It is the weather, dammit.

Walking back to my car from my office, roughly a mile through the scenic and beautiful historic downtown Savannah, I was elated.  I couldn't take my eyes off the clouds, the bright blue sky, the beauty of the spanish moss in the trees, the crunchy yellow, orange and purple leaves peppering the brick walkways through the squares.  I had a perk to my step and I made the trek in record time.  I hopped in my car, thinking about riding the horse and the exercises we would do.  And somewhere in that forty-five minute drive to the barn, the sun set.

And I thought, Fuck this shit, I want to go home!

But I didn't.  I went to the barn.  BM had just finished a lesson when I got the Archie out.  I was bundled up while I groomed him and she and I talked about random things.  Her daughter had been invited to a camp at a local college.  The other girl who rides in her jumping lessons went too.  That girl and her mother talked to the college about their equestrian team and were promptly told not to bother if she hadn't shown A circuit.  Ouch.

Bleached.

We also talked about trainers.  They trailered out to try a friend of T3's.  I'm not sure if they liked her or not, but no mention was made of her coming out to our barn.  And another trainer will be coming for her second lesson tonight.  If I had known earlier, I would have come out to watch her.  It's like T3 opened my eyes and I'm not going to settle now.  I would ask to take a lesson with the lady, but she charges nearly twice what T3 did for a private.  I want to know she's good before I blow nearly a hundred dollars riding with her.


While we talked, the wind was howling and Archie danced in the cross ties.  The BO and his son were replacing the round bale in the gelding pasture and Archie was whipping his head around to watch.  At my old barn, I would have been pleased to mount and walk around in these conditions.  But here I have cojones.


Mounted the eyeball-rolling beast and he almost immediately settled.  The ride itself was pretty uneventful.  Rather than ride as we normally would, I spent a lot of time controlling his pace and transitioning down in the turns to compensate for the weird soggy footing.  We worked on our collected sit trot, walk/canter/walk transitions, working trot/halt/back/working trot.  And counter bending while asking for different leads down the diagonals.  Pony was stellar.


And then the next day I completely flaked on riding.
And the next day.

But I'm totally going tonight.