Page 1 - January

January 9 & 10	Two long days of driving. It was about 5 degrees when I left the barn on Sunday morning. Nothing like hooking up your trailer when it is freezing cold and pitch black outside! I had to hammer the ice off of the safety chain hooks but eventually it all worked. Usually, as I get farther south the temperature goes up, but this year it was still really cold when I stopped for the night in South Carolina. I heard that there was a terrible winter storm heading towards the Carolinas and Georgia, and sure enough Monday morning it was freezing rain. My truck and trailer were coated with ice which did not start falling off until 50 miles from the Florida border when the temperatures rose and the torrential rain started. In previous years, I have enjoyed driving through Jacksonville. The city is always sunny and the city looks so nice as you sweep by on an overpass with bright blue water underneath. This year, however, I could see neither the city nor the water through the torrents of rain. I was starting to think that Florida's weather was not going to be an improvement over Ohio's, but then suddenly the sun came out and the next time I stopped for gas I was able to take off my sweater, finally. Every landmark that told me that I was getting close, even the giant landfills off the turnpike, made me happy. When I finally pulled into barn it was such a relief. Now, I just have to worry about the horses getting here on the semi tomorrow. I hope that they do not get delayed by the big storm. Too bad that now I had to unload hay, the bane of my existence in Florida. I got everything unloaded and the stalls set up, then I headed for my apartment. I am hoping that my place does not come with a rat as did the place I had the first year I came here, always a worry. No rat but also no hot water. Oh well, you can't have everything. I will just take a cold shower and deal with the rest of it tomorrow!
January 11	I spent all day today waiting for my horses but they are still in Atlanta. The terrible storm that hit the South made getting the semi through Atlanta impossible. After hours of sitting still on the highway the drivers were able to get the horses safely to a local farm where they are laying up until the weather and road conditions improve. I wish that they were here with me but I am really relieved that they are off the road and resting comfortably for now. Being here is wonderful but getting here is terribly stressful and dangerous for everyone involved. Since I had no horses to take care of I was able to spend most of the day watching rides and lessons. I started the morning watching Mary Austin ride Dali in a lesson with Tami Crawford. After her ride Mary Austin demonstrated how Dali answers yes or no to a variety of questions. He is really very good at his new trick! Mary Austin has her horses right across the street which will be very fun this year. In the later part of the morning I watched Betsy Juliano ride in a lesson with George and then watched George ride a couple of her horses. Fellow Clevelanders Betsy Rebar-Sell and Julie Taylor are also in the same barn so I was able to catch up with them. Most of the other riders have been down here for a while and thus are very tan and healthy looking. I am of course pale, nursing a frostbitten foot, and suffering from a vitamin D deficiency. In other words you can tell that I just arrived. I am crossing my fingers that my horses are safe and comfortable and that they get here healthy, maybe even tomorrow! In the meantime I will enjoy the weather and the lizards.
January 12	They finally got here! The horses rolled in at about 7am this morning. Poor little dears had been traveling for almost 2 days. They seemed very relieved to get to their stalls, but they never missed a beat and started eating a drinking right away. I was, of course, worried that they would get shipping fever after such a long ride so I monitored their temperatures all day. While they settled in I watched several lessons, running back between each one to check on the boys. Once I felt comfortable that they were doing well I decided to take them for little walks to stretch their legs. This turned out to be a mistake. I had not realized that after two full days of being attached at the hip that they had become inseparable. First I tried taking Camillo, but Cupido screamed and spun around in his stall which inspired Camillo to scream and leap around while I was walking him. After making a little scene I finally got Camillo back to his stall. Then, after they settled down again, I tried taking Cupido while leaving Camillo. This was also a no go. Cupido screamed even more and Camillo looked like he was going to jump out of his stall. Oh well, maybe tomorrow they will be more attached to their new neighbors and not so much to one another! In the later afternoon I went across the street to watch Mary Austin take a lesson. OK I know it is snowing at home so I should not complain, but it is cold again down here. There will be a freeze warning tonight and I had two coats on all day today!
