I’m up to 98
likes on my FB! Yay me!
I awoke on
Saturday with grand plans of amazing riding and eating protein. Protein?
Yes protein. You see, I have this
odd habit of somehow having a diet that consists only of varying forms of bread
and cheese. A typical day’s meal plan
might be cheesy toast for breakfast, quesadillas for lunch, and pizza for
dinner. I’m a self-proclaimed
carboholoic, and have quite the funny story about the 48 hours I attempted the
Atkins diet. Do you remember that
Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich I ate whole on the previous day? I might have had two bites of chicken then
eaten the bun and cheese (which I added).
I do actually quite like vegetables and salads, and other foods than
bread and cheese, but bread and cheese is a staple. Like potatoes, but worse for you.
As a result, on
Saturday I was thinking I should eat some protein. I wandered down to the hotel breakfast only
to find that they had a variety of things including among others, scrambled
eggs. I hate eggs. I felt like I should eat protein. I hate eggs.
You see the quandary I was in. I
did the only thing I could think to do, and that was get a scoop of eggs and
add plenty of things on top so I could pretend they weren’t eggs, like
cheese(!), and salsa, and tabasco. Too
bad no tortillas, or I could have gotten my bread requirement in as well. I somehow managed to choke down this spicy,
cheesy, eggy combo (nothing really helped the fact that they were still eggs,
protein might not be worth it), and headed to the show.
Matt’s inner zen
master trainer decided that he did not want me to hack in the morning (trust
the ways of the master), as he thought maybe he was just getting a bit
overdone. So, I got to show up at a much
more reasonable hour of 8 am. I did so
with the promise to myself that I would buckle down and get some work done on a
response that was due Monday at 7pm. Do
so or pay the price.
Upon arrival, I
found this dashing young man all braided up and ready for Mardi Gras!
Also looking oddly like a dinosaur |
Our classes had
an estimated start time of 11:30, so I had some time to watch some of the newer
girls in the barn ride.
When it was
nearing time for me to get on, I headed to the barn for my long hike down to
the hunter rings. DC was feeling cuddly
and super friendly. Not that this ever
changes, but it is a note to make that he is just the most gregarious horse I
know. He also had a touch of scratches
started on both front legs. Gulfport
seems to equate scratches in the DC world, as this happened last year too. If anyone has any super-secret remedies,
please let me know.
Regardless, we made it down to the rings with little fanfare (which compared to last year was a big improvement, maybe he did learn something at WEF after all).
I can
essentially break down the day’s trips into three categories:
The Good – I had
my lovable, quiet, amazing, level headed, positive attitude horse back. Really this was the good, the great, the
amazing, the incredible etc etc etc part of my day. Really, he was just on his A game and acted
like WMD never even happened. In my
second hunter I had a couple of closeish spots and scored an 82. Nothing to be ashamed of and was 4th.
The Bad – My amazing
horse did not have an amazing rider to go along with him. My first hunter I was all over the place with
my pace and had a complete lack of consistency.
A good hunter round this does not make.
No score announced, but I jogged 9th. Something about close only counts in horse
shoes and hand grenades.
The Ugly –
Coming off of the 82 second hunter and first classic score (the rounds were
combined), I was thinking I could really go in and ROCK IT for my second
classic round. And rock it I did, all
the way up until I was headed up the hill to a 6 stride line. I legged, nothing. Leg more? Nothing. Legggggg and kick???? Just enough response to take away my normal
distance and create a heinous chip right at the base. When in doubt, leave it out. Except when you should just stay where you
are and add up on the in of the line. We landed in a heap with no horse, and no
response with just enough sludge up the hill to just make another chippy add
coming out. Barf. The rest of the course was beautiful,
wonderful, and marvelous. Somehow the
judge just couldn’t ignore that line though and we scored a 66. So I went from a piece of the classic to 12th. For those of you who didn’t know 12th
place is a dark hunter green color, so just like a 6th but twice as
far away from 1st. sigh.
The important
thing though was that DC was back in full form, and even after that disaster line
finished up on the final three elements beautifully. Our goal of Gulfport had been accomplished in
one day, and I even walked away with a white ribbon to prove it.
We finished our
evening with a long graze in the field (yet another thing to love about GP).
Followed by a barn dinner at The Shed BBQ
restaurant (I keep going with the GP love fest).
It’s even been
on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives:
Please note that no where in this blog did I mention that I got my work done. oops. That might be a great task for the plane ride home after all.
I love those Mardi Gras braids! At least happy DC is back :)
ReplyDeleteSecond the cute braids!
ReplyDelete