Sunday, July 7
Jul. 7th, 2024 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Truthfully, that this event with Patrick Sullivan has reached it's natural conclusion. It's been great, I think we all learned so much, it's been a fun "immersion" week in horse camp, but I'm exhausted.
Today I got up really early for me, and I barely slept, and went to the riding barn. It was already fairly warm when I got there, and it was VERY HOT by about 11 am.
R started the morning off by getting us to form up and do a procession (on foot) and stand for the Canadian anthem, as the official opening of the show. I thought that was a bit much, but R feels that (and she might be right) this is the first "International Liberty Horse Show" in Canada, as Patrick is from Texas. Could be, since no one has ever heard of another one, so there you go.
Everyone did really well, and even the ones that had a lot of difficulty with some things took it in stride, which is probably the best thing anyone can take away from these experiences. No one was upset with anyone else for not doing well, no one showed any signs of poor horsemanship like taking out their frustrations on them, no frustrated parents, no frustrated coaches. Just the determination to try again.
Really, that's impressive, if you know anything about how much people care about winning.
The day was JUST TOO LONG. The event today went on for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT, though we had a break for lunch.
River did pretty well in all the regular classes, and we placed in a few (no wins), but I was pretty disappointed in our freestyle. The freestyles were at the end of the day, and River was TIRED, and you could tell he was just done with all of this. He didn't do anything scary at all, but what he did do was just refuse to listen to me in the ridden part of our freestyle, pretty much just not doing it. I did hop off and complete the part where I was on the ground and he was at Liberty, but after all the work we've put into that freestyle pattern over the last couple of months, I'm really unhappy that he did that.
Okay, frustration vented.
The good parts: he did pretty well on the other classes, we did place in some, and the part that meant a lot to me is that he was relaxed and stayed with me, so that was good.
He was also well-behaved in all the long stretches of standing around waiting for your turn, and well-behaved around all the commotion, the people, the shade shelters and umbrellas that R put up for shade, and so on. That part was all good.
My husband was busy doing things all day while I was at the show. Our hay guy had told us yesterday that our bales would be ready today after 5, meaning my husband thought he could come to the show. Nope, instead our hay guy wanted us there by 2 pm. If you don't drop everything else in your life and RUN to his place immediately, he picks up the hay bales himself and puts them in his shed, and charges three more dollars per bale, which is very significant.
So, my husband instead went and picked bales. When I got home, we unloaded them off the trailer into the barn.
My Sweetie was also burning more of the wasted hay from the floor of the barn outside today.
AND the guy who wanted to buy our old truck came by this evening to pick it up, and my husband had to clean the truck out first (lots of stuff in it, and in the tool box on the back).
It was a little sad to see it go, as it has served us well for about 15 years.
So that was more or less our day. I am so tired.
Truthfully, that this event with Patrick Sullivan has reached it's natural conclusion. It's been great, I think we all learned so much, it's been a fun "immersion" week in horse camp, but I'm exhausted.
Today I got up really early for me, and I barely slept, and went to the riding barn. It was already fairly warm when I got there, and it was VERY HOT by about 11 am.
R started the morning off by getting us to form up and do a procession (on foot) and stand for the Canadian anthem, as the official opening of the show. I thought that was a bit much, but R feels that (and she might be right) this is the first "International Liberty Horse Show" in Canada, as Patrick is from Texas. Could be, since no one has ever heard of another one, so there you go.
Everyone did really well, and even the ones that had a lot of difficulty with some things took it in stride, which is probably the best thing anyone can take away from these experiences. No one was upset with anyone else for not doing well, no one showed any signs of poor horsemanship like taking out their frustrations on them, no frustrated parents, no frustrated coaches. Just the determination to try again.
Really, that's impressive, if you know anything about how much people care about winning.
The day was JUST TOO LONG. The event today went on for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT, though we had a break for lunch.
River did pretty well in all the regular classes, and we placed in a few (no wins), but I was pretty disappointed in our freestyle. The freestyles were at the end of the day, and River was TIRED, and you could tell he was just done with all of this. He didn't do anything scary at all, but what he did do was just refuse to listen to me in the ridden part of our freestyle, pretty much just not doing it. I did hop off and complete the part where I was on the ground and he was at Liberty, but after all the work we've put into that freestyle pattern over the last couple of months, I'm really unhappy that he did that.
Okay, frustration vented.
The good parts: he did pretty well on the other classes, we did place in some, and the part that meant a lot to me is that he was relaxed and stayed with me, so that was good.
He was also well-behaved in all the long stretches of standing around waiting for your turn, and well-behaved around all the commotion, the people, the shade shelters and umbrellas that R put up for shade, and so on. That part was all good.
My husband was busy doing things all day while I was at the show. Our hay guy had told us yesterday that our bales would be ready today after 5, meaning my husband thought he could come to the show. Nope, instead our hay guy wanted us there by 2 pm. If you don't drop everything else in your life and RUN to his place immediately, he picks up the hay bales himself and puts them in his shed, and charges three more dollars per bale, which is very significant.
So, my husband instead went and picked bales. When I got home, we unloaded them off the trailer into the barn.
My Sweetie was also burning more of the wasted hay from the floor of the barn outside today.
AND the guy who wanted to buy our old truck came by this evening to pick it up, and my husband had to clean the truck out first (lots of stuff in it, and in the tool box on the back).
It was a little sad to see it go, as it has served us well for about 15 years.
So that was more or less our day. I am so tired.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-10 10:22 am (UTC)As much as I can try to relate, I do remember competitions where by the end of the day you're just beat and you're just done. Nobody does well in times like that! And it's the best you can ask not to have a meltdown actually. I'm glad that the overall experience was good, and that all of you is a group learned so much from it! Seems like overall a really beautiful experience, and so much good you can take from this time and carry with you both. So I hope that you can feel like the overall experience was a win, because from everything you've written, it really does sound like that overall. Not to wash away the disappointments, but in the balance of it all, I'm glad there was so much good. 🌟
no subject
Date: 2024-07-11 06:42 am (UTC)We really were both very tired. It was the last class at the end of a long, hot, day, at the end of a long, hot week.
A full week of that level of engagement was really overload for me mentally and physically, though there were lots of good things from it too.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-14 03:21 am (UTC)