January 13	Well, the boys are still rather attached to one another. Any time I take one away the other one screams and spins and generally flings himself all around his stall. I might have expected this from the 5 year old Camillo, but it is a little shocking from the 15 year old Cupido. I guess that being together for so very long on the semi from Ohio left them joined at the hip! In between attempts to peel the horses away from each other, I watched a bunch of lessons. All of the riders and trainers down here use the headset/ear piece system (think time life operators), but I was still able to pick up a lot of what was going on and I believe picked up some valuable exercises. All of the horses down here are very fabulous. Actually, many of the people here are fabulous as well. Last night I went to the players club for what I thought was a freestyle demonstration but turned out to be a lymphoma benefit/fashion show. The players club is the place to see and be seen in Wellington and is filled nightly with polo players and other people who are likely to drive a Porsche. This event featured a cat walk where dressage riders dressed in Euro American's finest became supermodels for the evening. There was a DJ and it looked like there was going to be dancing well into the night but I left to check on the horses.
January 14	The horses are still a little attached but they are getting better. I rode both of them today and it felt really good to ride after days of sitting in the truck and unloading hay, etc. The horses have been trapped in the indoor arena for so long at home that they were really surprised to be ridden outside and seemed shocked to see other horses wandering around the property. Haven Safe South is very busy this year. Kathy Connelly and Ryan Yap have about 20 horses on the property and many more who trailer in for lessons. The rest of the farm is filled with George's students and their horses. Everyone is very busy. The economy might be bad but you can not tell in Wellington this season! This afternoon I went across the street to IDA Farm to take care of Mary Austin's horses while she is in Tennessee for the weekend. IDA stands for International Dressage Academy and international it is. For at least some of the time I was there I am fairly sure that I was the only one for whom English was my first language. I heard some heavy German accents not to mention quite a bit of Spanish. I love how all of these polyglots can just switch languages at the drop of a hat, while my 12 years of Spanish allows me to about 10 words. Mary Austin's horse Riviera is a real diva who has a whole wardrobe of pink and sparkly things, so I made sure to wear a pink polo shirt. She did not bite me so it must have agreed with her. On my way home I found myself in a small traffic jam boxed in between heavy duty pick up trucks, some with trailers in tow. Ahhhh, Wellington!
January 15	Last night when I went out to do night check at the barn I had an unpleasant surprise. As I rounded the corner towards my stalls I heard the sound of rushing water. All of the stalls in the barn I am in this year have faucets at each stall which fill directly into your water buckets. The horses can reach over the top of their open front stalls and can touch the handles to turn on the water, but none of them ever do. Well, almost none of them do. Camillo loves to tinker with things. He finds fence boards, gate latches, even electrical cords hard to ignore so you can imagine how thrilled he was to discover a squeaky handle to turn right on his very own stall. He must have really worked at it because not only did he turn it on but he turned it all the way on, it was really gushing! Needless to say his stall looked like a swimming pool and he was cowering on the back wall with his little feet submerged. When he saw me he whinnied and came splashing across to see me. I turned off the water and started shoveling out gallons and gallons of water along with all of the shavings (which are of course really expensive down here). This process involved 15 wheelbarrow trips and a lot of undesired help from Camillo who thought that we were having a great time playing with water. After re-bedding his stall and giving the horses hay (Camillo's water bucket was already topped off for the evening), I tied the handles with twine which I hope will withstand his attentions. The horses down here this year are even fancier and more talented that the ones who were here last year (which I did not think possible). I realize that the breeding and training are getting better all the time but it is still shocking to see every year. The five year olds look like PSG horses and the six year olds look like they are about ready for the GP. They seem to be virtually coming out of the womb on the bit! Oh well, not all of them can turn on the water all by themselves!
