Bad news first.
The clinics with Silva Martin on the next two weekends have been cancelled, because there is zero expectation the snow will have melted enough to let us get to or park at the clinic location. Well, how's that for knocking the wind outta ya? And they've rescheduled the March 7 clinic to March 13 - good news is I can go, bad news is that's another week away. So much for all those dreams I had of "perfecting" my dressage with Silva over the winter.
I think this categorizes as bad news - CDCTA's entries open tomorrow, which I planned as my first HT of the season. Ugh. That means the event is just over 6 weeks away. 6 weeks to get ready and there is still over 2' of snow on the ground. I'm going to send in my entries anyhow. I can always scratch before the closing date.
Now, the good news.
There's a chance I might get into a Silva clinic THIS Friday!!! Oh I need that right now! I'm getting so bored and depressed going around in circles in the indoor - I need Silva!!
And the really good news of the week - I found a snowplowed path!!! In desperation to get out of the indoor, I went tromping around in the snow on Saturday looking for anyplace to ride outside. I found a lot of snow that went up past my knees, but not much else. Totally depressed. Then, as I was driving out of the barn, I saw it - like an oasis in the desert, or an island in the ocean... I found a plowed road! Perfectly plowed and dry - and long with big hills and almost no traffic! There is a long powerline path that runs along the new barn's property, with some sort of power station at the end. Apparently, they decided it was worthy of a good plowing! So, yesterday, Adrianne and I took the horses out in their halters and we went for a walk - a walk outside! And we did it again today! The horses were so good - I think they had resigned themselves to life in a box, and they couldn't have been more grateful (well, actually Katchi was grateful; Tori was really ticked off to have been drug away from all the hay in her stall!). During a break from our walk, Katchi practically leaned against the snowbank trying to reach a couple of long strings of icky dry grassy something - he was on his tippy toes trying to get it. Really, it was sad. And today, Tori found a couple bites of yucky frostbitten wet grass on the side of the road, but there was none on Katchi's side of the road - you've never seen a more heartbroken horse!
Anyhow, the snowplowed path to spring has given me hope - it's probably well over a mile round trip and has some BIG hills. That road may be my savior when it comes to CDCTA on April 4. At the USEA Convention in December, there was a session about conditioning, and folks kept asking a panel of top riders to tell them exactly how to condition their horses - they wouldn't answer. The moral of the session was - figure out what you've got to work with (access to a track, the ocean, hills...), and make it work for you. Right, I've got an indoor arena and a paved road with hills, and it's gonna work for me! Pictures below.
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