Last week’s lessons went quite well. Finny’s dressage lesson on Tuesday with Leslie was great. Leslie rode him a bit before I did. He was very happy with his lateral work andsaid he is very correct and accurate. We worked on getting him more “up” in his balance to help his length of stride, etc.

Wednesday’s cross country school with Ralph Hill was fun and Finn was brilliant. Ralph really liked Finny too and thought he was “super cool.” Thursday we did our weekly showjump lesson with Leslie, which went well as usual.

So Finny is feeling like hot stuff. All the lessons he got last week, plus Dougie Hannum worked on him Wednesday, then he got his hocks injected on Saturday (been a couple of years since the last–but felt like he was due), got his mane pulled and new shoes on Monday plus a new dressage bridle!! He’s da man!

This past weekend, Whistler competed at Rocking Horse Spring. He did quite well. He dressage wasn’t quite as steady as the last show, but was good. And he finished on his dressage score and was in 2nd place. Yay, Whistler.

On Saturday, I gave a XC lesson on Deacon to a local young lady who is in the hunter/jumper world but wants to experience other equestrian sports. Deacon was just great with her. They schooling up to training level fences and he was a star (and she is a very talented rider, never having done XC before). Deacon would really make a super horse for some Young Rider. He’s got tons of talent and tons of jump left, so he could take someone up through prelim and intermediate and possibly to their first advanced. Anyone????……

Tuesday was Fi’s birthday!! Happy Birthday, Fi. She spent the day squirrel hunting, as usual. And got a special supper too.

Taking the trailer in for service late this week. Preparing Finny for the 2* next week. Mom flies in Monday to help with the 2* and then help haul the horses home! Things are winding down in Florida.

First off, Rolex is no longer in our 2012 plans. We were qualified and aiming to go, but it just isn’t to be. After doing everything to be sure that Deacon feels good, is sound and healthy, he just seems to have lost the fire for those huge jumps. We did finish the cross country at Red Hills, but he just didn’t feel like the Deke I knew last year. I guess he’s just done with the big stuff and you certainly don’t enter a 4* with a horse who has lost his drive for that level. It’s a disappointment after 2 years of working to get those qualifications and especially with the memory of how awesome he felt running the 3* at Richland last summer, but hopefully we’ll have the opportunity with another horse in the future.

So now Deacon is definitely for sale. He would make an awesome YR or AA horse to run someone around Prelim and Intermediate. He would also make an great showjumper, as he hates touching rails.

And I thank him for all that he has done for me over these last few years. He’s gone from being a reject on the Quarter Horse circuit to a 3* eventer. He was the 2008 USEA Preliminary Horse of the Year and finishes his career with me with lots of other awards and ribbons and great memories. Hopefully he can move on and provide someone else with lots of great memories, awards, and good times.

Finn is doing well. I am so happy with how he’s coming along. He was great also on XC at Red Hills–it was me that screwed us up!! So he’s become my future; we’re planning on moving up to Advanced sometime this year.

Just a few more weeks to spend down here in Florida. It’s a bit quieter down here now. Some people have gone home and HITS is now over. I’ve been trying to make a few contacts to help get Deacon sold and off to a new home and preparing Finn for the CCI 2* in Ocala in April.

This week coming up will be a busy one for Finn. He’s got a dressage lesson with Leslie on Tuesday, a cross country school with Ralph Hill on Wednesday, and then a jumping lesson with Leslie on Thursday!

Next weekend Whistler is running Training at Rocking Horse; then I’m also going to run Deke at Ocala HT in April. We’re just going to run Training; give him a very easy experience to help his confidence and let him have a good time and hopefully prepare him for a new owner who will run him at those lower levels.

Today was dressage day. Finn went first. He was not quite as relaxed as his test at Pine Top, but had some better moments too and ended with a decent score, about halfway or so down the standings. Deacon went a few hours later. He had a few issues: a fly on his butt during some of our canter work that caused him to buck a little and do some lead swapping. So he’s pretty far down in the standings but still ended up with a better score than I expected!!

