Good days and bad times

Last week was an interesting one for sure.  I kept my rides super short (20-30 mins) due to time constraints outside of my control but Mia really seemed to excel with them.  Her canter has become less compact and a little more fluid while still maintaining some frame and throughness.  No bolting, giraffing, kicking, leaping or pulling, just decently soft and forward.  Wow what a nice change!  She was a little inconsistent in the contact but her trot was awesome and things came together in prep for our show on Sunday.  I signed up for the show thinking it was a HT and apparently it is a CT.  The difference is a CT has only dressage and stadium, I wouldn't have signed up to drive 2 hours for a dressage and stadium round.  Grr, oh well.  Money already sent!

On Friday, I had the saddle fitter out.  She came recommended by 3 people at the barn and wouldn't you know, she came out before County ever even contacted me back.  Well, they still haven't if you want to keep track, I am writing that lady off.  Not that I am bitter or anything.  I know one rep isn't indicative of a saddle brand but what a frustrating experience.  Anyway, I digressed.  The saddle fitter looked at my Stubben and said "Well, I can't say it doesn't fit her!" so that was good.  She said she loves these old Stubbens, it was made before regulations changed in 2005 when they had to change how leather was processed.  She said my old Stubben will well outlast my new saddle simply because of how leather is treated now and it is in very good condition.  The only thing it needs is a total reflock, but at $350. that is not much more than I am going to ask for the saddle when I sell it so will just keep on with my pads for now.

She loved my County though, she said several times that the Whippy panels make such awesome saddles.  She said the flocking is really lumpy and uneven in the panels, plus the right panel was overstuffed, no wonder it didn't fit well.  She took my saddle to do a total reflock (trivia - with wool from a place I visited several times in MI)  and I should get it back in the next couple of weeks.  She said she was 100% confident it will fit wonderfully, so we will see.  Kinda excited about it!  I haven't seen another CWD or County come up that matched so it isn't like I am swimming in options with my specific requirements.
 
On Saturday I had another really nice, short ride on Mia.  Just some w/t/c and a quick run through of the test.  She was on point and the only "issue" we had is after the freewalk, she wants to trot before it is time.  Mareface is starting to anticipate!  I went to load up my trailer and found the first issue.  The barn had moved the trailers the previous weekend to a new parking spot, apparently, it was enough for my tack rack to be ripped off of the wall.  All of my stuff was on the floor of the trailer in a heaping mess.  Argh!  At least it happened now instead of on my way to the show if it was going to break?  My 20 minutes till leaving turned into an hour as I had to arrange that mess.  I took half of my stuff and put it in my car while re-arranging the other half.  As I was about to leave, I figured I would jack up the tongue so I didn't have to do it in the am.  And the handle just spun.  Argh!!

I took the top off of the jack and the gears turned, but the jack didn't move.  The scissor jack in the car didn't go high enough so I had to wait 45 mins for SO to come and help me fix it.  He brought a floor jack and we got the trailer jack off and apart.  The outer sleeve was no longer attached to the inner sleeve (that goes up and down), the inner sleeve was no longer on the screw to make it go up and down.  After some finagling, we were able to get it to go up and down, but the inner sleeve now falls out because it isn't attached.  Zip ties ended up holding it in place while we went to the show.  I finally made it home almost 3 hours after I intended to.  Fail.

The show was the next am and went okay enough.  Mia was Ms Dreamy McAwesomepants in warmup guys.  So soft, so forward, so bendy, I had a thought that maybe we would break our personal best of 32!!!  For the show ring though, we had to go on top of a hill which overlooked warmup and had a nice view of everything and the wheels fell off the bus.  Mia could not stop looking around or pay attention.  Gone was my soft mare, in its place was a mare who was stiff, inconsistent on the contact, not stretching forward or down and who refused to bend.  Apparently, I should have warmed up in the grass by the ring before going in?  *sigh*  Horses.

Jumping went better, she came back to me when I asked which is AWESOME.  My position was AWESOME even if I didn't get her to the right distance on about a third of the jumps.  And even with her being quite forward, she listened to what I had to say.  AWESOME.  We had no penalties and ended up 4th.  Going home, we have to take a very narrow, very winding road.  With a truck coming the opposite direction, I miscalculated and curbed my trailer tire.  Which resulted in a flat.  Of course it did, what a way to end a weekend.  On the plus side, I had it fixed within the time it took for SO to get a cup of coffee, about 5 minutes.  Love that trailer aid, a must have in a trailer.

Now it is a month of down time until the possibility of our next show.  Following the trend of the summer, every weekend is currently booked up until the 2nd weekend of November.  Time to get some saddle time in, work on two point for 2pointober and fix my dang trailer.