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[which_chick]

Child of Thunderstorms arrived again today, at the very end of torrential downpourings. :) As we caught, groomed, and tacked up the soaking wet horses, the skies cleared. Yay!



I was on Whims (of course), Olivia on Ceres, Trys on Whisper, Alanna on Callie, Alanna's mom on Night. We did a less-stressful conditioning day today because Alanna finds trotting at speed sort of alarming. We still did 3 up-n-downs and six circle-the-buckwheat-fields but we did not trot the buckwheat field at anything faster than medium-slow in order to avoid terrorizing the kid. This will have to improve in the coming weeks, but hell, it's her second day in an English saddle. These things take time.

Topic for today was "Things that influence how fast/far you can ride" -- I listed three things that were important and we talked about them. (Things: terrain, weather, condition of horse) Reviewed same at end of ride, with success, so yay.

Need topic for Monday. Probably going to do "What to expect at the competitive ride: The Vet-In, Ride Start, Midpoint Check, Vet-Out".

Comments

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Trys said that Cass said (probably from Ayrian, not-a-reliable-narrator) that the Other Horsepeople had not started conditioning yet. (This would be Kim, her kids, Tasha, Marybeth, etc. That contingent there.) Seems kind of late in the game to get started, but whatever.

However, Tina called me last night about an unrelated matter and inquired on Kim's behalf as to whether I was riding in the "fat person" or "skinny person" adult category. (I am legitimately in the "fat person" category because I and my tack weigh more than 165 lbs. I wish this were otherwise, but it is what it is.) Kim is borderline and would prefer to be competing in the category that I am not in, hence the asking. :)

Now I feel like I need to be doing more with Whims or I'm going to be letting our side down. But she has no feet -- waiting for shoes next weekend -- and the kid I'm taking out conditioning with me is scared of fast trotting. We're currently doing about 3.5 mile outings, which is not really enough, works out to about fifteen miles a week. We need to be doing five to seven mile outings with more sustained trotting sections. I'll work on increasing distance this coming week. Out to The Other Field and back is a mile and a half, give or take. If we add that to the regular outing, it'll up the distance a bit and provide some opportunities for sustained trotting on more-level ground that is not so horrifyingly steep.

(Road work would be fine -- horses are traffic safe -- except child does not steer real well and horses have no feet. With shoes, we will commence some serious road work.)

Also Tina said Andrea (the ride lady) reported a lot of interest this year so we should probably not wait until the last minute to get our entries in. I will try to lean on La about that this weekend. I'd hate not to be able to go because of no room at the ride. Thing is, we don't have a solidified number of kids or grown-ups yet. Trys and La and I want to go. Olivia and Cass are going. Waylon *says* he is going but he isn't conditioning. Theron says he is going, too, but he isn't putting anywhere near the necessary miles on his critter, either. And then there's Alanna, who wants to go but is scared of trotting. (Given time, I can fix the scared-of-trotting thing. Do we have enough time? Dunno.) This lack of organization really upsets me. I wish they'd just be more... together. Ducks. Rows. Why can't we have that?

Horse trailer only fits six horses. Hauling up everybody is yet another problem that we have, if we are hauling more than six horses.