropical Rider breeches with the deerskin full seat, that I really liked. Higher waisted than I would have preferred... but for $40 I was sold! And then they came and the zipper was missing... Uh, yeah. Not in the description. But a quick trip to get it altered to have a new zipper put in, voila! New-ish. The seat is slightly stained from the saddle making it look gray, which is totally fine for me since I like white breeches with gray seats.

Then, the even cooler purchase... While perusing ebay I found a pair of Dove gray FITS for sale. Oooh, gorgeous! I liked them so much better than the white. Instant love. But they were the wrong size so I decided that I'd save up and buy them for myself when I had the money. But still casually perusing ebay I found a pair. Dove gray. In my size. Brand new! And in my price range :) And I won! I got myself some brand new FITS for $90.

Can you tell I'm in love with ebay? Two pairs of awesome breeches for under my original budget for one pair of breeches. Score!

In other pony news, I've talked to both Jazz and Tux's new owners and they're both doing well! I love so much to hear about them. I miss them both so much.

Tux's owner (older lady) was retiring in the spring and with all of that preparation didn't have time to ride so he got the whole spring off and just hung out in the pasture. Which I'm totally sure was completely fine with him. I can only imagine how rotund he became ;) Then she fell and broke her wrist at the beginning of the summer. So obviously no riding. But once she was almost healed she sent him off to "school" with her sister, a dressage trainer, and he's now getting ridden 5 times a week, 3 of those being trainer rides and he's doing really well it sounds like! She was telling me all about how he's now going in a KK Sprenger snaffle (vs the Myler) and seems to like it better and it really starting to reach down and out for the bit. What a good pony. I really hope she gets him going well and maybe shows him. Or she offered to let me come stay with her in Washington for a long weekend and visit with him/take some lessons with her sister. Um, yes please!

Then with Jazz I talked to the mom of her little girl and it sounds like things are going perfectly and that they love her. I was stalking pictures and someone commented on a pic of Jazz that they wanted to come learn to ride and Jazz's owner was telling the person how amazing their daughter's horse is and that she's "trained to the nine's" and would be perfect for them to ride. Cue proud mom moment! Then the lady that won the trail competition that I commented about above? She went riding at Elijah Bristow park where Jazz lives close to and was talking to this random lady riding a black mare... And the lady was saying how her horse has done everything - trail competitions, etc. And my friend looked at the horse and said "Hm, is your horse's name Jazz??" And it was! So I have from a second source that Jazz is looking good :)

So happy. I always worry when I sell a horse.

And the most exciting of all exciting updates? ENDURANCE RIDE THIS SATURDAY. Gosh, I'm so excited! Everything just fell together absolutely perfectly. I wasn't going to do this ride even though at the beginning of the year I was definitely planning on it just because they're were other events this weekend so I decided to do those instead. But as it got closer, I decided screw it, I haven't gotten in my goal of doing an endurance ride this year and this is the second to last ride and it's PERFECT so let's do it! Of course I decided this about a week and a half ago... Queen of procrastination I tell you.

This meant that I needed to find some way to contain Jetta overnight at the ride since I don't have anything. I talked to JF whose hubby sells portable corrals to see if I could borrow a set. Score! I went and picked them up last night. Her hubby was helping me load them and asked what the event was. I told him I was going to try out endurance. He used to do endurance a long time ago. His comment "Well if I had known that these panels were for such a worthy cause!" He does just cow stuff now and I honestly can't imagine him doing endurance but it sounds like he really loved it. He still has one of his endurance Arabs, an old grumpy guy named Lone Star. He gave me a few tips and wished me luck!

Then about a week ago I was perusing the local endurance FB page and found a thread about trail conditions at the ride. The general consensus was that it was so rocky that you needed to either boot all around or shoe with pads all around. Geez. And guess what? I only have front boots. Crap. Frantic search for boots led to the discovery that no where local stocks easyboots in my size and my farrier only had boots that were too big or too small. Last minute I finally found a place that could order boots in and have them in by Friday for me to pick up. Win! I went and picked them up this afternoon. Let us pray that they fit well...

Now just to go to my last class of the day then gather up all the last minute randomness needed for this weekend! I CANNOT WAIT. I am just too excited right now!