It’s amazing how much of a crowd is on hand to watch dressage. This is a really popular event for the Tallahassee community; a great experience.

I walked the cross country courses this afternoon. They are beautiful–look a bit twisty, but do-able. So hopefully all will go well tomorrow. Deacon’s future rides on his run tomorrow–is he going to be ready for Kentucky in April, or is he burnt out with the Advanced level stuff and ready to have an easier life as a Prelim/Intemediate packer or an awesome showjumper??? Time will tell. Seems like it’s been one different issue after another for the last several months that’s kept us from successfully completing an event. It’s a bit frustrating to have worked so hard towards our goal over the last couple of years and now maybe see it slipping away. But that’s the horse business. It’s a team effort and both members have to have the commitment. We’ll move forward, whatever that may mean.

Finny’s future looks good. He seems to really enjoy his job and has been very workman-like about everything he does. Hopefully someday we can get a more consistently relaxed dressage test and improve those scores. He has been so much fun–doing his job with a great attitude. He had a nice nap in his stall before his dressage test. I guess he was trying his best to relax!!

Tomorrow I head north just a bit for Red Hills Horse Trials. Finn and Deke are both entered and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Whistler is staying at Longwood and being cared for by friends here. But he is going to have a short visit tomorrow from his mother/owner who is coming in from Ohio for a Orlando vacation with her family.

We’ll try and report on Red Hills results as much as possible. But I won’t have someone on hand to video our rides, so won’t be able to share that with everyone.

Whistler had a great finish to his weekend, handling the difficult Training course quite well. I think the Weldon’s Wall with the drop early in the course helped–it was a bit of a wake up call that he needed to pay attention to what he was doing. He got better and better as he went around. He ended up finishing in 8th place. Here’s a bit of the shaky video.

Back to normal work at Longwood. Boys had a day off today (Monday) and then will go back to work tomorrow aiming for Red Hills in a couple of weeks.

The day started with Deacon’s Advanced showjumping. He was a good boy, jumping a clear round with just a little bit of time. He was jumping so well and so huge, it just seemed like we had so much hang time that it changed my striding to the next fence–so it wasn’t really smooth, but at least it was clean.

Next up was Finny’s Intermediate showjumping. He too was a good boy, jumping a double clear round. I was quite happy with his go.

Next up was Whistler’s dressage. He was quite a handful in the warm-up, but we got it together and put in a nice test with a few 9s and a score of 26.8; second place after dressage.

An hour or so of rest, then it was time for Finny’s cross country round. As I said yesterday, this was a tough Intermediate course; some real technical questions. I was so proud of Finny; he was awesome. Now me, on the other hand, not so awesome! I caused a run-out–I held a little too much coming into a corner so Finny couldn’t jump. But otherwise, a clean run on a difficult course. Here’s a brief but distant and shaky clip of some of the course:

Last up for the long day was Whistler’s showjumping. Unfortunately he had a couple rails. The 1st jump was Novice height and he didn’t really work to get over that little jump, so I think the 2nd jump, an oxer at Training height, surprised him and he caught it with his hind. So it dropped us several places in the standings, but this may be a moot point now, cause I will really be surprised if we make it clean around cross country tomorrow. It’s a very difficult Training course, lots of questions and lots of stuff to look at. More like a Prelim course at your typical Area 8 trial! So we’ll see….

Thursday we hit the road for Georgia. I had already decided to just run Deke as a combined test. The vet gave him the go ahead to run, but I decided just to give him a little more time to heal.

Today at Pine Top, Deke went first for his dressage. He had a decent test; better than Ocala and OK considering he’s had several days off this past week.

The rain started later in the morning. Fortunately it let up a bit when I had to head over for Finny’s test. The horse in front of us must’ve withdrawn so I even went in the ring a little early. And I’m glad I did. The minute I got back to the barn after my test, the downpour began. If I would’ve waited til my ride time, we would have been soaked!