January 16	It was finally really warm and humid today. I loved it but the horses felt a little bit wilted. I rode Cupido first thing in the morning so he wouldn't suffer too much in the heat and then I had a lesson on Camillo around one. Camillo was really good in his lesson though he was very hot and sweaty. I do not think that they have completely acclimated to the heat down here just yet. I also rode Mary Austin's horses today so all and all a busy day. On my way home in the afternoon I stopped at the grocery store. Even after all of these years I still love going to Publix where almost everyone is wearing riding clothes and buying 50 pound bags of carrots! I walked in behind two young men who were clearly dressage riders just leaving the horse show. Imagine going to the store and finding young, heterosexual men roaming the aisles in their white show breeches. Some people don't even bother to take off boots and spurs before going shopping, and there is the occasional hunter rider who does not bother to take off her helmet. I think that the helmet thing might be a little strange. They always unbuckle the strap but don't actually take the helmet off. Are they afraid of falling cans?
January 17	A lesson two days in a row, how exciting! Lauren sent me a picture of her dashboard this morning and it said 6 degrees, terrible. I was glad to be here where it was a muggy 65 this morning. The horses have settled into a nice routine of constant attention. Every time they feel that they are running dangerously low on hay I am conveniently right there to replenish their supply. They eat hay, then go out for grass, then eat more hay, then go into a paddock where they get more hay. I am afraid that they might go home very fat. While they were eating I was watching lessons. George is a teaching machine and I feel like I already have a bunch of new exercises to take home with me. The horses are fabulous, but of course all have different issues to work through so I get to see what works with different types of horses. This weekend there is a show, as there is pretty much every weekend, and I will also try to sit by warmup to hear other trainers coaching their students. Oh, I hope that I see Robert Dover in warm up. I love how wound up he gets as he teaches. It is amusing but you can tell that he really is passionate about his job. This afternoon it turned cool, still not 6 degrees, and rainy so the lizards and I were of course freezing and went in search of heated rocks.
January 18	The horses had the day off today so after doing stalls and taking the horses for their morning walks, I ran errands for them. I set off for Red Barn, a local feed and supply store, to pick up shavings, grain, and sand clear, then headed back to the barn to turn the horses out. It was actually a little hot by that time and neither of them seemed all that inclined to stay out very long. Once they were back in their stalls with lunch in front of them, I went across the street to watch Mary Austin take a lesson on Dali with Sue Jacoma. After riding Dali over the weekend I found it especially helpful to watch her lesson. I could really imagine exactly how everything felt and more easily follow the corrections. I spent much of the afternoon convincing Camillo that the clippers would not eat him and in fact that he would feel much better with all of his hair off. He did not really believe me and his haircut looks more like a lawnmower accident. After a while of struggling with the clipping I decided to call it a day for both our sakes and pick it back up tomorrow. Unfortunately, this means that I will have to ride him with his dreadful clip job. In Wellington one does not ride a partially clipped horse. I guess there is always a first!
January 19	This morning everything was dripping with humidity (doesn't that sound nice, those of you in Ohio) and of course my hair turned into a complete frizzy disaster. I took Camillo for a walk, and with his partial clip, we both had bad hair. I had decided to ride Camillo before I tackled more clipping so that I would not be driven crazy by the tiny little hairs that would undoubtedly stick to me. Mary Austin came over to watch me ride Camillo then I rode Cupido who was soaking wet with sweat and humidity. Both of the boys were really good today. After I cleaned all the tack it was time for more clipping. I had a fully charged batteries and a pocket full of treats and it actually went pretty smoothly. I know that if I just worked with the clippers every day for a while it would be fine in no time. After running home to wash off all of the hair, I went to watch Mary Austin take a lesson on her beautiful mare Rivi then watched her trainer Tami ride Dali. Both the lesson and the ride were really good and I feel like I learned a lot just watching. I am determined to go home inspired not just in my riding but in my teaching as well.
