So as we all know eventing is the most predictable sport and career choice anyone could decide to devote their entire life to… predictable as in that you can guarantee that no matter what your plans and schedule are they are most definitely not going to go as planned. Luckily, the blip in my plan was pretty minor, at least for this week. Snooze was suppose to have his first outing at the Florida Horse Park in the intermediate this weekend but unfortunately he pulled a muscle in his back so I couldn’t put a saddle on him for a couple days, so then I did a frantic scramble to scratch him from there and enter him in the the preliminary at Rocking Horse on the Tuesday, which I never could have gotten done without the patience and understanding of the awesome event secretaries Jennifer Holling (who had to deal with me being a pretty big pain in the you know what all weekend since I was running 5 other horses) and Rick Dunkerton putting me into Rocking Horse at the last minute. I’m pretty sure event secretaries should get saint hood or knighted or maybe we should all just bring them a bottle of their favorite booze every once in awhile, because I sure know if it was me I would most definitely not answer my calls.
As for Snooze’s run at Rocking Horse, he was a pretty big brat for the dressage, but what can you do but laugh when you go to trot around the dressage ring and your 3* horse stops dead and snorts like an elephant at the letter K, sure haven’t ever seen a dressage ring before. But his changes were clean, even though they aren’t in the preliminary test…. minor details. The judges comments probably read something like “horse a bit green and tense today, with time and experience he may have potential for the future…” He was super in the show jumping and on cross country and I pulled him up after he got his feet wet at the water because I didn’t want to run him the whole track when he’s suppose to compete in the advanced at Pine Top in 10 days. The next fence judge was pretty confused when I pulled up petting my horse and telling him what a good boy he was,” um you know that’s not the finish right?”
I most definitely have to give a shout out to Kendal Lehari who busted her hump all weekend competing her own horse and coming back to the farm and keeping Snooze going while I was at the event, and to Annie Yaeger (she’s going to be soooo stoked to get two shout outs, she deserves them though), for being helper/groom at the show for Karen, Hannah, and myself all weekend. And of course Maximus Corcoran for all her help and for making sure I keep my sense of humor when Snooze tries to make a fool of me every chance he gets. And I most definitely can’t leave out KOC and DOC, I couldn’t do this without them, and my owners and sponsors and parents and friends and family….. We all know that it takes a huge team and a lot of support to get this done.
Snooze and I will be off to Pine Top with KOC next weekend with a trailerful and if everyone could just cross their fingers for no snow for us that would be super. Until then, stay tuned in the EN!
