Words cannot express the level of gratefulness I have to be DONE with this weekend! Wow. So, for my IEA team, our team has to host a horseshow. I am not good at asking for help. So what did I do? I planned the whole dang show myself. I could NOT have done it without the help of my friend, Becca. She totally pulled me out of my funk, and helped me pull it together in a BIG way.
Last year, we co-hosted with the Milton Eagles, which is the OTHER team I coached this year. They did a TON of the work last year, so it wasn't that hard to do. This year, it was 100% on us (me). So, I begged a mom to help me out by agreeing to be the show secretary (the HARDEST job), and organized entries for the 2 weeks leading up to the show.
(why is this prose important? Well, it's explaining why the ONLY thing I have done with my horse all week is longe him once, and walk hills bareback and with his winter blanket on)
Friday, I had to clean stalls, longe Muffin, pack trailer, hook up trailer, clean out car, meet an hour and a half away with my secretaries, hold a team meeting, set the course, set up all the tables/etc for the show, hit up Wal Mart for a bunch of essentials for the show, and set up my horse grid. For anyone not involved with IEA, setting up a horse grid involves wading through the entries to figure out what horses teams are providing. We then have to go by their descriptions to determine where to place them so that none are working too hard, and each class has a horse for every rider, plus 2 alternates. It is like a jigsaw puzzle ... with either too many pieces, or not enough pieces!!! In my case, it was not enough pieces since my show was full of a bunch of scragglers.
Finished up with that at 2:00 in the morning. Headed up to bed so that I could awaken at 3:30 to get to the barn, get Star out of her pasture, feed her and Muffin, wrap them, brush them, remove blankets, add coolers, pack their barn stuff in the trailer, fill the hay nets, tie them up, hay ALL the other horses that were in, load Star and Tiki, and get on the road. I had wanted to leave by 5; got out by 5:15, not too bad!
Seeing as how y'all don't want EVERY detail about my day, I will get to the horse part. Tiki was REALLY fresh. We flatted inside, and he did just OK. He didn't get scratched, but he was definitely not quiet. Had to school the jumps in the afternoon after the ring thawed, and he seemed better. Jumped better than he flatted, and we finished up around 3:30. I made it home about 9, fell asleep on the couch, had to take my shower around 11:45, then fell into bed for another early start of 4:00. Tiki was MINE today, and he warmed up/showed GREAT! One kid that I SAW got a first on the flat, and another got a 2nd over fences. My team qualified for Regionals today, so we're off to our finals in 2 weeks. They will actually be at the same farm; Rising Fawn. It has been a long, stressful weekend. Some day, I will relay the rest of this sordid story, but for now, this is it:)
Hope to ride Tiki a little more often this week now that I am no longer buried with this show stuff. I am SO proud of him. He was a ROCK STAR!!!!!
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