2 of 3 phases...

*stolen from GRS blog*

So my pony met the most fearsome of beasts @ my dr coach's farm the other day. No it wasn't the white chain of doom, or even the gremlins that live @ C...

It was . . .

*insert jaws theme here*

. . . a mini!!!! Now we all know that ponies are demons in cute furry coats, but minis... Well they're demon ponies who've been taken over by aliens! And therefore should be snorted at and run away from. It was pretty funny, esp following her "I'm too tired to go for a walk" act. Sheesh. I will admit she was pretty tired the next day though -- although whether it was from an hour of dressage or 30 seconds of saving the world from ferocious aliens, I'm not sure.

Same outting Sienna had another run-in that demonstrated to me exactly *why* she keeps getting beat up in the field. Miss Sienna wants very much to be the boss mare -- the problem is that she's all talk. This was demonstrated very clearly in our warmup. Gorgeous long indoor ring w/ a full wall of mirrors on one short end.... Now she's seen mirrors before, even these mirrors before, and it's never been an issue. But this time she decided it was time to exert her authority with the "other" horse. So we trot up to the mirror, get within a few strides, and she pins her ears and makes all sorts of seriously nasty faces -- which is all well and good, but then the OTHER horse did the EXACT SAME THING!!!! And yes my super-brave-wanna-be-boss mare promptly turned and ran away. hahahhaha and it didn't help that her rider was laughing at her. So the next time we came around and clearly having decided the resident mare is WAY scarier than she is, Si decided to make friends. Approached the mirror w/ ears forward and all happy, and the mirror-mare was very receptive to this of course and the two were the greatest of friends after that. hahaha sadly it doesn't work quite that way in the paddock and hence the continual bumps n bruises. *sigh*

Lesson itself was a riot. Only dr coach I've ever had who actually makes dressage entertaining while making a valiant effort to actually fix us. Of course I've no idea if she does so *intentionally* >;-P hahaha sorry M :) But the combination of coach who has, heaven forbid, expectations! Of us producing something that resembles dressage! With my silly little TB who, let's be honest, thinks anything that's not eating is a complete waste of time, n me who ODed on dressage last year and so have been slightly less than dedicated this year... Well let's just say we do better in the "interpretive" division. (and for the non-horse-people in the audience, said division does not technically exist outside my mind :) Where circles occasionally (ummm often) have one square corner, and the canter could have anywhere between 2 and 4 beats, and the rider may or may not be actually sitting. hahaha but she sticks it out and somehow by the end of the lesson she always manages to transform us into something that won't get us laughed out of the dressage ring (or so I like to pretend anyways). Have to get back on a normal lesson schedule; it's the only way my dq homework will get done. hmmmm somehow I don't generally have that problem w/ jump homework *g* N never w/ XC homework... Funny, I never seem to *get* XC homework. Booo. But if pony is going to compete anytime soon *cough*Sat*cough* we really have to learn how to go from the trot to the canter.

Now while we haven't got the whole T/C thing down yet, we did have fun galloping around XC @ Cedar Run last wknd. Incredibly gorgeous facility. For those considering going... I have no idea what's going to be where, but they have a HUGE field (that had stad fences in it) that has the most amazing footing. Like riding on a putting green. It may get shrunk to put dressage in there too -- I don't know, but if the whole thing stays stad it'll make for a fun rolling course. There's a sandring too so potential for a dressage ring there. No idea where warmup may end up. Can't speak to what the stad course may be but XC (what was built as of then anyways) was fair and inviting. PE the logs-in-the-grass you'd expect. E and PT also friendly and inviting; the first few quite low, then others to size. T course wasn't up yet (we saw some of them being built) but I would expect the same. There's a natural water crossing (presumably not on the lower levels) and they were in the process of building a man-made water complex as well. E and up had jumps in the woods as well as in standard open areas. At least 2 PT/T bank complexes -- one very natural one in the woods, and one standard "we built this so there'd be a bank" in a field. That has a run up and jump off w/ a few strides to an easy vert, or a jump on/jump off/2strides log combo. Striding rides really well both ways even on a greenbean... There's a great PE/E run (about 100ft from each other) that has 4 fences in a row, connecting 4 rows of trees, several strides apart that was a ton of fun to go through. Super inviting. Lots of portable fences and standard hogs-back type jumps. There was a PT/T shark's tooth that was eating horses (be aware if it appears on your course cause it didn't look like anything particularly exciting!) Nothing particularly inventive (although the run through the trees was entertaining), but up and down hills, gorgeous scenery, mostly sand footing, and a short jog through the woods which is always fun :)