This is part 16 of Jenny’s adventure as a working student and EN guest blogger. Jenny has ambitiously decided to spend the next year as a working student in Lexington, Kentucky. Thanks very much as always for writing this Jenny and thank you for reading.
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From Jenny:
Hello Eventing Nation!
Forgive me for not updating in a while, and I apologize for any typos. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned this but the life of a working student allows ample time for riding, plenty of time for barn chores, a good amount of time for drinking coffee, a wee bit of time for sleeping, and then whatever time is left is lost reading EN. Therefore, I must give up one of these tasks to update you all on my life, and today it was sleep! After my last post I was left to run the farm while Megan and Andrea went to River Glen, so it was up to Dr. Newton and I (more just Dr. N–I just held the mare) to breed one of the hardest-to-catch broodmares. Luckily, Dr. Newton is a veterinary god and got the job done, and while our pregnant mares are about to start foaling, we now have one just beginning to cook in the oven!
When the entire state of Kentucky was hiding from the multiple tornado warnings we had a few weeks ago, Megan, Andrea and I were primping ourselves (conveniently the bathroom is also our tornado shelter) and getting ready for a day at the races with one of our lovely clients. We were ever so hopeful that the storms would subside by the time we were done molding our hair and painting our faces in an attempt to look like real ladies instead of barn rats! The sirens turned off just in time for us to get to Keeneland to spend an afternoon watching what our state is known for, courtesy of a lovely boarder here at CEO. Our fun week continued into Rolex where I learned that in the future I am not allowed to bring any form of credit card. Aside from selling my soul for that cute pink crop and tan full seats, that I didn’t need, and pimping it out at 5mph on the Range Rover course, I managed to catch everyone’s dressage and xc rides. A competition filled with a very impressive bunch of both horses and riders, I left that weekend slightly obsessed with Coleen Rutledge’s mount Shiraz after watching them tackle the xc with fierce determination. That is one horse I would LOVE to gallop on!
The weekend following Rolex, Megan rode in some clinics with Jimmy Wofford and Robin Walker, so Andrea we lucky to be able to tag along and audit. Clinics are amazing, especially when the riders are working on some of the same things as you, because you get to see it and hear feedback about it and then correlate that to what you feel when riding yourself. After watching a full day of xc clinics on Sunday, Andrea and I were busting to go school ourselves, so Megan took us out with our own horses. Much to my surprise (mostly because the last time I schooled Molson at Flying Cross we had some issues of who exactly was in control), Molson was the best he has ever been and we had by far the best schooling to date! I don’t know if it was hanging out back at the trailer with Megan’s advance horse or what, but it was as if he grew up over night and decided we weren’t going to fight anymore, and he was just going to trust me completely. We schooled all the available training questions and some prelim jumps, and he did not think twice about any of the water and coffin routes. My little man is growing up!
This week is predicted to be a wet one which is no longer a shocker in these parts, but with a bunch of foals on the way, I’m sure we will be plenty busy while we give the ground some time to dry out to do our trot/gallop sets. Next week we are off to Ohio for Greater Dayton HT, and then it’s May Daze at the KHP! I am also excited because Megan has made me her assistant instructor, so I get to promote the pony fever in young impressionable children (while I become a parent’s worst nightmare because I have hooked them into a sport that is often associated with money pits…) That’s how we all got hooked, right?
Go pony fever!
xo, Jenny
