blaze faced chestnut celebrity meetup (incidentally including bloggers too)

(also winning for longest post title evar)

Ok. But seriously y'all. I had the incredible opportunity to meet Alli and Niamh at Carousel Park Equestrian Center for the cross country schooling blogger meet up of a life time. Perhaps you already read about it on Pony'Tude (and if not, go do it now!).

i like red rumps and i cannot lie

This outing has been in the works for the better part of a year, and I am so so SO tickled that it finally happened! And even more grateful that Austen and her goofball huskies could be present to document said adventures!

maybe the only actual picture of Austen from the whole day. and huskies. bc obviously huskies. always huskies. 

Really, tho, there isn't much more to write about it beyond what Allison has already shared. It was just awesome. These three horses are something special - and I'm not even trying to be biased here. Case in point - the picture below.

What isn't immediately obvious is the environment surrounding this photograph. Directly behind and adjacent to the photographer are: a peacock in full demonstration mode; alpacas; sheep & goats climbing playground equipment; lesson ponies doing what lesson ponies do; and countless family groups full of very small children - apparently none of whom have ever been in close proximity to a horse.

Days since Any Fucks Given? uncountably infinite

So it turns out Carousel Park is a bit of a zoo haha. Whatevskis, it was totally fine. Isabel, Austen, the huskies, and I arrived early, with Niamh and Alli hot on our heels.

emma: "Isabel don't you care?!?"
isabel: "no my life is meaningless we are all just chaos spiraling into nothingness"

Then it was simply a matter of getting everybody dressed and ready to go - sadly on a somewhat tight schedule bc work is a real thing and I had a plane to catch, womp.

isabel: "Unless we get to gallop go fast do the thing. In which case, GAME ON."

Obvi there was still plenty of time to ooooooh and aaaaaahhh over the ridiculously cute floofy Dino!!!

emma: "OMG HE REALLY IS REAL!!!"

Over the past year I've gotten to "know" Dino so well via text and blog posts... but meeting him in person was something different altogether. Kinda like coming home to a warm fireplace and slipping on your favorite pair of sheepskin slippers. Is that weird? lol

Dino the wonderkind takes it all in

And Riley - what can one even say about this laid back guy? He is DARLING - while simultaneously maintaining that unexpected little spark (generally in the form of his Beyonce-like posterior haha). He acted like such the seasoned veteran - this quiet, confident 'been there, done that' attitude that must certainly mean Niamh's in for one hell of an excellent year!

Riley. Oh Riley. Such Majesty!

Anyway, we headed out to the field post haste to get in as much fun as possible before yours truly had to hit the road. Luckily, Carousel Park is arranged such that it's a series of fields, one after the other, all going uphill. We opted to start in the farthest field (home to the water complex) and trotted much of the way there as a warm up.

trit trot, jiggity jog

Alas, the water complex was dried up... Le sigh. It was a particular area I wanted to dig into schooling-wise... Oh well... The complex was still cool, and the basin was still reedy and mushy.

Plus it was surrounded by banks with some jumps on either side. So we trotted and cantered in and out and up and down some of the banks and over some of the jumps. Izzy was fine so that should count for something, maybe. lol

about 80% of the pictures look exactly like these

Mostly, tho, we kinda just bombed around trotting cantering and jumping with those handsome geldings. Or standing around spectating (and grazing, as the case may be).

except when they look like this. run mare RUN

Isabel loved galloping and jumping around too - obvi haha.

Wheeeeeeee jump the things!!!!!!

It's honestly kinda hard for me to go to a new place and formulate a plan. I dunno why, it just is. If a trainer tells me to do a thing, I'll do it. Or if any particular jump is assigned to my actual course, I'll jump it. But left to my own devices? Ehh... I'll kinda just bop around not doing much.

yasssss Dino loves to GALLOP!

Nbd tho - bc this particular ride wasn't really supposed to be about that. Rather it was about getting to know the friends I've made through this incredible blogging community. And their fantastic horses that are even better in real life than I could have possibly imagined.

Riley's got that BADONK

Seriously. It's one thing to see a picture of a friend's horse and think, "wow that's a nice horse!" And it's another thing altogether to actually get to see them go in the flesh, to actually gallop around with them. What fun!

wheee we jump the same jump the other way too. craaazy lol

So ya know. That was pretty cool. Tho, for whatever it's worth, Isabel did in fact jump wonderfully through the schooling.

and small green thing too!

The venue didn't have a huge variety of options to jump, mostly either very small or bigger but lookier. We stuck with the inviting stuff, as this was not an outing intended to push ourselves - but I made an exception for that N brown lattice thingy. Given our historical issues with lattice style jumps, it seemed like a ripe opportunity to test whether the problems were truly laid to rest or not. Verdict: lattice = nbd now. #goodtoknow

mare don't care tho - she likes it all :)

We also played with practicing out of the starter gate on the way back to the trailers. Bc why not, isn't that just plain fun? Standing around the lane watching your friends ZOOM out of the gate and over fence 1?!?

#enablerthynameisemma

And obviously Isabel was more than happy to stand around and watch graze while the others took their turns.

chestnuts unite!

And of course she was more than happy to stand around for photo opps too... tho my enabling ways meant she was driving those poor better-behaved geldings mad. You can clearly see in Riley's expression above that he resents how Isabel blatantly flaunts the "no grazing" rule lol.

victory gallop!!!

Of course, last but not least, before we all headed back to the trailers - there had to be a final victory gallop. I mean, right?!? How can you not have a group of this many solid, obedient and well-behaved chestnuts without letting them go a little crazy?

So much fun - lemme tell ya! I've long heard from Alli about Dino's "after-burners" and initially thought that must all be a load of bunk when Isabel sprung off from the starting line leaving everyone in her dust... that is, right up until Dino zoomed past us haha.

austen: "POSE DRAMATICALLY!"
isabel, dino + riley : "maybe we're born with it. maybe it's something terrifying in the woods"

Those ponies, guys. Apparently you gotta keep an eye on them!

#winning

But seriously tho - this was one of the most fun social outings I've had in a long time. What's not to love? Hopefully we can do it again sometime soon!!!! And who knows - maybe there are other local bloggers who wanna come play too?!?

Obvi our photographer extraordinaire Austen should have had Pig handy, and Carly clearly needs to get her ass back down here bc dammit she should be a part of this too! What about the rest of you - any interest in getting out and about for some galloping / jumping / extreme trail riding?