Now that the pressure of the PPE is gone, I seem to be able to focus on my thesis again, so I’ve been deep in thesis-mode. Oddly, writing/coding/analysing/graphics forming for my thesis does not lend itself to lots of blogging time, as somehow when I give myself a break from thesis all I want to do is play solitaire on my phone. With any luck the chapter will be done in two days and I’ll get a tiny respite in time for Derby Day this weekend!!
Murray and I had a lovely ride Sunday, wherein I popped him over a few tiny jumps and two-pointed around and generally felt unbalanced and floppy. I haven’t ridden in my jump saddle in close to two weeks, so that was definitely not helpful. I will need to spend some time reacquainting myself with my correct two point position and strengthening my legs again. Then, my friend and I switched ponies and I jumped her 25 year old paint mare (yes, a 25 year old paint pony who is KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES, she is amazing) and she jumped Murray. Apache, said paint mare, was hysterical and very sleepy, but perked up quite a bit as we headed to the fences. I have mad respect for this friend since Apache, despite her many years of training, is a super tough ride. Give me my skinny little thoroughbred any day!
25 year old mare cannot be stopped!! Beast mode engage!
Murray was angelic for my friend. She was a little worried about antics, but he too was pretty sleepy/mellow, and I told her just to keep her leg on to the fences and be soft with her hands and he’d go over anything. Which he did. It was awesome. I’ve been wanting to see someone else jump Murray for quite a while, and this definitely fulfilled my hopes and dreams — he is just as quiet and perfect with others as with me!
I spent rather more time than I should have this weekend planting my garden at the barn. Isn’t it magnificent?
What do you mean you can’t see barely any of my 6″ seedlings that I put into ground carefully and lovingly fertilized with shavings and horse manure?!! It’s true it’s a little disappointing now, but I’m hoping things will pick up fast now that they’re in the ground for real. I’ve been plotting this garden (see what I did there?) for months, painstakingly started and lost many seedlings, and now that they’re in the ground I’m filled with happy!! It’s a bit more spread out than it should be, but I’ll fill in the gaps with greens (chard and kale, I think) and herbs (basil everywhere, also dill and cilantro, and probs some parsley), and carrots, beets, and even probably some pepper plants. None of my pepper starts worked — they all just failed to thrive. Peppers are bitches.
I also made this epic lasagna. It was stuffed with meatballs. It’s kindof a process, but it was one hundred percent worth it. You can find the recipe here. The pictures alone are worth looking at on that article.
Worth every cheesy, meaty, saucy bite.
Food comforts me when I’m deep in thesis. Don’t judge me.
Monday a friend and I went over to our trainer’s house to play with some ottb projects and pick one for her to bring over to our main barn to work with for a few weeks. Very upsettingly, when her gorgeous chestnut had his ultrasound at our joint-PPE (we scheduled them for the same time to give moral support to one another), we found out that the “suspensory strain” that had been reported was actually a giant, whopping, devastatingly huge and unhealed suspensory tear. So Ronin is not jumping or even in work any longer, and is going to rehab at trainer’s place for a while (thus us bringing over a different project to take his place.) We are all really upset by this, as it means we were lied to by his track trainer (they either never imaged, which they claimed they did, or didn’t disclose to us what they did find) and Ronin had really become part of our lives in his short time in training. Very upsetting.
Comforted by adorable baby thoroughbred faces. This guy, Cory, is my fave, and I can’t wait to spend some more time playing with him this summer!
So that’s life right now. This week, we’re back to real work with Mr. Horse and have both a jump and dressage lesson scheduled. I knew as soon as I had those awesome dressage rides on Murray that I had to get into a lesson to capture/check in on it, so we will see if that lifted-back-pushing-from-behind pony shows up again. Jump lesson also scheduled, and I’m hoping I keep it together a bit better than my last jump lesson.
Zen and the Art of Baby Horse Management 