Time sure does fly when you're having fun

I'm sitting in the barn aisle as I type this very past due blog entry. My horses are happily munching on hay and two of them are down in the straw taking their second nap of the day. It's hard to believe it's already September. Where the heck did the summer go? I've been enjoying life and taking full advantage of the fact that I now live in the heart of horse country. During the last three months I've had some really amazing lessons with Scott Hassler, Silva Martin and Boyd Martin, traveled to several horse shows, taught many lessons to my wonderful students on both sides of the state, attended the World Young Horse Championships in Verden and welcomed a new training horse into my program. I can also say with 100% confidence that I'm not the rider I was when I moved east in May. I have learned so much this summer through riding and also observing. I'm having a good deal of fun riding my old man Hootie on the DVCTA's Second Level Quadrille Team. For a horse that enjoys being grumpy towards other horses he is handling the experience extremely well. We will perform twice at Dressage at Devon next week. I'm also riding Bunny in the 5 year old Suitability and Materiale classes at Devon. Bunny also started jumping a bit this summer and we had our first real lesson with Boyd Martin. It was 100% awesome and fun, and I so wish I could have a jumping lesson with Boyd every week. Bunny was his typical cool customer self. I think he really enjoys jumping so I'm going to continue to incorporate it into his training program as often as possible. And despite some major progress with Audi I had to make the heartbreaking decision to scratch him from the GAIG's. We have had some rocky rides this past week and I'm not sure exactly why. I really don't like scratching, but it's the right thing to do. There will be other shows in our future and what's most important is that we preserve our confidence and keep our sights on the long term goals. Here's some footage from a lesson I had with Scott Hassler late August...it gives me hope that things will get better soon.