I’m a bad blogger. I went away for almost a week and didn’t even say goodbye. My only excuse is that I was busy because I didn’t plan ahead enough.
Thursday I went to Equine Affaire. It is a four day horse extravaganza. There is a huge vendors’ area, a big breed booth, and always at least 5 clinics going on at any given time. I always spend every bit of time they let me there but this year I had to pack it all into one day. I watched clinics on driving and creating a natural headset. I bought Prize a mint green western saddle pad. I’m just thrilled with this. Mint green western saddle pad. Just typing it makes me happy. This is such a deviation from my conservative english rider-ness. This pad is obnoxious enough to not be acceptable in the western show ring but it is fine for chasing cows. I stared for a long time at the matching mint green nylon bridle but wasn’t sure if I would actually go out in public with that. I finally talked myself out of it by realizing that as soon as I would buy a matching ensemble I would somehow ruin the pad and would never be able to find another one. Why mint green? Because Prize is a girly girl and pink would clash with her hair. Why else?
Friday morning I got at 4:45 AM to head to the airport to go to Louisiana for a trail ride. I ended up missing my connecting flight and had to hang out in Memphis for many hours. That made for some frantic calling trying to tell people that I was going to be late. The ride site doesn’t have good cell coverage so it was hard to get someone. I ended up about 8 hours late but it all worked out fine. I’m the judge so they can’t start without me. I worked really fast to get all the horses checked in Friday night. I think I may have set some kind of CTR record.
The weather was beautiful. It was in the 70s and not at all humid. I was walking around in a t-shirt. Of course all the native southerners were freezing and piling on the layers. I kept getting asked if there was snow at my house. I had to admit that it wasn’t that cold. I wish there was because it would have made me seem tough and exotic but it was pretty warm here too.
Now I’m off to ride Prize with her new mint green pad and work on her headset. Spending all weekend around riders always inspires me to do more with her. Hopefully she won’t be a totally jerk so I can continue to be enthused about working with her.