January 20	83 degrees today! Doesn't that sound fabulous is January? I loved the weather but I don't think that the horses were as enthusiastic. Cupido was sweating before I tacked him up, probably not a good sign. Camillo was also hot and sweaty by the time we walked to the arena. Camillo and I actually worked with four other horses in the ring which is really good for him because we almost always work alone at home. He seemed unfazed but it might have just been the heat. Things might have been different on a cool windy day, but then again maybe not. I thought that it was good for him to see other horses doing things like passage and tempi changes. Maybe he will learn by watching!! After our ride Camillo fell asleep in the wash rack. He seemed content to rest and have cool water sprayed on him for a while. He might not have my lizard-seeking-a-hot-rock-tendencies. There is a show this weekend and some of the people from my barn are going so I will have a good excuse to go and watch the warm up. The show is both a regular competition and a CDI so there will be lots of good rides to watch.
January 21	This afternoon I went to the show. This weekend is a large show because there is also a CDI. I got there in time to watch a few very nice PSG rides, including Marco Bernal and Kate Poulin. As I was watching Jackie Brookes' ride I heard a familiar voice at the schooling ring behind me. Yes, it was Robert Dover. This year it appears that he is back in riding apparel. Last year he was wearing Savile Row suits with a trench coat in inclement weather. Today, he had on tan breeches and boots with a white button down shirt and tie. He was coaching Ashley Holzer and the two of them were bantering away. Dover did keep an eye on Jackie the whole time. I think that he is once again coaching the Canadians. Later I saw him helping Katherine Bateson Chandler get ready for her GP ride. Katherine is a beautiful rider and her horse Nartan is exquisite. Robert seemed amazingly calm while coaching her, no screaming no jumping up and down. His calmness must have indicated that Katherine was doing everything right. Betsy Juliano showed her horse Wilhelm in the open show and had a really nice ride. Many of us from the barn came to watch and it was fun to have the whole group together. On my way back to the barn I stopped to pick up a prescription at CVS. When I was standing in line I turned around and saw that Margie Goldstein Engle was behind me. She was still wearing her riding clothes, boots and all (no helmet thank goodness). She was chatting on her cell about taking the "babies" over to school at the show. She said they were ready to go tomorrow but not in the 5 year olds. Wellington is so much fun!
January 22	Today started cooler and a little windy. By the time I had a lesson, at four, it was down right cold and gusty. Camillo was rather fresh with the cold air blowing in the palm trees and we had a little head shaking for the first few minutes. He settled down to work and we concentrated on leg yields and counter canter. Camillo thinks that a flying change is more logical than counter canter but he was willing to try it our way. After my lesson I had to hurry to feed and get home to shower before going to the show to watch the Grand Prix Freestyles which started at seven. My very attractive outfit included long underwear, a down vest, a down jacket, and one of those headband ear warmer things. I looked ready to teach lessons in Ohio! Despite the cold the freestyles were very fun to watch. I especially enjoyed Tina Konyot and her stallion Colecto V and a Swedish rider named Tinne Vihelmson-Silfven and her horse Favourit. Both of these horse and rider combinations made everything look very easy. The Swedish rider won with a 77 and Tina and Colecto finished second with a 73. Two strange items of note: First on my way home from the barn around five today I was behind a large pickup waiting to turn, and to my surprise I could see that there was a chicken, yes a live chicken, riding in the cab. It was in the back seat but clearly was protesting and the person in the passenger seat picked it up and placed it on the armrest between the two front seats. I am sure that it was a chicken, the profile was clear and it was moving and flapping so I am sure that it was alive. I don't think that this is a Florida thing but it was very odd. Secondly, as I was watching freestyles tonight there was a young couple sitting in front of me. The man was clearly not a rider but some sort of football fan given his apparel. This young man licked his girlfriend's face on two occasions. This is not something that you usually see at horse shows. Having your dog or your horse lick your face is perfectly normal, but not your boyfriend. She did not seem to mind but he clearly has not read the handbook.