Here’s Finny’s test. I was VERY happy with it. Unfortunately, he’s in a division with Phil and Boyd with multiple horses, plus lots of other big names! But I am so proud of him anyway.

The Intermediate course looks tough–it looks harder than the Advanced course (and I’ve heard other people commenting about that too). He was supposed to run XC today, but the rain and storms have been so bad, they’ve cancelled all cross for the day so he’ll run Saturday.

So tomorrow will be cross and SJ for Finn, SJ only for Deke, and Whistler will do dressage and SJ also, so it will be a busy day.

Dr. Evans from Petersen & Smith came Tuesday and Wednesday to check Deacon out. Wednesday he brought the ultrasound so we could take a closer look at his suspensory/pastern area to be sure all looked well–which it did. No fiberous changes in the tendons; just the swelling/fluid. So we think he got some major boot rubs, especially since we had to stud and boot him so early since I had the 4 rides in 3 hours. So getting some anti-inflammatories and a couple days rest, and hopefully he’ll be back to normal. Dr. Evans will come again Monday to check again. And I’m trying to find some boots that will protect him during cross country, but will be easier on his legs–he’s such a sensitive guy!!

Today is just a normal day of work for Finny and Whistler. Then I gotta run some errands.

This week I am trying to get my Ocala vet, Dr. Evans, here Monday or Tuesday to give Deacon a good once over to see if we can figure out what stopped him during his run this weekend.

Tuesday I’m riding Whistler with Leslie Law in an ICP symposium, doing cross country work. We’ll try to get some of the session video taped and post it. Also supposed to be taking horses to the aqua-tred at KESMARC, but since that tragedy there, I don’t know if they’re open so need to look into that. (BTW, prayers go out to everyone concerned with that sad event.)

The rest of the week is gonna hinge on what we discover with Deacon and probably just be work and ride as usual. More later….

Next out for the day was Deacon for his cross country. He was pawing a bit in the trailer when I went to get him out to tack him up, which isn’t like him; but at the time I didn’t think too much about it. We tacked up and headed for warm up. His first few steps of trot in warm-up didn’t feel quite right. I checked his shoes and tack adjustments. Then Leslie watched him as I picked a trot back up and then cantered over a few jumps. He seemed fine at that point. Was jumping well warming up so we headed to the start box. I had decided if he didn’t feel right, I would pull up and save him for his run at Pine Top in a couple of weeks. But he started the course great. He ran well, all the way up to jump 21, which was a similar combination as the one where we had our fall last year at the Fork. I made up my mind to keep our rhythm and not overthink the combination, but for some reason (me, Deke, what???) he ran out at the second elemen, a skinny toothbrush. We set up and tried again, but had another. So we called it a day and headed back for the trailer. He again didn’t seem quite right unsaddling him, seemed to want to keep walking, almost seemed a little colic-y. So walked him more and kept a close eye on him–he just wasn’t really himself, but finally settled and seemed OK. I had only a short time to get Finn ready for his run, so put Deke back in the trailer and kept an eye on him.

Finn got ready to go and we headed for start. He put in an awesome run. It was a very big and technical course, and he really rocked around it. The flags had been knocked over at the same skinny toothbrush where Deke had stopped and the crew hadn’t had time to get them back up yet; as I approached it I was a bit concerned with no flags to help Finn understand the question. He hestitated a bit but figured it out and saved the day!

Finny climbed up the standings after his double-clear XC round and ended the day in 11th place.

Last up was Whistler for his showjumping. He was a good boy, but really needs bigger jumps! He just barely canters over the Novice-sized jumps. Next trial he moves up to Training. He had one rail today, but only dropped one place, so is now standing in 5th.

Tomorrow only Whistler goes for his cross country run, so it will be an easy day. More tomorrow…