Okay guys... Funny is SO MUCH FRIGGIN' FUN!!!!!
Gosh I love this mare! She's making eventing fun again. And it also helps that I have an awesome team. I adore Galloway Eventing too!
After much prayerful consideration and talking with some sisters in Christ... I decided that I was going to go horse show at Chatt Hills this weekend and not go to Peri's Celebration of Life. I... just... couldn't handle it. And maybe I could have... maybe I should have but... I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's selfish... or self absorbed... or maybe it's an easy "out" because I don't have to face it... but I didn't go. And I could have done both. But.. I didn't. And I may regret it later. But I celebrated Peri this weekend in my own way. I talked about her... a lot. I wore turqoise in her memory. And... I had fun! It reminded of fun horse shows with her. I do so very much adore this team. Jacel has been amazing in so many ways... I'm so grateful for her friendship and her training. And the rest of the group is lovely and fun and helpful. We're such an encouraging and supportive group. I had fun. And I needed that. Oh, how I needed that.
We signed up to show and stable overnight. Luckily it was a Sunday show vs a Saturday show (although perhaps Saturday would have been better!) so I didn't have to move patients around. I was able to pack Saturday morning and the Funny and I hit the road. We got there and got settled and she wasn't too terribly upset. I got there early enough to get her all set up and even got my trailer hook up and got the AC running! It was so hot! Like... 86 degrees and humid hot!! She had her fan going too, which meant I was deaf and couldn't hear anyone. :) Ha ha! Too much shockwaving and motorcycle riding. And being old. ;) And maybe all those "rock" concerts as a high schooler.
We got tacked up and headed down to school cross country with Laura and Julia. Julia was running BN with me and Laura was running novice. This was Fun's first Beginner Novice, although I'm pretty sure she schooled the entire BN course at Poplar when we ran starter. But... this course was the BN Olmpics!! I think Chatt typically tends to run as really hard courses, but the last show I felt like their starter course was so small and easy. However, they basically left the course set from their recognized show the weekend before, so... a legit course!! I had sort of panicked after lookang the fences on the website because... those were some big wide tables!!! Eeeks. But I should have known better! Funny didn't give a damn. She was amazing!!!
We got to warm up and trotted the baby log, then the starter coop and then cantered the beginner novice log. I had to redo it because I gave her no direction or help and she jumped it but it was sloppy and disorganized. In typical Chatt fashion, the first fence was the darn hanging log over the wide tall base. Funny jumped it just fine but huge. Like... really basculed up and open! The second fence was an upright coop, which she also jumped like it was 4' high! Fence 3 was a big wide table with two tone orange and yellow diagonal lines on it. Laura went first and Smarty refused it, then refused the BN one, and then she got him over it. So I asked Jacel if I could do the starter fence first, which was colored similarly. She said that was fine and Funny jumped it like it was no big deal so we circled around and she just launched over the big one like it was nothing. Okay girl! The next fence was a simple cabin but Jacel told us to not take it for granted. Laura and Smarty went first and then sort of disappeared behind the hill. Then Julia and Player went and were way on the other side. Funny was a little distracted and as we came up to it, Smarty popped back into view and I knew she wasn't going to jump it. She had no clue I was aiming her at it. She was too busy looking at Smarty so we did a fly by. Whoops. My fault! I didn't insist or keep her attention. So we circled and she jumped it just fine. Then the course went through the treeline into the next field and just as you came through the fenceline you did a hard left turn to the fences. Player and Funny were both getting a little herd bound so when Laura and Smarty went and disappeared from sight, Julia got a little worried and asked if she could go so Player didn't dump her. Well... sure, except Funny is also trying to dump me, but you go right ahead. I almost argued with her but didn't. So she disappeared and at that point Funny was threatening to rear and bolt so I just let her go. She didn't bolt but cantered strongly and we came through the tree line and jumped the cabin. Except... we jumped the novice cabin! Ha ha! No wonder if felt like she jumped it big! Jacel was laughing at me because she thought I was chickening out and jumping the little starter cabin instead. Nope! And I didn't do it on purpose. I was mostly just trying to not get bucked off. ;) Although the line was tighter and tougher to the BN cabin. But oh well. Once we got back in the open field and Funny could see everyone she stopped being so fussy being last to jump each fence.