January 23	It was another really cold start today but it turned into a beautiful if a little cool afternoon. I left the horses in their winter blankets when I took them out for grass this morning. It was so cold that I was expecting them to be a bit fresh and snorty, but they both seemed indifferent to the chill. I think that Camillo is exhausted from his lesson yesterday and Cupido likes to preserve energy whenever possible. I rode both of them early and had two nice rides. After working, Cupido went for a hack around the property with Betsy and her horse Duchasse and they both really seemed to enjoy the walk. Camillo also enjoyed his trail ride after he finished in the arena. He is still new enough at all of this to find everything fascinating. He tries to walk up to the horses in the paddocks and pick stuff up off the ground, like palm fronds. He picked up a rather large palm frond and carried it all the way back to our stalls. I think that he wanted to pick up a memento from his walk to give to Cupido. Camillo was very proud but Cupido was not all that impressed. I now have the afternoon free to watch lessons. I have picked up lots of exercises and expect to see more of the ever popular Renver work this afternoon!
January 24	Everything stops on Mondays in Wellington, well almost everything. Because of shows being on the weekends the traditional day off for both horses and their servants is Monday. This of course does not mean that the horses don't need to be fed, walked, turned out, or generally pampered. It just means that they are usually not ridden. In previous years I have chosen to give my horses a different day off but with the lesson schedule being rather varied I thought that this week at least I would give them today. The barn was unusually quiet this morning while I fed, cleaned stalls, and turned out. George is typically on a horse by 7:15 and I like to watch him ride as I walk and graze the horses. This morning all there was to watch was the tractor as Ron did an extremely thorough drag job. Ryan was still riding because he works about 300 horses a day so he probably has to rotate. I wanted to turn my horses out but had to wait for my eleven o'clock spot for the paddocks so I took a brief trip to Starbucks to check e-mail and get warm while I waited. It is a real treat to go someplace other than the barn in the middle of a weekday. This is not how my life typically works at home. Starbucks was of course filled with horse people and the parking lot was filled with trucks. I ran into a woman I know from Maine who is down here each Winter and we chatted for a bit. By the time I turned my horses out it was a little warmer and an insect must have landed on Camillo because I was suddenly summoned by everyone in the area and told that my horse was "unhappy" in the paddock. Many horses go out and tolerate the bugs all day but mine had a thirty minute window. Camillo passaged all the way back to the barn swishing his tail and biting dramatically at his back and sides. He seemed relieved to get back to the safety of his stall. Q was more subtle but just as pleased to get home. What ever would they do in the Summer here?
January 25	I had a really wonderful lesson today which makes me feel greatly reassured that being down here is a good thing. Sometimes I worry that I talk myself into coming down again and again just because of the weather, but the training is the real reason I am here (well the weather doesn't hurt). We worked on lateral work and counter canter all the time focusing on keeping Camillo's shoulder light and his hind leg active. At the end I felt like I was riding better as well. It is amazing down here all of the things that people do to care for their very expensive equine athletes. Today, someone told me that I just had to have the back on track standing wraps, amazingly only $150.00 for a set. Many horses receive massages, wear back on track magnetic blankets, spend an hour after each workout standing in the ice and pressure Game Ready system, and wear a massaging backpack while eating hay in their stalls. Other horses get acupuncture, joint injections, and even have sessions with a Reiki master. I try to do Florida on a budget, if this is possible, so my horses probably feel a little neglected but since their primary concern is food they will probably survive.
