Game on

Fiona rocking the Noice at the ATF Two-Phase

There's one aspect of my job that I love and that's my flexible schedule. In honor of my grand move up to Novice level this weekend, I took three days off from work. Tomorrow is scheduled to be a cross country school at Scarlett Hill to knock the rust off of Fiona since Valinor. She can be squirrely if she hasn't been on cross country recently, so we'll run her around and remind her that it's fun to go and jump around the countryside. We'll just see if Mother Nature decides to go along with us and not unleash a deluge.

Friday is the jump course design clinic with Richard Jeffries. Yeah, the Richard Jeffries. I'm so excited about this. I enjoy jump course design and I'd love to learn some theory behind it so I can help with course design around the barn. I lean more toward the technically challenging due to my time in the eq ring, but I also enjoy designing a course that's smooth and rides well. I'll take a lot of notes, both as a rider and an aspiring course designer. Don't tell anyone, but if I could complete the requirements? I'd go through the training to be a TD. Not that I expect to ever have multiple prelim horses, but there you go.

Saturday is dressage for UNH. I ride at noon, so it should be a nice, relaxing day. I really should get around to learning my test . . . Particularly since I'm participating in the Adult Team Challenge. Only the top three scores for the team count and there are three awesome dressage horses on my team, so I'm expecting Fiona to be the drop score. At least that's some pressure off.

Sunday is stadium and cross country. I'm again riding at noon, so I won't feel frazzled. We'll be walking courses the day before, so plenty of time to relax since the training riders will have us there pretty early. UNH has a reputation as a great place to move up and I'm sure we'll be fine. Fiona will jump anything so long as I aim and say go, but it's still my move up so I'm nervous. Are we really ready to go Novice considering where we were just six months ago?

I'll tell you on Sunday.