Puzzling Questions Answered

So... they can explain the inner workings of the teenaged mind, but still can't tell us why the dressage arena letters are arranged as they are!?!?!?!

I'm excited. Creek Hollow Ranch is having a dressage SHOW, not just a breed show, for their May show date. That means that Tequila's daughter, Pik's Promise, will have her SHOW DEBUT. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day! (Well, actually, anyone who has bred a horse and waited those 11 anxious months of a mare's pregnancy, then the three interminably long years for the foal to grow up, then watched while she was started under saddle... and paced while the young horse went through her own pregnancy and waited while she got fit again, then had a heart attack when she injured herself and had to have stitches under general anesthesia, but sighed with relief when the injury wasn't as bad as it looked, then waited patiently for her to heal and get fit again, and then waited for there FINALLY to be a show that was appropriate does probably understand. It's been a long time coming!)

Birthe will show her for me. Plans are to enter her in the Materiale Class and at Training Level. She is going well, is super-balanced and doing work far beyond Training Level, but it will be her first show--and her first time working away from home--so we'd like Birthe to be able to focus on making it a good experience for her and not on preparing her for the movements. We'll worry about what test she really ought to be showing at some point in the future. I'd like for her to get a lot of show experience this year with Birthe before I start riding her this Fall and showing her in the 2008 season.

Meanwhile, I'm riding Facet and having a wonderful time. Between additional trips to the gym for me (my nephew, who's about halfway through a certificate program as a personal trainer, has been seeing that I work harder than I normally would and making sure that my workout is balanced--he supervises every repetition that I do and every second of my cardio, so I couldn't cheat if I wanted to!) and Facet's insistence that I ride absolutely correctly, things are coming along and I'm starting to feel like I CAN ride. (Facet was making me look pretty bad there for awhile because he was so diligent at pointint out my bad habits).

I'm even getting cocky enough to think about riding Endor (with his HUGE gaits) in another few weeks.