Another weekend, another horse show. This one’s the VADA/Nova Spring Dressage at Morven Park in Leesburg, Va., less than 1½ hours from the farm, which is an easy commute.
Bad news for Midge, though—a few days ago he came down with some very puffy hind legs. This is not abnormal for him; as a chestnut with lots of chrome, he’s prone to skin stuff, creepy crud, scratches, bug bites, you name it. But the puffyness normally goes away within a day or two of wrapping and a careful scrub with Microtek, and this didn’t. I’m pretty confident it’s just a Big Skin Thing, but lest there’s something more sinister brewing, Midge is sitting this show out. It’s OK—he’s had wonky skin stuff in the spring before, and I built plenty of back-up into his competition schedule, so he can still get the scores he needs in plenty of time.
So it’s just Ella and Fender and I. It’s a crazy-packed horse show—they’re oversubscribed in stalls, so they had to take my tack stall away (life goes on), as it’s one of the first major qualifiers for the Young Horse championships. Those classes have dozens of entries. Fender is here just at training level again, as I wanted him to have one more confidence-builder outing before I up him to the 4-year-old tests.
While the weather for this show is normally cataclysmic, we must have done something good this winter (like suffer through 4 feet of snow, perhaps?) because it’s bright and shiny. Yesterday, though, it was windy as all get-out, and 30* cooler than the rest of the week, so Fender was FRESH. I lunged him and let him get his wiggles out, and then I had to ride a little more assertively than normal. He was awfully good considering and was a total star in the indoor arena, which is where he shows today. Fingers crossed that all the work I’ve done at home on getting his confidence in a smaller space will pay off.
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Ella was also really good. I have A PLAN for her that, so far, has reliably helped her peak with the right amount of suppleness and the right amount of energy to get through the two days of competition, and accordingly yesterday was a short schooling day—walk trot canter, the ones, and a little piaffe-passage. The piaffe is still not as quick as I want it, but it’s getting more and more reliable. In the five weeks between this show and the next one, I’m actually going to need to work more on the passage. She’s got TONS of talent for it, but I need to get her just a little stronger and more maleable in it. We have time.
The best part about Morven Park—there’s a Dunkin Donuts in Leesburg. At home, the nearest Dunky D’s is 45 minutes away! So I’m off for a bagel and a vanilla chai. Yum!
