Aimless, Hairless, Nervous

I'm having one of those periods of time where I can't really remember in detail when I rode last, or what we worked on, or what I'm even trying to achieve right now.

I DO remember that it was absolutely gorgeous on Friday - 75 and sunny - and since I was preparing for houseguests I only had time to give Dino a skin treatment and had to skip out on riding. It was truly tragic, and I had a very difficult time making myself leave the barn to go home to cook and clean.

Dino had Saturday off as well, and luckily the insane gale-force winds we had on Sunday died down just enough for me to fit in a dressage school in the afternoon.

Homeboy was a bit slow to warm up - I can't blame him, it was chilly and windy and he'd just had two days off. It took a long time for him to really relax over his back and start coming through, and I ended up doing a lot of circles and shoulder-fore to try and help him stretch into the outside rein. He also wanted to stick his body parts out in tenthousand different directions, so straightness was a big focus!

Eventually, Dino was feeling warmed up and ready to start using himself a bit more, and we ended up doing quite a bit of counter-canter work.

I love, love, love counter-canter for the way it makes Dino really stand up straight and focus on where he's putting his legs. As long as I continue to support him and keep him straight, it does wonders for him! His regular canter and his trot always improve quite a bit after some counter-canter work.

Topline and underline are looking pretty decent! 

Yesterday I thought I was going to have to bag my ride because of the rain, but ended up getting on for a quick, wet trot around the perimeter of the property. Dino was SUPER freaked out by trotting through the tall weeds that now cover most of the fields, and slammed on the brakes to spook at them several times. He was a good boy overall though, and I ended the ride with a very brief canter just to make sure my Go Button was fully functional. It was, and I'm hoping to jump a bit later today.

In other news, the Lainey Ashker clinic is coming up REALLY quickly - as in 4 days quickly - and I'm freaking out a little bit. The logistics of the whole thing are, of course, making me nervous and I'm making tons of lists to try and stay calm and organized. We also haven't jumped a whole heck of a lot, and I'm desperately hoping that Dino decides to be a good boy and not throw any tantrums at the clinic. While his rain-rot-ish patch is looking better and seems to be on its way to being healed, he's still very much bald in that spot and I'm trying to figure out the least ridiculous-looking way to protect it while riding.

Oh, and because of scheduling and travel buddies and the stars aligning in some sort of terrible way to seal my ultimate demise, we got put in the Novice group.

I'm gonna need a Xanax. Or five.