January 26	I did not have a lesson today so I rode both of the horses in the morning. I ran to Red Barn where a very nice man with more tattoos than Dennis Rodman loaded my shavings. He was very nice but he was probably out on work release and if I ran into him in a dark alley I would undoubtedly pepper spray him. After unloading all of my supplies I watched a couple of hours of lessons. The ring was really busy this afternoon and George seemed in his element giving one lesson while making brief remarks to all the other riders about their work. It is great to be one of the riders who gets that little extra bit of help. Sometimes it is just "a little more forward here" but other times it is more involved like "now half-halt on the outside rein and make him quicker off your inside leg. This is better here." I call this supervised riding and I find it really helpful. For one things you get advice and for another you just ride better because you know that there are potentially eyes on you at any given moment.
January 27	Yay for lessons. I had another really good lesson on Camillo today. George was running late and at one point was riding one horse while teaching a lesson with his microphone thing on. I began to think that maybe it was going to be a bad lesson day but by the time of my three o'clock slot there was less chaos and I had a great lesson. We worked on creating a more expressive trot and collecting the canter. While at the canter I found it helpful to think of closing the horse on the outside rein while still keeping him active behind when collecting. We also did a few exercises for the counter canter and had few accidental changes today. As I was leaving the barn around five, George was getting on yet another horse (and had a couple more after that). The weather was lovely today. The Temperature was just seventy, but with sunny skies and no wind it felt really warm. The lizards were out and about sunning themselves on all available surfaces. While it sounds like paradise, there are a few drawbacks. Many of the horses here have fungus. They seem to get it from being in the paddocks, why I don't know. Some of them also have hives. I think that the combination of humidity and some sort of microbial organisms conspire to make horses miserable here. Since turn out seems like a bad idea this year I have been hand grazing the horses for an hour each day. This is a little tedious but it is all about making them happy!
January 28	It was freezing again this morning. I had all my layers on and I was still shivering while waiting for the blacksmith to finish shoeing Camillo. The farrier did a great job but it took him two hours and fifteen minutes! I don't think that he will be getting a spot on Jim Foy's competition team. I am pretty sure that shoeing is a timed event?? After running in place for a while in an attempt to warm up I decided that I would just be brave and take off a few layers so that I could ride. Fortunately, while I was riding Camillo the sun came out and it warmed up quite a bit. By the time I got on Cupido I was comfortable with just one jacket on while I went for a hack before working. In the afternoon I tried to watch lessons but it was so cold I had to keep moving from patch of sun to patch of sun. There was, however, a lot to watch since at one point there were six people riding, two of whom were getting lessons through their headphones. With six people all doing different things and some of them paying more attention to what they are hearing rather than where they are in relation to everyone else, things can get a little crazy. Today nobody crashed into one another but a lot of people had to make unexpected stops. I have found that having two people taking lessons at the same time can be very dangerous since neither one can hear the other instructor, but I am getting used to riding in traffic again. It is good practice for horse shows.
January 29	The shoes that took so long to put on did not all make it through the night. The right hind was beyond askew this morning and I had to call the blacksmith to come out and put it back on. I do not feel confident that the other three shoes will fare any better! Megan and Jodi Winkler are in town for the weekend so I went with them to the show in Loxahatchee. Going out there is always a treat because in every murder mystery set in South Florida Loxahatchee is where the bodies are found floating in the canals. It is an interesting town area where you can find Lion Country Safari, multi-million dollar farms, and houses surrounded by cars with no tires on cement blocks and pit bull dogs behind chain-link fencing. The show this weekend is very small as most people showed last week at the big CDI. The PSG is still sizable and we watched some of that before I went back to the barn to ride. I worked Camillo and took Q on a trail ride. It was a beautiful sunny day and a hack was a perfect thing to do. I missed having Lauren and Jenny to go with. These things are always more fun when you have friends with you. Cupido did chase a bird which he clearly thought might taste like chicken. Back at the farm he also thought about eating this little white dog named princess who chases him and barks. He thinks that she might taste like chicken as well! In the later afternoon I went back to the show to watch a few friends ride and then Megan, Jodi, and I went out went out for Mexican. We finished the day by attending the $40,000.00 jumper Grand Prix at WEF. The Jumper show grounds is always lively. Tonight they had jugglers and musicians and 41 entries for the Grand Prix. The jumpers were fun to watch and seeing great riders like Mclean Ward is always inspirational. A woman who showed us horses in Holland this past summer happened to sit down next to me. The horse world is so small!!!
