A Note About This Blog

I used to be a writer. Unpublished, but a writer just the same. I have several 100,000 word novels sitting on my hard drive. Then I fell off a horse and got a concussion that scrambled my brains really good (yes, I was wearing a helmet.) After that forming a written sentence was very difficult for quite some time. It's still difficult, but at least now generally the sentence structure isn't egregiously flawed. Verbally and written wrong words pop in, I switch words around, and sometimes I make no sense at all. It isn't because I don't have knowledge of grammar and punctuation, but my brain simply can't do it sometimes. Reading this blog you're accepting that there's going to be things that look like typos or make no sense. It's not because I don't proofread, it's because my damaged brain doesn't see what's wrong. I try my best, but things will slip through. I don't need them pointed out, I know they're there, but if I continued to worry about them I wouldn't write at all. I didn't for quite some time. It's painful as a past master of words to use them so badly, but fortunately the words don't seem to mind.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

My very first event with a Letter ending

The plan had been to take Banana to Watermelon. But, with her trailering issue it seemed less than wise. They weren't going to give me a refund so I scrambled to find a mount. I found one, though he was green, known for being evil and hadn't been ridden in six months. But, we were just doing the 20" division. And, even if I brought him and scratched before we went into the dressage arena I was fine with that. He needs mileage anyway.

Introducing Quirky the Connemara




Our first ride was two weeks beforehand. He's not really evil, but is extremely sensitive and does not deal well with pressure. So, I added pressure really subtly and felt well about things 4 rides in. Then I got sick and we went to Watermelon with only those four rides.

He was absolutely super on the ground. I couldn't have been more happy with him. He gave me a lovely dressage test that should have gotten a better score than it did.

We went into stadium warmup and he was fine until other people started coming in. We popped over an xrail and he bucked on landing.  Next time he bucked three times and was getting very unhappy. I took him out of the arena so we could take the pressure off. When we went back in we walked over the xrail and then trotted it without incident. All of a sudden it was time for our round. We started to leave the ring and at the gate he completely lost it. Spinning, bucking and thinking about running back to the barn. When he stopped I got off and said, "I'm not riding this pony." I did end up getting back on him, going into the show arena and walking over an xrail, which he was back to his quiet self for.

We have several theories about his change in behavior and will work on those in the future. When everything was over for the day we turned him out in a spare arena, figuring he needed to roll, run and buck. He didn't do any of those things. He just stood next to me, his nose on my elbow. When I walked, he walked. When I trotted he trotted, when I stopped he stopped. We did serpentines and circles all over the place. He really likes me.

I'm going to keep riding him on a regular basis. His mom is one of my partners-in-crime so having an excuse to go ride with her isn't exactly painful :D

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