Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Road Goes Ever On...And On And On.

The great trek to Florida has begun!


Well, for Dante at least. Unfortunately, I am still stuck in Denton until Wednesday afternoon, due to having to attend labs and classes this week. Lovely.

This past week has been kind of crazy thanks to the weather. Originally, we were supposed to spend Monday through Thursday jumping and doing dressage, then leave for Holly Hill on Saturday and school XC on Sunday. This is what Gold Chip has done for the past two years, and it works nicely, as it cuts four hours out of the trek to Florida.

Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate. While the weather was nice and beautiful on Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday the cold front came through and temperatures once again dropped to freezing overnight. We ended up riding dressage on Thursday (and it was cold thanks to the bitingly freezing wind!) and jumping on Friday. I had asked Mike if we could have a jump set on top of his little bank so that we could practice jumping over a jump with a big drop into the water. I haven't done any of these ever, and I have a feeling that we're going to be doing quite a few at Intermediate. Mike agreed, and so all of us practiced over the rolltop drop into the water, which turned out to be quite fun! I actually am excited to ride them now! However, before we could jump on Friday, Mike had to take the tractor to the water complex because the water was refusing to melt after freezing on Thursday! In any case, Dante was NOT a fan of the frigid water and showed his displeasure by bucking every time we exited the water.

We ended up canceling our trip to Holly Hill because they had gotten five inches of rain the previous weekend and then some more rain during the week. So instead, Mike and Heather left today from Texas with the horses. Dante rode in Heather's trailer because he behaves better in a slant load; this meant that he left at 5 am and will lay over in Tallahassee, FL before getting to Rocking Horse on Monday! I'll take off for Orlando Wednesday afternoon and get there at 10:15pm. So excited. Let the games begin!

2 comments:

  1. good luck at the shows maggie! i'll keep my fingers crossed for good dressage, and double clears :]

    -Meghan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I'll keep my fingers crossed too. :-)

    ReplyDelete