This was an invitation only hunter show. Only the best riders from our immediate area were allowed to compete, and Opie and I were lucky enough to be included. HA, I kid. OBVIOUSLY. The only reason we would ever get invited to anything is for entertainment value. Like the court jester. Sign us up for that job. a very regimented group of hunter princesses. clearly. It was, however, essentially a closed show. Our barn and the barn directly behind us got together and were like, "We're gluttons for punishment hard work and general mayhem--let's put on a hunter show for all our riders to wra ..read more

Pole jumping: Not to be confused with its demon cousin log jumping: Dopie has been getting his arena jumping learn on as we gear up for the last show of the year--a hunter show! You guys know I love me a good frolic through the land of fifteen warm ups and sideline coaching. Are we good at it? Fuck no! Do I have any shame whatsoever? Also fuck no! only here to dress my horse up in his cute hunter gear But in true Carly fashion, we have yet to work through a full course or even set lines. Nah, bitches. We've been gymnasticizing (Is that not a real word?) our way through the learning ..read more

I mentioned in my last post that I had two hunter paces coming up, and that they were on the Fun list. You guys. Last weekend we did one of those paces. It was not fun. The last time I did this particular pace was a few years ago in the spring with Bobby. I remember it being a lot of fun because of its level of difficulty. It's run by the local hunt club and is therefore run over hunt country--big, open sprawling fields into hilly forests with Novice sized coops in every fence line. That was a shit ton of fun with Bobby who had been eventing for years at that point and was too stupid to say ..read more

I was so super bummed when my toe got squished into a million pieces and filled my shoe with an ocean of blood. AND I'M NOT EVEN BEING DRAMATIC ABOUT THAT REENACTMENT. I had one more show left that I really wanted to do, but I had managed to get enough scores to submit for year end awards anyway. The biggest disappointment was that it put me out of commission for the most fun time of the year--hunter pace season! I ended up missing two of those and a scheduled cross country school, but through perseverance refusal to stay off my horse, a month and a half later I've managed to cram my foot i ..read more

Would you guys be surprised to hear that there has been riding going on besides shows? For fuck's sake, I feel like that's all I bothered blogging about this summer. Then a horse tried to remove my toe from my foot, and I couldn't even write about that anymore! Blogging has turned into a bit of a bummer for me this year though. I'm in a very weird head space where I enjoy interacting with with people through social media...except when I don't. I feel like I'm a very OK rider, and I am so completely happy being a very OK rider. I also feel like that's not an okay thing around these parts. I'm ..read more

Still here, still stumping around! The cut on my toe is healing up really well, the nail is still somehow attached (during my last appointment, the surgeon told me I could pull it off myself if I wanted and I was like, "LOLOLOLOLOL I THINK NOT, SIR."), and the crushing force of a steel shoe launching itself from one direct point did so much nerve damage that things are basically still numb. I'm able to walk around the house without my boot which is fantastic because that heavy thing is a real ankle torturing bitch, as you guys warned me. Every now and then I'll get a quick stab of pain that's ..read more

For once it's not my horse that's laid up, but me. SMALL WINS. the horse is living his best life. i'd stop turning right if someone would get me a massage. I was bringing a horse in from turnout Saturday evening, and as I led him into his stall he body slammed me into his door (just because--horses are assholes, let's be real) which then spooked him so he jumped forward--directly off my right foot. I said many, many bad words, cried for two seconds, and then gimped around for the next forty five minutes finishing bringing horses in and feeding until I glanced down at my shoe. BM was standin ..read more

I was thrown for a loop with this show because instead of getting up at O'Dark Thirty, I sat around twiddling my thumbs cleaning out my basement until noon when I finally let myself get moving and head to the barn to bathe and braid. My first test wasn't scheduled until five in the fucking afternoon, with my last ride finishing up just after seven. Remember how I said dressage is booming up here? Bitches love them some lower level dressage, you guys. I was the second First rider of the day--the show started at 8am and allll the rides before me were Intro and Training.Want to participate in an ..read more

You know the old saying: The more you know, the more you wiggle. Pretty sure that's how it goes anyway. I'm finally starting to feel like Opie has some reliable buttons on him. They're still fairly remedial in the grand scheme of dressage horse knowledge, but at the very least the concept of "leg can mean more than go" is firmly installed. The problem I run into here is that he's learned all these different ways to use his body, and sometimes he uses those powers for evil. If he doesn't want to work as hard as I'm asking him to, his evasions are sneaky--his rib cage will subtly pop out, he'l ..read more

I have some schooling/training/general riding things that I wanted to/will eventually post about, but between horse show hangover and general blog laziness I have yet to get around to it. It took me a whole week after Houghton to get back on the horse for a real ride. Not that either of us was complaining about a couple extra days off and some meandering trail rides! Yesterday, for the first time all season, we hung a left out of the driveway and headed east instead of west. I have three now two dressage shows left this year and they're all for my GMO--a good, fun chance to get out and earn s ..read more