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| The last time Rico and I showed at Murieta, this was the same arena that we watched for a while, but it's now covered with stands! |
On Saturday, I took TC on a walk and gave him a bath before heading out to Rancho Murieta, a show facility about 40 minutes away.
I showed Rico at Murieta a few times in the 00s and have taken kids there for shows/JR Champs, but haven't really been there in a while (last time was 2016 to coach). It has definitely gotten much ritzier, they're turning it into THE place to be. So naturally TC and I haven't shown there! We aren't doing the multi-day shows yet and it's a very busy place, I think it's best to work up to it.
I arrived and knew that Kate and Jen were inside watching the CDI, but I saw a dog in the parking lot. It was Alexis with her adorable whippet, so I talked to her for a while before calling Kate and Jen over to hang out. Nothing like going to watch an international dressage show and instead petting a dog in the parking lot while talking to strangers, sorry Jen! Alexis is a riot though and the CDI was small and the scores were kind of low, so we probably didn't miss much.
Right as Alexis left, Nicole showed up! And thus began a fun blogger dressage day.
We watched the warm up for a bit before heading over to watch the open PSG. A friend was riding in that, so we watched her and a few other riders too. There were some really nice horses, and one of the competitors was on a hafflinger! She had the cutest changes, really expressive.
We kind of wandered aimlessly for a second before watching warm up again and then deciding to get lunch. After lunch, we all had to split.
I went home and did a bunch of chores for the show- sewed the button back onto my show coat, got a new backing for my gold lapel pin so I didn't accidentally lose a third of my dressage education at the next show. I also played with my patio garden that is growing quite well right now!
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| Rico in the field, it's a lot less green now-a-days |
Sunday
Sunday morning I rode TC and taught a lesson before heading down to the bay area for Father's day. I was really eager to get on Rico, so opted to do that first. Rico was happy to see me, mostly because I made him do tricks, which means cookies.
I hopped on him and headed up to the field where my parents had put paths in. Rico was super excited to be out there and carted me around at the trot and canter all over the hills. It was so fun!
My brother and SIL came down for dinner, which took a little while in the oven. I had brought a couple of board games, so we played The Resistance, which was hilarious because my mom kept giving away that she was a spy by asking what she should do in instances where as a member of the resistance, you'd not have a choice. So we (the resistance) won both times.
It was fun catching up with family. I'm still (frustratingly) struggling with being down there without Cooper, despite it being over three months since he's been gone. But I still appreciate being there and I know it will get easier with each visit.
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| View halfway up the hill of the ranch and the neighbor's property |
Monday
Monday morning I played with Ruby, my parents' dog, before heading up to SJ to go to the movies with Kate! The perks of having friends with unusual schedules, she didn't have much to do so we decided to hang out. We saw Incredibles 2, which was absolutely amazing. Then got some lunch before we had to head out to teach separate lessons.
I had heard from some previous clients that they wanted to be added to my bay area list and I told them that I would, but that I was also driving through the area on Monday afternoon if they wanted to ride. So they wrangled me two lessons in the afternoon.
It was SO fun to see them. Both of them love the biomechanics stuff and improved a ton during their lessons. I got to sit on one of their horses, my student's previous PSG horse, and that was super fun. I did some maintenance in the connection, but then schooled some changes through the four tempis, though little miss decided to throw in a three. I had just been telling Kate that I wanted to sit on something with good changes since I have mostly been doing them on horses that aren't great at them. So thanks little mare!
From there I drove home, which I already bitched about the other day. Just like, lesson learned, do not get off the highway in SF lol.
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| Now to just figure out a way to bring TC down for a weekend and hit these trails again! |
