OTTB Charm

Now on to the super fun stuff from the weekend - CROSS COUNTRY!!!  Our ride time again was crazy early but I was kind of happy to beat the heat (I think it hit like 97* or something on Sunday afternoon). I had to be ready to leave the start box at 7:45am. Based on our last few outings I wasn't 100% sure how that was going to work for us. I've been re-evaluating our warmup, as Banner has gotten infinitely more fit than he was last year.  B jumping the heck out of this Novice table! I decided to leave my house around 6:20, which got me at the facility around 6:40am. I was the first one on property, but that worked out totally fine for me (good parking spot!). I let Banner marinate in his new Back on Track sheet for a bit while I brushed off his legs & booted him. Then I started on the process of putting in studs. I retapped his stud holes the night before so it would be easier, but it still took me a good 15 minutes I'm pretty sure! Once we got studded, I...

This weekend Banner & I participated in another one of our local schooling shows! We decided to enter the Novice HT round + a couple of 3'0" show jump rounds. Saturday morning bright and early, we pulled out of our driveway (sometime around 6:30am?) and headed off to the show. Our ride time for dressage was around 7:45am, so I managed to get tacked up & on him by 7:10am. We got some good warmup time in the nice arena which is technically the jump ring warmup, but the footing is better there, so I wanted to spend more time there than in the dressage area. We headed over to dressage at 7:30 and of course we were already a couple of minutes behind schedule, but it kicked off pretty well after that. I forgot to fly spray his ears and there were a lot of gnats, so I lost some focus once we got over to the dressage arena unfortunately, but Banner was still mostly a good boy. I forgot how stupid deep the footing is in that dressage arena and so I decided to just...