Playing Catch-Up

So I know I have pretty much disappeared recently but I promise I have good excuses! The last few weeks have been VERY hectic for me so I haven't really had any time to blog and to be honest, I probably won't have too much time for a while going forward. You see, I have decided that it's time to stop being an effing dinosaur and actually do something with my life. To begin, I have signed up for 2 summer classes at the community college, I am also just starting to study for the GMAT and when that's done I'll have the LSAT, and I am researching grad schools to apply to.

However, in the midst of all of that, I am still making time for Gatsby and some lessons and *hopefully* some competitions coming up. Gatsby has done a complete 180 from the last time I wrote. Our rides recently have been awesome, both on the flat and over fences. We went to Woodside a couple weekends ago and had a fantastic schooling, including a big prelim jump into water which he rocked!

Our dressage has also been coming along although we definitely have good & not-so-good days. Our jumping has been phenomenal!! Last week in our lesson we jumped a HUGE 4 ft oxer beautifully. Gatsby was very unimpressed with mine and Alexis' attempts to make him work by raising the jumps. I don't know how much higher we can raise them before I get chicken!!

Anyways, I will try to update more regularly now that I have somewhat of a schedule for my classes/studying but I can't make any promises. Hope you all are having fantastic summers with your ponies!

Ups, Downs, and Scratches

Well I have seriously been neglecting this blog. Honestly it's because I just haven't felt like writing down how awful my rides have been and how frustrated it's been making me. Basically, Gatsby has been pretty much back to his old ways, exploding at random moments, blowing off all my aides, completely ignoring what I'm asking of him. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little but, especially after all the progress we'd been making, I was starting to feel like I was back to square 1.

Last weekend we had a less than stellar jumping lesson and I may have had a near-mental breakdown at some point. In all honesty, he could have been worse. He was still jumping well, locking on to the fences and looking for a job. However, it felt more like a jumper speed round than a relaxed, schooling stadium course. Oy vey...

Monday I took off riding because I wanted to really address where our issues were coming from and, quite honestly, I didn't even feel like riding. That has kind of been the case for the last couple weeks, I just haven't felt like it. It's depressing to get on knowing I'm going to work but tush off and have nothing to show for it. But, I know that this will pass, as similar phases have in the past, so I tried to persevere and scheduled a dressage lesson for Tuesday.

Thankfully we had an actually decent lesson on Tuesday. I'm not going to say good because I had to spend a good portion of the lesson getting him to the point where he usually starts but, we did end on a good note and we did have some really nice canter work.

Unfortunately as I was rubbing down his legs after our lesson I discovered a pretty nasty case of scratches on his hind legs. It doesn't seem to be bothering him much and his legs were still tight and cool so I just scrubbed with Betadine, wrapped and gave him a day off yesterday. When I went out last night they looked a little better and I added some anti-fungal cream, anti-bacterial cream, and diaper rash cream under his wraps. Hopefully today his legs will still be tight and cold and we can have a nice ride!

Also, I know I need to get to work on my goals seeing as we are almost half-way through June but I may have to save that for tomorrow:)