Colorado Day 3 continued annnnnnnd Day 4

Caveat of today: Has anyone noticed that I've had NO caveats in awhile?  I decided that now was as good of a time as any.  I am currently about a week and two days behind on my writing.  So all of this stuff happened previously.  I'll catch up I swear.

So we all know about how I love me some TJ, and how great the show day went.  Now since I am all ambitious and all committed, what would be better to cap the day off than a “quick trip” to Vail for a wedding and then back to Denver again??  I can’t think of anything. 

I finished cooling TJ out, hopped off, got a few necessary tasks done before leaving, and then sped off to the hotel to get ready for the drive.  Vail is about 2 hours from our hotel in Denver, assuming no traffic.  Thankfully the trip was smooth, and we made it to the wedding with about 30 minutes to spare. 

Vail is absolutely beautiful and, even though it was mid June, there was still snow on the ground all over the mountains.  This literally baffles me with the amazingness that THERE WAS STILL SNOW ON THE GROUND.  I made a snowball and everything. 

The wedding itself was downright amazing.  Set outside along a babbling creek, it couldn’t have been more beautiful. 

The boys.  Mine is the one sitting on the fence with no jacket.

Why didn't he have a jacket? Well I was cold, so I stole it!

I’ve been to a lot of weddings, and this  might have been the most romantic I’ve attended.

After a late night drive back to Denver, I crashed with only about 4 hours of sleep available until I had to be on a horse again the next morning.  It was worth it. 

That next morning came much too quickly and before I knew it, I was back on DC hacking bright and early before the show day.  For show day 2, I had the second half of the division in both the 3/3 A/Os as well as the A/As, and I had a classic on each horse.  DC’s division went first thing in the ring.  I was feeling fairly confident about building on the success of the day before, and was excited about the classic. 

When I hacked DC in the morning, he felt very good.  Pleasant, happy, relaxed.  I got on for our division and found the same happy as can be horse.  I cantered up to our first warm up jump and out of the corner he did a lead change to the wrong lead.  Weird.  We did the same jump again, no problems.  We went back and forth in our normal warm up doing different oxer set ups, with no further issues.  But the random lead change was definitely on the back of my brain. 

Our first course started with a left lead single going away from the gate.  I got a decent canter going and saw a big old gap at the verticle.  Well, nothing says success like trying to run at the first jump for a leapy gap.  Or in other words, nothing says complete failure when the long leap doesn’t happen and you chip.  The rest of the course was quite nice.  One of Matt’s favorite sayings is “you can’t win at the first jump but you sure can lose.”   You can guess what he said as soon as I walked out of the ring. 

Our second course started on a right lead coming home on a single, followed by an outside line, inside line, outside line.  The course designers certainly weren’t straining their brains on this day.  On the last line it was a left lead coming home.  As soon as we turned the corner DC once again did a full lead change to the wrong lead on the outside.  This was the second time in one day that this had happened.  My internal worrier was immediately on high alert.  We scored a 75.  Not bad for the extraneous lead change. 

The last course was the second round of the classic.  This time we started on a left lead verticle coming home, and once again random lead change out of the corner.  He had never done this before, so now the red bells were on high alert.  We scored a 72 and ended up 5^th in both classes, and 6^th in the classic.  At that point I was less concerned about the ribbons and more concerned about how he was feeling.  To me, any time a horse starts showing out of the ordinary behavior, it’s time to get things checked.  He definitely was not off or limping at all, and we even got third in the hack, but he didn’t seem like he was 100% comfortable either.

Matt and I decided that our best course of action was to have a chiropractor look at him.  Sure enough, his first vertebrae was completely out (three HUGE pops later) and his left hip was slid to the side.  There are many people who don’t believe in chiro work on horses, but I have to say, after feeling the before and after, I know it helps my horses. 

I mentioned we got 3^rd in the hack.  I should probably add that we got third in the hack while my left calf was cramping so hard I could hardly see straight.  Unlike Lebron, I have no ability to call a medical time out in the middle of a flat class, so therefore I suffered through while the knot in my calf crawled up and down my leg.  It started the first direction trot, and apparently this judge wanted to give us our money’s worth because it was THE WORLD’S LONGEST flat class.  Even the time in the middle was agony as I’m sure he carefully selected his top horses.  Forever.  As I walked out of the ring I was leaning over DC’s neck and practicing Lamaze breathing.  Seriously, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a leg cramp while riding, but I will tell you I certainly hope it never happens again.

Regardless of the fact that I was now hobbling around the horse show and needed a cane to walk, I still had TJ to ride.  I probably at this point sound like I’m a bit TJ obsessed, but really, he’s awesome.  We had a HARD rub at the first jump my first course.  As in “how did that jump even stay up?” kind of rub.  Our second course was nice, two hard rubs, and scored a 75.  Our last course was also good and scored a 78.  He was tired, and was less than impressed by the jumps.  But to his credit, he cantered around like a champ with a rider who had little to no use of her right leg, and was still slightly blinded by pain as the calf just wouldn’t let go of its cramp. 

When I finally got off and was able to stretch my leg, it somewhat went back to normal, and I became slightly less crippled.  Victory. 

All that was left of my day was to go on a trail ride, do some laundry, pack my stuff, and fly back to Austin, with a planned arrival time of 11:40 PM.  With a meeting scheduled at 8 am the next day I sure was glad for all of the nice rest I had gotten over the previous week of Driving, Vegas, Flying, Showing, and Wedding.  Vacations are to relax and rejuvenate right??