January 30	This morning I walked into Camillo's stall and right onto a shoe. It was his back right this time and it was cleanly off with all the nails sticking straight up. I am glad that I stepped on it and he did not. Actually, one nail was missing and I am still searching for it. It probably made it to the manure pile when I was cleaning but I did not see it so it is driving me crazy!! I had to call the blacksmith yet again but he can not come until tomorrow morning. Poor Camillo, it was his day off and I had promised him a little free time to buck on the lunge line but without a shoe he could only hand walk and graze. He was disappointed and when Princess ran out barking at us he used it as an excuse to leap around, act terrified, and passage back to the barn snorting. While I waited for my laundry to finish (horse laundry never ends) I had a good talk with a horse-friend of mine on the phone. She had just gotten back from Germany and we had a good laugh about how serious and un-funny the Germans are about their riding. We decided that it is the terrible cold and all the chain smoking that makes them that way. It always strikes me a funny how the Europeans don't seem to have names for their horses (they appear get names when they start competing internationally, but not a moment before). When you talk to the Germans or Dutch it is always "The Gribaldi gelding" or "The Laurie's Crusader Mare". These are not their names but their sire's name or just the bloodline. I often wondered, when in Holland last summer, how they distinguish between the horses when speaking to each other. If, for example, you are a groom at a German barn and the trainer says to you "next I will ride The Jazz" and you have three geldings by Jazz in the stable do you say "which one?" If he answers the bay one you are probably still stumped. They are probably all bay. They probably have to say "The six year old Jazz with one white sock." It confused me a lot. My student would say, while riding another horse, "I like him but I think that The Gribaldi had lateral work." I would have to ask "Which Gribaldi? The bay one at the farm with all the Friesians and the really tall man?" She would say "Yes" but then we would both realize that that described all of the barns in Holland and we would have to stat over with more details. Too confusing! Just call the horse Indy or Louie and be done with it. I went out to the show for the afternoon and then to dinner with some friends who were in town. Later, I went to the players club with Mary Austin, her boyfriend Ian, and Tami. We got there early, 8:30, so there were no polo players yet, but by the time I left the place was hopping. I don't belong in a place with bouncers, South American billionaires, and women in very very short sequined dresses. I left before the fabulous people realized that I was not one of their own and kicked me out. As I left, the giant bouncers parted and opened the velvet rope to release me. There was a long line of people waiting to pay a cover to get in (and appear on a list) and a long line of ferraris in the valet line.
January 31	The last day of January. It feels more like May down here, but in Ohio I am sure that everyone is glad that one month of Winter is over. It was a typically quiet Monday at the barn. At first I thought that George was taking the day off, but as I was grazing Cupido he drove in and within minutes he was on a horse. I was just taking up when he rode by my stalls and asked it I wanted a lesson today. Of course I did. I was suppose to have a lesson over the weekend but it is hard to keep the schedule working when there is a show. Camillo and I had another really good lesson. George had some good exercises for keeping the shoulder elevated. I really liked one where we would trot to the left on a 20 meter circle then staying on the circle change the bend to counter flexion. Once the horse was balanced in the counter flexion we would change rein through the circle keeping the bend the same and ending up in true bend on a circle to the right. It was basic but the results were good. We also worked on canter to walk transitions, keeping the hind leg active. Camillo loves dogs so when Betsy came up with her goldens, Camillo tried to stop and visit with them (this was the highlight of the lesson for him). We went for a short hack after our lesson and then it was time to feed again. It is always either time to feed or time to clean stalls, it's never ending.