It started a show weekend like any other. We drove to Williamston, no muss, no fuss. Horses worked great. We won a bunch of stuff (Pony Team, Pony Individual, Junior Individual, Junior Freestyle, Young Rider Team, Young Rider Individual, and two rounds of Developing Prix St. Georges, including a 70.588% in the USEF Qualifier, so yay Fender and yay Team Sprieser girls, woohoo!). It rained, even though when we'd checked the weather on Thursday morning it was calling for a gorgeous weekend. But we dodged raindrops, loaded up, and hit the road.

My last week in Florida was a blur. I showed Fender at the lovely little White Fences show right around the corner from our winter home, where he had one Rather Naughty moment on the first day, and then was Quite Spectacular With Unlucky Mistakes on the second, and on the whole I'm pleased as punch that a) my not-yet-8-year-old is fancy, and that b) my not-yet-8-year-old is still just a bit wicked. It means there's a spicy international horse in there. I like it.

A student recently took an unplanned departure off her horse. She was up and about fairly quickly, but made a few wrong guesses at the name of the current President, and so got the pleasure of an ambulance trip to the local hospital for a CAT scan.

Normally I stay in Florida until around April 1. It gets me home a week or so before the first horse show at Morven Park, so I can see the riders heading to that show once or twice before we go. Usually by then the weather has cheered up in Virginia, and while that's mostly about me not wanting to freeze my ass off, it is also a little bit about wanting the transition to be less awful on the horses. A 40* temperature change is bound to happen either way, but waiting until 4/1 usually means going from 90* in Florida to 50* at home, which isn't so bad.

I keep my horses in the White Fences subdivision, a dressage-focused enclave in Loxahatchee, Fla., Wellington's northwestern neighbor, for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is that Michael's farm is here - in fact, this year I was at the farm right next-door, and I hope to return here next season. White Fences is also safe and quiet, a lovely reprieve from the hustle and chaos of Wellington proper. We can take the horses out for a quiet hack around the circle and not be worried about traffic or road crossings.