classin' up the joint

Happy Monday, y'all - and happy May too! We had another busy spring weekend here, filled (per usual) with doing all the things!

charlie <3's this azalea tho. only the best for sir! 

Charlie had another lesson - probably his last before our next show - and hopefully I'll have more to share on that later (must gets my grubby paws on the media first lol).

It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but just more affirmation that Charlie's a green horse who is a little different each week. And that's meant in the best way possible - it's just hard to keep up with sometimes haha.

i never get tired of watching this guy. never.

Fortunately we were able to move our lesson earlier in the day on Saturday so Trainer P could make it to the Maryland Hunt Cup, and I could get to a friend's party to catch the end of Rolex xc. Was anyone else glued to the live stream too?

I was also SUPER jealous of all my friends and other bloggers who actually made it down to see the action live and in person - can't wait to read all the inevitable follow up posts!

this kid and pony have matching faces lol

All that Rolex-binge-watching tho was helpful in keeping me inspired to do all the things with Charlie. But ya know. We've probably got some stuff to work on before our 4* debut. Nbd. I mean, getting 4s on trot circles is totally proof positive that we're well on our way to greatness, right??? lol...

keepin it classy around here

Anyway. It hasn't all been rainbows and kittens tho. Bc it seems like with horses there always has to be some little snag or snafu. At least this time it was just my poor long suffering truck that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

glass errywhere

So the dreaded barn mgr text was a little less scary this go 'round since it wasn't anything about Charlie whacking yet another leg - but instead was asking whether I was aware that the rear window on my truck cap was shattered....

totally shattered. ugh.

Our best guess is the mowers accidentally pinged a rock through the window. Definitely crappy, but definitely squarely within the "shit happens" category. And it least it's just an easily replaced part on the cap, and the truck is still usable in the meantime.

clean up in aisle 3!!

Tho there's pebbled glass in freakin everything I store in the cap. All the buckets, our chairs, on the sponges and towels, a few saddle pads.... Ugh. Everything. Bc yea I totally maximize my storage space back there haha.

And sure this is "safety" glass, but it's still fucking glass. It still cuts skin (so say my poor fingers all covered in microcuts) and needs to be fully cleaned out. Esp the sponges and stuff - like, can you imagine sponging off your horse but accidentally raking a shard of glass across his back in the process? Or feeding him from a bucket with little teensy pieces of glass stuck to the bottom??

So yea. Lots of clean up happening. Oh well.

new look?

Nobody likes dwelling on shattered glass tho, so let's move on to brighter subjects. And maybe more closely related to that whole "getting 4s on trot circles" in our dressage test thing. Haha.

As much as I love my pretty blue show coat, it doesn't really pop on Charlie the way it had on Isabel. So I decided to branch out color-wise to what seems to be the new trendy hue: berry. Maybe this is more of a trend in show jumping, vs eventing or dressage, but whatever. I like it on bay.

can he pull off the uber-long look? i actually think so!

Part of this new color expansion included grabbing a new bonnet off amazon. This one is specifically designed to be very long - again, I think a trend in the jumper ring. And it's not necessarily a look I would have preferred, but it seemed like it was worth a try. And actually now that it's on the horse, I think it suits him well!

the ears fit!

My plan is to go all-out-berry in our dressage outfit. It might not be super conventional, or anything. And maybe it's kinda silly to have a borderline flamboyant turnout on a horse that.... is decidedly neither fancy or particularly trained haha.

water!!

But hey, maybe with the very long bonnet the judge might be able to at least see part of it even while Charlie's nose is sky high in the air? We'll see haha. Or maybe we can go the whole 'fake it til ya make it' route, and potentially even convince a judge or two (if only for a moment) that maybe we're actually trying to be serious about our dressage?

fun with friends

Anyway. I'm excited. More pics of the whole look coming eventually lol. Tho Charlie got to try the bonnet on for size during a recent hack about with friends at OF.

We mostly just stuck to trotting and cantering around the terrain while everyone else schooled around - and I got to practice that whole "5th leg training" thing by trying to let go as much as possible while the horse navigated the ground on his own. It's honestly amazing how much better Charlie feels on his feet out there now compared to when I first got him haha. It's promising!

So who knows, maybe he'll grow into his outfits sooner than I expect? Lol..... Or maybe we'll just be the best-over-dressed set of fools parading around intro level eventing at starter trials. I'm cool with it either way ;)

Do you like to get dressed up for shows? Or do you feel like the level of pomp and circumstance should be commensurate with your level of training? Do you like to be matchy matchy in fun colors? Or do you prefer a more conservative look? I seem to flip flop on both sides of the coin apparently, haha.