Down to the Wire

Whew.

It's been a whirlwind of a week, but it's almost over now.

The horses are currently en route to New Jersey. Heather stopped overnight in Illinois and texted us that they each had huge 20 x 24 stalls to stretch their legs in, so that's great. They left yesterday morning, so it's a very long drive. Dante will probably lose some weight on the trip, but I planned for that and we managed to actually make him slightly over on his condition. He left Texas probably a 4.75 and he'll probably arrive in Jersey as a 4.25, all muscle and no fat. Perfect for carting my butt around a nine minute course.

(Dante shows off his fancy new earnet during our last trot set.)

He was pretty good last week, but we weren't quite clicking in the dressage on the final day. That's okay; everyone has off days. Hopefully we had our off day and now we will be completely on for Friday's dressage test. He was awesome jumping (although I made a few mistakes) but I'm confident that we will have a great show jumping round. The goal is to finally have a clear round at this level! Then, on the track on Saturday, we did sprints down the long side of the track. He was okay for the first couple sprints of each set, but every time Maisie crept up on his side, he'd get mad and grab the bit and haul off with me. By the end, he was genuinely running away with me down the long sides, which was a new experience for me (with this horse anyways). I'm thinking that in the future it would be a better idea for us to do sprints by ourselves..... Silly thoroughbreds.

After the gallop on Saturday morning, the vets came out and Dr. Anderson watched Dante jog up. He loved his condition, said it was the best he'd ever looked, and pronounced his front end sounder than ever. (We've had problems with Dante's feet before.) The hind end, while completely sound, seemed to have some stiffness, so we decided to have Dr. Willard perform acupuncture. That's a new one for Dante and me and I was fascinate as the wires were hooked up all over them. Dante seemed to fall asleep in the crossties during his session, so I know he was enjoying it! When I get to Jersey, I'm going to find the masseuse and Dante will get daily massages to keep that hind end loose. I've also got my Back on Track sheet ready to use, and Heather brought the Equissager and the magnetic therapy blanket, so Dante will get a turn in all of those.

(The lad falls asleep during the acupuncture session. The vet's assistant was joking about how 'crazy' he was.)

On the home front, I've merely got four finals until I am boarding a plane for Jersey early Wednesday morning. Two today (Monday) and two tomorrow, then I'm done! I still need to do laundry, pack, and dye my hair on top of studying, but it'll all happen. I'd rather take a final than study for it, so most of the painful parts are over now. Then my flight leaves DFW at 6 am, meaning I'll probably have to wake up at about 3:30 am to go to the airport, but I arrive in Philadelphia at 10:30 am and it's only a quick 1 hour drive to the horse park!

Jersey Fresh, here comes Area V. Are you ready?