A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

This week has gone by in a bit of a blur, though part of that may be lack of sleep. With Mike and Heather gone to Rolex (more on that later), Dante and I were on our own. I think we had a pretty good week, with a 2 x 30 trot set on Thursday, two dressage schoolings on Wednesday and Friday, a jump school and a 1 x 20 trot set on Saturday, and a wonderful 3 x 8 gallop this morning in the only rain-free hour of the day we have had here. Seriously, it has been raining all the live long day. Not just raining, but monsooning and hailing. We need the rain desperately though. While it rained quite a lot last Sunday and Monday, by yesterday the ground was hard again. Then it rained again overnight and stopped right when I woke up this morning and we got a good gallop in on perfect ground before the lightning came back.

(The best weather that Gold Chip saw all day.)

And of course, I have spent the last four days watching Rolex and it has been awesome. I am so awed by the talent of the Brits; seems like they are out for a lark instead of winning a four star. Tiana's test was lovely, and although she had an unfortunate test cross country, I thought that they were the mistakes of a green pair, and definitely looked capable of tackling another four star course. I have no doubt we'll see them again next year, probably winning the whole thing this time. I was in love with Hannah Sue's cross country ride on St. Barths, who made easy work of the deceivingly difficult course. And I nearly cried along with Sinead (and probably everyone watching) after her clear show jumping round that moved her up to the podium at her first Rolex. So proud of our young up-and-comers!

And of course, I am incredibly happy for my assistant trainer Heather Morris, who completed her first Rolex this weekend with the talented Slate River. Her dressage test was poised, Roe looked like a machine on cross country, and her show jumping round was perfect. Go Heather and Roe!

Of course, now I get to compete against Heather's two star ride, Sportsfield Maisie Grey at Jersey. :-)

Oh, and up next: the week from hell. I have one week of classes left and two days of finals. Here's my to-do list, for both packing and classes:

1. Machine Design test tomorrow
2. 20 page Machine Design group paper due tomorrow
3. Machine Design presentation on Wed
4. Two Heat Transfer homeworks due
5. Paper for Thermal Projects due
   
6. One pre-lab and one post-lab for Lab II
7. Two chapters of Machine Design to read
8. Four chapters of Marketing to read
9. Several sections of Heat Transfer to read
10. Study for four finals packed into two days
    
11. Four finals next Monday and Tuesday
12. Pack for Jersey, both horse and rider
13. Clip Dante: face, poll, feet, legs, tail
14. Go to Dover and look for new breeches and a jog chain
15. Accessorize jog outfit
16. Go to the laundromat and wash Dante's XC boots
17. Dye my hair
    

Hmmm....maybe that's not so bad now that I've written it all down....