Shifting Focus

We <3 Dressage

I ended up skipping the hunter derby over the weekend for a few reasons:

1.) I only rode my pony twice last week, and one of those times we literally just piddled around the arena like blobs and then walked around the property once.

2.) I had a really, really crazy week work-wise and personal life-wise. Thus the only riding twice thing. By Friday night I was absolutely shot and had no desire to clean tack. Or pack my trailer. Or bathe my pony. Or go to a horse show after doing feeding, stalls, & turnout the next morning.

3.) After doing the horse trial, I feel like I really accomplished something this season. When I originally set my schedule for this year, the derby was the big goal, but then eventing happened, and my focus made a big shift. I think we're beyond the hunter thing at this point.


While I was a little disappointed to miss the derby - the course looked really fun - I'm glad that I made the decision not to go. While Dino was great for our ride on Saturday morning (we ended up jumping around a bit and popped over a 3'3" vertical a couple times!) I was really, really exhausted by the time I got done at the barn, and had a busy afternoon and evening planned on top of it all. Skipping the show was the right choice.

Moving forward, I'd like to really spend some time on the concepts we learned at the clinic in June, go XC schooling, and hopefully get in a lesson or two before the summer is over. Our next horse trial won't be until the end of September at the earliest, so I want to take the time away from a crazy travel and show schedule to really start polishing our skills.

And maybe take some time to do normal-people things like clean my house and go on vacation.