Again, everything was a bit of a blur since The Routine had come routine. Each day we could count down one more day until we left.
Good stuff happened. Paula bought her "rental" Santi, whose only failure in the pre-vet exam was that he was 13 years old. She will be his 4th and final owner in this lifetime, since she thinks so highly of him and they retire their old faithful friends right at their farm. I think it's a wonderful match, and I haven't known either of them that long. Paula didn't learn to jump until she was an adult, and Santi is a pro Children's (or 3 foot) hunter. He's slow, he's smooth, and he covers up mistakes with the patience of a thousand kidergarden teachers in one. We think what sold her was that she almost had a serious head on collision in the schooling area. Any other horse would most likely have ducked hard and bucked. He got her out of the way and kept her on. Good ol' boy. He's perfectly calm and quiet, which will help her get over her nervousness.
Kristin also decided to keep her rental Kitty until the next show in Culpepper, where his owner will bring him home to Florida. Kitty is the ex-olympic-trial jumper who is supposedly teaching her so much about how to ride. If you don't ride him right, he pulls a rail. Her other mare is so careful that she'll cover up for Kristin. However, while Kitty is horribly athletic, he's not going to put out the effort if you do it wrong. He finally went around a course without a rail, and so finally had a chance at top ribbins. Well he got the blue, and everyone was esctatic, so they gave him a banana and he loved it so much he started blowing bubbles and sucking on his tongue.
I bought a saddle (O_o). A very expensive saddle. But it's okay because I told my parents that they would pay me back and that it's for graduation. Dad says I deserve more than that so I don't think it'll be a problem. I'll just be out every dime I made down here until then. Oh well. It fits my mare Cappy (whom I wanted it to fit) and we're looking for some extreme whither relief for Elmer, whose whithers are 3 inches above his back. But everything pinches him so that's nothing new.
In other news, don't try to be friendly and social when it's not on your body's agenda. I tried to go out and hang out with people friday since I didn't want to be seen as not fun and not cool. What has 4 years in college taught me? Don't do this. The day after wasn't a problem, but Friday night I got intoxicated enough that I let the homesickness get to me. I ended up sitting at a table for half an hour at the end writing emails to my friends in Germany. Not a good plan.
Saturday passed as the only good weather all circuit. Go figure. We were wearing sunscreen and t-shirts and not holding our hats to our heads.
Sunday came and it rained. And poured. And 3 horses showed at the same time at 8am. My 3, of course. After starting tacking up the first at 6:30 while Manuel got his two groomed up in case they were needed at a moment's notice, I was just about finished at 7:30 when Georgette decided to get off her ass and brush out Kitty's tail. We had had an issue the day before where I had to take Lennon home, untack and groom him minimally, groom and tack Kitty, and be at the next ring in 30 minutes. I texted her a head of time to hint that I would need help by asking what Kitty's status was and lettin her know that he was needed soon. Got back and he was still in his stall. All she did was put him in the crossties and put his saddle on when I asked. I had to brush his legs off, put on his boots, comb his tail, everything once Lennon was done. I asked if she was doing nothing (since she was standing talking to the neighbor) if she would help me. She flat out ignored me. I told elizabeth when we went to the ring and she said it was something we had to work out ourselves. I had already told Georgette that Manuel and I were fed up taking care of her horses when she decided to go off and eat or shop, so I told Elizabeth we had, but I wanted to make her aware of the "situation." Elizabeth apparently doesn't care.
Anyway, back to Sunday: we sent Liza and Lennon up to their ring alone to do their children's hunter hack with a rain sheet and her mother, and told them to hang out there and Elizabeth would come and do her jumping rounds as soon as she could. Then Artie went to his ring with Georgette and Kitty and I hiked up the the Grand Prix ring. Kristin pulled rails. Melanie fell of Artie in the schooling ring then stopped twice in the class. At least Lennon got 4 or something in his hack. Back to the barn got Galan and Lou ready. Galan was needed around 9:30. Then the call came of "where is Lou? Is she on her way?" Nope "Well she needs to be she's 14 trips away." Manuel says "See, this is why I get them ready early, because you never know." So he speed walked her up to her ring, and Galan and I slowly made our way to stand in the rain for about 30 to 40 minutes waiting for Kristin to jump Lou. Then they came, we schooled, showed, and waitied to jog. She only jogged dead last in the first class, since she pulled a rail in the second and was off course in the third. Nevermind that she completely stopped and took out a fence in the first...
After 2 hours at the ring in the rain (in my spiffy new coat and hat so I was dry!) we made our way back. Packing commenced speedily, since the only horse left to show was Shine, and she was much later. We packed and were mostly ready, got the call that it was raining too much for Shine to show, finished packing everything, and were going to head out except we weren't allowed. Shine was going to be picked up along the way so we had to start out later so her picker-upper wasn't leaving at 2am. Apparently the fact that we're driving 14 hours means nothing to someone who has to only drive 2 or 4.
Once we left, we called Shine's owner to get her shipper's info, then arranged with the shipper what we were doing. Why hadn't this been decided before we left? No one knows and was pretty grummpy about. Then we got a stern talking-to by Elizabeth for not going through her when talking to clients. Whoops. Not.
Shine got dropped off at 7am in a Target parking lot. We made it home by 12:30pm (after going 3 to 4 hours out of our way to drop her off). I dove home and collapsed. The end.
This trip wasn't what I expected. I was told it would be fun, that the people were nice, and that I would learn a lot. I learned a lot, but more about the people and the world than about training. Grooming I picked up a lot on, and I watched when I could to learn more about training and teaching. But really, it was mostly about people that I learned. I suppose this will be the focus of the final paper.
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