I’m a morning person, one of the disgusting ones who never needs coffee and embraces 5 a.m. wake-up calls. It’s an affliction. Killed my social life as a teenager. Nowadays, it’s an asset, because I start bright and early so I can get my horses done before my clients arrive, and I get more done in a day. And that’s without mentioning that often in the summer in Virginia, it’s already 85° by 9 a.m., so getting on my first horse by 5:30 isn’t a bad plan.
In wintertime, though, my affliction becomes a little depressing. The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler. It’s been pitch dark as I get on my first horse for a few weeks now; pretty soon it’ll still be dark when I’m getting on my second. Makes for a bleak start to the day!
Fortunately, my horses have been great. Midgey in particular is really starting to put some things together—I’m able to ride a longer neck to the piaffe, and I have a little more control over the forward tendency. He’s also made a BIG breakthrough in the canter pirouettes—they’re still pretty big, but the right one is really cooking, and even the left one is a pirouette now, instead of an amoeba-like circle.
With winter approaching, it’s starting to be body clipping season. Every year our Regional Championships are right on the brink—do I leave them a little fuzzy for the show, or do I clip them early, guaranteeing I’m going to have to clip them again? Midge got particularly fuzzy early this season, so I decided last week to give him a clip.
ADVERTISEMENT
Reliably, every year, I get about a third of the way done with my first body-clipping attempt only to remember that 1) I hate body clipping, but even more importantly, 2) that I really stink at it. So poor Midge looked like he’d been chewed on by squirrels until working students Nicole and Lacey came to my rescue and finished him up.
We’re in for a little break in the weather this weekend—bath time for everyone! Yippee! But then I think I’m going to have to bring out the coolers…ugh.
