Plot Twist

Horses will be horses.

They saw me arrive and promptly went to hide in a remote corner of their field. Spoiler alert: it didn't work.
All I wanted to do was groom them and grain them on this day. The next day they were waiting in the barn for me
when my car pulled up!

And life is ever busy.

Never too busy for doggy hikes though!

And thus, my plans to attend the final starter trial at Loch Moy have come crashing down.

Lurking while I mucked stalls.

I harbored grief over it for about one minute, then bounded forward with new plans. Water under the bridge and all.

So shiny - even in his ungroomed state. Super pleased with the weight he's been gaining this month.

See, Grif has been on again, off again with mild lameness since October began. Our unseasonably warm weather (70s-80s °F) coupled with periodic bursts of seasonal (30s-40s °F) weather has been the perfect recipe for abscesses and he's had at least two. The first was more major resulting in a nice quarter-sized blow out on his heel near the coronet band, the second was much more mild and in the opposite front foot. He's still ever so slightly off when he's on gravel on the foot with the most recent abscess, so whether that's to blame or perhaps he's garnered a stone bruise is yet to be determined. Farrier will be out for second opinion this weekend. He's had zero swelling and his legs look great, so I'm not really freaking out about anything at this point - no point looking for a zebra in a herd of horses. It is what it is and we'll get 'er figured.

I think he totally rocks the leopard print and hot pink, yes?

Due to the abscesses, especially that first pesky one that lasted a good 10-14 days (just like last year's), we really haven't been riding much. Haven't even jumped a gahdamn thing since our last HT.

Well, kind of.

Our current temporary boarding situation closer to my house has this sweet field to ride in. It's in a bit of a bowl on the landscape - flat in the bottom with steady upward rise on three sides. As it rises upward to the ridge above, there are a few limestone rock outcroppings that are perfect natural banks! So, while we haven't jumped colorful sticks or solid obstacles, we HAVE practiced up and down banks. Skinny AF banks at that because these rocks aren't much more than 3-4 feet wide. Yay?

The bowl mentioned above is pictured here. Some outcroppings are present above Q's ears.

The limited riding - especially jumping - had me feeling not-so-awesome about the final HT anyway, as I'd originally planned to compete at BN instead of elementary. Limited jumping since our last outing made that plan sound quite unfair to Grif and myself. My contingency plan was to just repeat what we'd done last time: compete at the elementary level and school the BN XC course after. This would give us show miles and would be well within our abilities.

I was ready to pull the trigger on this plan when I returned from my vacation and found Griffin to be 100% when ridden on good footing. I pulled up the website to register the following morning to find, oops, I'd done a dumb and forgotten that the sign-ups closed the day before. D'oh!

I could have gotten on the wait list, certainly. But you know what? I'm really blissfully NOT stressed out about a damn thing at the moment, and the thought of sitting around waiting to hear will I/won't I get to go just wasn't a game I felt like playing at the moment. There WILL BE other shows and we WILL make it to them. Of that, I am certain.

Evening wanderings on remote roads.

So for now, we're gonna settle into winter plans. It's a bummer to not fulfill this goal, but that's just life sometimes, y'know? I'm excited to have some pressure-free months to fine-tune my riding and the fitness of myself and the horses.

We've got some fun, easy-going plans the next couple of weeks - trail riding and the like. Then we'll all enjoy a vacation for the better part of November 'cause I'm leaving the country to head to warmer latitudes for one last hurrah before settling into winter (first snowflakes last night! first snow predicted for Sunday!).

Two weeks after the photo above - definitely winning the weight gain game!
Ready for winter...

Anyone else recently have a plan fall through and/or their backup/contingency plan fall through? Did it feel right in the moment or was it harder to swallow the loss?