The next three fences we did in a combo. It was a HUGE table. Okay.. not huge... but it was wide and had the open bottom. Then you went to another cabin, then downhill on a slight bendy line to another cabin. Jacel told us to gallop the big table... then serious half halt to balance for the combo. She told me to trot if I needed to but NOT to suck back at the big table in an effort to avoid having to trot after. And Funny nailed it!! She was so ridable and good and even read the distance to the final fence! She's getting so smart about that! Whoo hooo!! The next fence was the winged fence. I did let her walk up to it and see it but I'm not sure she even gave it a second glance. And of course she just sailed right over it. In retrospect, I think Danny and I struggled with that fence a lot. Although that day was the day he was hurting and shut down and wouldn't even jump a tiny log after. But I had a little ptsd about that fence. Funny was like "I don't care.. it's fine, I've got it, I'm not scared". Thanks baby girl. Then there was the blue circus tent jump, to a log stack, then something else, then the water, then another little log stack after the water. We did that whole combo and I didn't walk Funny through the water first. Of course the water wasn't full so it was easier. But she nailed that whole line. Jacel told us that there was an add at the jump after the water. She looked at me and Funny and repeated "There is an add" about 4 times. Ha ha. Okay, okay!!! Funny broke to a trot in the water and then picked up a nice small canter a few strides out and didn't jump long. Yahoo.
Then the next fence was knocked off balance but was just a nice coopy/cabin so we skipped it. The second to last fence on course was the big wide table that usually has grass on top. Funny didn't even give it a second thought! Then we popped over the last fence which was a tiny log and she practically tripped over it. But she didn't take a flyer so yay for that. Oh, and while we were waiting on Laura to jump her combo fences, I walked her over the ditch and she thought hard about it twice but then went. So yay!! It was a fun course but had some good questions and had some good solid big tables, which is my bugaboo! Although apparently not so much on FuFu. Because... as Jacel said "Um... your horse just made that course her biotch". ha ha. Yeah she did!
We hacked back up to the barns and I gave Funny a bath. Then we grazed them a little bit and cleaned tack and then fed them. She was doing okay... she ate a little bit of her dinner and had some hay. She only drank a tiny bit though. We had fun at dinner... Mexican. Which took forever! And by then I had a raging migraine. To the point I thought I might vomit. Even at dinner. But luckily the two Dr. Peppers and maxalt eventually kicked in and I felt fine by the end of dinner. Which was a good thing because I had to drive us back to the barn. Jacel was slightly tipsy. We were cracking up because she drives like a 90 year old grandma with her seat. I was like "I'll drive but I'm not sitting that close to your steering wheel"! Ha ha. We got back to the barn and I was cleaning stalls and doing bed checks on Funny, Smarty and Player and Mackenzie walked up with her helmet on. She was pretty drunk because she drank two margarita's that were pretty big and the second one was super strong. I was like "You're that drunk huh? Safety first". hee hee. She then said that she was going to hop on Piper and ride, because she was sad because she didn't have a horse at the horse show. She was coaching a student and supporting her mom and sister. So she vaulted on Piper. I declined to join her. But then next thing I know Jacel is on Willow and she was like "Helmet up and hop on and join us". Well...... okay!! Ha ha. So I grabbed Funny, put on her bridle, and hopped on bareback. I had a brief thought of "this might be the first time I've barebacked her" but then duh.... I've ridden her bareback a TON. Usually just with the bareback pad though. She was a little wiggly and twice I thought she might wiggle me off, but... we all stayed on. We just walked around in the dark. It was fun. Hee hee. I miss shenaniganing. :) We did a loop or two around the barns and then put the ponies back up. I finished stalls and kissed Funny good night and went to bed. Except I don't think I really slept until about 5:15. That's the perils of using Dr. Pepper to get rid of a migraine.
I woke up early and got Smarty and Funny their gastrogard. Yuck! Funny was not a fan. I took her out to graze for a tiny bit but she was amped up and mad. I was trying to get sunrise photos and she reared STRAIGHT UP in the air! I'm so mad I didn't take a picture but she didn't stay up there very long. Luckily she is very respectful of the lead rope and didn't try to get away from me. Unlike her brother.... ;) She behaved mostly after that and then Laura and Julia showed up so I fed Funny and cleaned her stall. She really hadn't drank much at all. Only 1/8 of a bucket since we arrived. :( And I'm not sure that was from her drinking.. maybe she just bumped her bucket and splashed some out. But she had pooped and she ate most of her dinner from the night before. So... not much more I could do. I didn't ride until 11:21 so I had a lot of time to kill. We walked them again and let them graze some. I biked XC again. We walked stadium. It looked like a fun course! And then, I actually ate something. I decided I needed caffeine so I got an iced lavendar latte.. ha ha. Such a white girl drink. Then I got a cinnamon donut, which was probably a very bad choice, and one of those fruit chia bars. I'm proud of me for eating.
