Now back to the reguarly scheduled programming

Ok, I'll drag my mind back outta LOTR geekieness and update on horsey things.

Good day yesterday, I love my Saturday afternoons, get to ride multiple horses, clean pens, do what I want. My barn owner has asked me to do some training with one of her horses, an older QH mare named Magic. They use her for pony lessons to beginner riders and she's started to get a little sour with the kids, not wanting to stand still, not wanting to trot, etc. So I'm going to work with her 1-2 times a week to sort out the kinks. Fun stuff.

So I rode her yesterday, first thing, almost right off the bat, I noticed that her saddle didn't fit right, it was a little too wide. When I mounted up she was not happy. I jumped off and added an extra pad to fill in the space behind her withers, muuuuccch happier horse! Worked on standing still while mounting, transitions (she was surprisingly responsive to very subtle cues!) and on keeping a steady rhythm at the trot. It was fun, it'll be a great way to earn a little extra cash :)

Callie is looking AWESOME, she has really put on a lot of weight and I'm finally getting pleased with how she's looking. Now we just need to build strength. She's still fussy under saddle at the canter and just throws a fit about it, keeps trying to stop, etc. Lunge line canter however looks beautiful. Weird mare. Got the owner of the barn across the street to watch her go, he's a rather skilled dressage rider, and he thinks it's just a strength issue. So I'm gonna just do lots of long and low trot work for awhile, do some cavaletti, and lunge her as much as I can when I don't have time to ride with side reins to help build back strength. So, that's my plan for the next two weeks, and re-evaluate the canter under saddle on May 1st.

My birthday is tomorrow, I have nothing planned, lol, just work and a Chemistry lab. And to attempt to ride/lunge my horse.

Umm... oh, I did want to comment on the recomentation of David O'Connor by the Elligible Atheletes commitee to the USEF as the next Eventing Coach.

While I have nothing against David, I think he's a fabulous rider, a fabulous coach (look at what he did for the Canadians? I mean really, their Eventing team has improved in leaps and bounds!!!) , and all in all, a great representative of our sport. My gripe in this whole thing has been the process, I was sooooo excited when I first saw the list of applicants, Leslie Law, Jimmy Wofford, Phillip and Bobby, etc. And then only Leslie and David got picked to move along, which at that point it was obvious to all that David would get the job, and that the High Performance commitee only added Leslie so as not to make it toooo biased. I mean, really, David is literally on celebrity status here in United States Eventing.

What it comes down to for me is this: Do I think David is a good choice? Yes. Do I think the process for selecting the next coach was fair? No. I felt it was very biased, and while they did give out reasons for their lack of recommending certain applicants (such as Jimmy Wofford, I'm a huge wofford fan, love his writings), I just think from the git-go everybody wanted David and that was that.

That said, I truly hope that he is able to do for our team what he has done for the Canadians, we sure need it, our results as a team from the Beijing Olympics and the WEG were truly dissapointing.

Ok, I think that's it, I'm bored at work and could ramble on for awhile, but I think I'll close things up for the afternoon and go do something else... like read up on Hobbit movie goodness!!