The NEW dressage saddle is in - and it's beautiful!!! Kitty, the L'Apogee rep, came out on Saturday to check it out. It passed inspection, and I wrote a check to seal the deal. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun oiling it! Oh I love it! It's buffalo on the sides and calf on the seat - and so so beautiful!
I rode in it on Wednesday morning before heading off to California. I wasn't sure what to do about stirrup leathers (wanted to keep the option of returning it if it didn't fit), so I just decided to ride without the leathers on at all! Getting up was a bit of a trick, and Katchi was (once again) pretty sure I'd lost my mind. But, after I managed to climb into it, oh was it lovely! We went around and around in the sitting trot - doing leg yields and shoulder-in, with canters thrown in here and there - until my leg cramped so bad I had to quit!! Katchi is a natural leg mover - not a back mover. So, the sitting trot is not my friend - it's just so hard on him because he really doesn't support you through his back. But, wow, he's a different horse now! I cannot wait for my next lesson with Silva!
I was eventually able to tear myself away from staring at my new beautiful saddle, and I headed over to enjoy some good food and drinks with some great friends - watching the Preakness and Rolex. What fun! I love eventing! Aside from great coverage of amazing horses and riders - I was really impressed with NBC's coverage of Oliver Townend's fall. It wouldn't have been right to ignore that it happened - and I really hope their portrayal of the breakable log and the air vest, and the interview with Oli afterwards showing that he and horse were just fine - I do hope this helps the credibility of our sport. I hope.
And today, I ended the weekend on a lovely note with a trip to a little jumper show just down the road. A new student, Kerry, came home with 2 ribbons from both her classes - as did Katchi! Trying to address some of our show jumping issues, I dropped Katchi down to a 2'9" and a 3' class - and he was great. It wasn't perfect, but it was very good. And, as a consequence of the carnage of other riders (falling off, crashing through jumps, and general mayhem...) - Katchi ended up with a Reserve Champion ribbon too (I'm pretty sure they calculated it wrong, but I was too tired to argue that we didn't deserve the ribbon!). Both Kerry and I had great days for our goals, and we were quite happy to have earned a few ribbons along the path. And we discovered that both our horses are crazy! They are kings of funny faces and puppy dog eyes - it was like having a comedy show set up right at my trailer! We spent most of the day just sitting around, being entertained by our clowns!
No comments:
Post a Comment