Then it was finally time to get tacked up. I got on a little earlier than I meant to but it actually worked out perfectly because my ring was ready a bit earlier. We walked to the warm up arena and Funny was pretty good in there. She only squirted sideways once because someone on the rail cleared their throat. And then she only got sassy one other time when there was a bit of a slightly near collision. Even Jacel was like "she's handling this really well!" And our homework paid off because she was so good! She was happy to go in the underpaced tempo we had set as the expectation. She was soft in the bridle and even reaching for the bit some. She was a bit stiff laterally so we started doing some serpentines and riding her body. And it helped! She's still stiffer bending left but we got some nice work. We headed down to the arena and watched some young baby horse lose his mind in the arena. His rider did a great job being kind and sticking with it but there was rearing, backing, extra circles, etc. I was grateful to go next because I thought "oh hey.. maybe we won't look so unsubmissive after that"! ha ha. But then a cute lovely little gray went next instead of us and put in a very professional and harmonious and steady test. Well darn. Ha ha. Funny was just hanging out and watching and grazing and so we just let her. It was good for her to learn to relax in the show environment. Plus, she tends to build and escalate so letting her go back to zero wasn't a bad thing.
We went in for our test and she was lovely!! She mostly kept her tempo and if she got a little quick, she responded to a nice half halt. She was mostly on a very light contact and even reaching for the bit a tiny bit. She did pick up the wrong lead in the first canter, the left canter, because of me. I KNEW I shouldn't have asked her for it yet because I could tell she was counterbent and not ready but I did... and she picked up the wrong lead but immediately swapped to the correct one. So we got a 4 for that. Then she always braces and inverts in the walk to trot on the left bend, so we got nailed for that. But our free walk got an 8!! It should have! It was awesome. Well, she lost it a little at the end, so an 8 was generous but it was lovely! What a free walk should be. I was actually thinking to myself... I'm so proud of her although I couldn't help but be a little disappointed she wasn't more of a dragon... ha ha. I'm not right! And then as we made our turn down centerline, she kicked out. Ha ha. There it is! She even halted pretty nicely though the judge said she wasn't immobile. GOOD PONY! Later, when I finally got my test, the comment was "pretty horse but frame was too elongated". Which... made my absolute day!!! Because.. it should be. She should be elongated. It's beginner novice. She's just learning contact. And after poor Dan... I want my horses to reach forward, down and out with their necks.. not get crunched back into their chests. Like.. YAY!!! She might have been trying to insult me but she gave me the best compliment!! She'll shorten her frame on her own when she's strong enough. Like a classical dressage horse!! :) :) And I didn't see any "fussy" comments or comments about her chomping. Though she was chomping. She did mention the incosistent contact a time or two, which it was. But overall, such a much better and more pleasing test! I'm so proud. We ended up with a 38.7, which is way better than it could have been. And I know she won't score well yet. She's underpaced so she's not going to look fancy. She's still tense/nervous enough that it won't look pleasant and harmonious yet. But I'm good with that. It's a process. So after our test I got off and let her graze while we watched Smarty's test, which was lovely!! His was fancy and harmonious.
The weather was much more pleasant today (until it wasn't). It was overcast and there was a nice lovely breeze so I just sponged off her girth and back and then let her go to her stall. We walked stadium and then hung out until it was time to get ready to jump. And then.... the winds starting picking up and we all started getting tornado watch warnings on our phones. Ugh. Then it got darker and they put a hold on the show. They timed it perfectly because just after most of the horses left the arenas and made it back to the barn, the skies opened up. We all huddled into the little cubby hole between the stalls but it was POURING with heavy winds and lots of thunder and lightning. The wind was blowing the rain in on us and it was flooding the low areas pretty quickly. Ugh... The scary part only lasted about 15 minutes but then it kept storming so they kept adding 30 min delays. With the rain letting up, we all started slowly packing up stuff, hoping we could still jump. But sadly it was not to be. They ended up cancelling the show. Sigh... I sooooo wanted to jump that stadium course, which looked HUGE by the way because they had set it up just before the rains hit. Darnit. Ugh.. oh well.
We loaded up and headed home and it was bad. There was pine needles all over the road. And then... holy cow, God had his angels out there for me! I wasn't driving that fast because of the weather and turns but I came around a turn and there was half a tree in half of my lane. Luckily it was just the tree tops but it was taking up half the lane. I knew I couldn't stop my rig in time without jack knifing it or doing something horrible but there was another car coming in the other lane that was going to hit that spot just about the same time I did. I didn't know what else to do so I crept over into the other lane as far as I dared and thank you God for directing that other driver over as far as they could. I hit the edges of the tree hard and it made a scary thunk but Funny was still standing and the truck was still going and we didn't slide off the road or hit the other car. THANK YOU GOD!!! My side mirror was tipped so once I got to a safe spot I pulled over and checked. I didn't see any damage but I only peeked quickly. I righted the mirror and got back on the road. It continued to rain and hard so I never really got above 55 mph even on the interstate. But we made it home safe and sound and Funny immediately ran out and joined the herd. They came in for dinner shivering so I put a cooler on her and made them all stay in for about an hour to dry so I could put sheets back on. It's supposed to rain for the next 24 hours. She had eaten 3/4 of her dinner so yay and when I turned them back out she went and got a big long drink and then went to grazing the wet grass, so I felt better.
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