14.7.11

So lucky, so impatient

A picture is worth a thousand words:



We bought a truck. A giant truck. A Ford F-350 Turbo Powerstroke Diesel, 7.3, V8, Crew cab, long bed, 4X4, 6-speed manual, with an in-factory tow package. And I can drive it. My lovely friend Jill has said she'd give me lessons on how to pull a trailer, but the electrical input on my truck is not compatible with the output on her trailer. So I am trying to borrow a trailer from someone at the barn. Before I had a truck people were all" Sure you can borrow my trailer anytime!" and now that I have one, no one is returning my emails. Hrumph.

Which leads to the "impatient" part of our program. I want my own trailer. Now.

If this whole trailer-borrowing thing pans out, we are going to our first one-day horse trial at Lincoln Creek on July 31. Entries close on the 23, and it is now the 14th so we will see. We will be going Senior Hopeful. Is there a more pathetic division name than that? If there is I don't want to know. But upon the advice of my trainer, for our first ever one-day, we just need to show up and make it through. One days are rough. So that is what we are doing.

Kip and I continue to improve, Kip just keeps getting smarter and smarter about how to navigate around a course and use his body, and my big lesson is to let him get into a good, rhythmic gallop and stay the hell out of his face. Yesterday's lesson was bending lines, with lead changes -- and then the hard part -- staying on the left lead down a long line. Staying on that lead over the last fence in a line and into a left turn for some reason is a thing for us. I am sure it is somehow my fault.