Cob Jockey

As Karen alluded to in her post, I came down with what I'm pretty sure was salmonella at 11pm Thursday night, when I had to be up at 4:00am for my flight home.  I was up every 20 minutes throwing up, and I couldn't even keep water down - which became a problem when I came very close to fainting getting on my connecting flight around 10am (dehydration?).

I had to go down to my hands and knees in the aisle to keep from passing out, then a flight attendant walked me all the way down the plane with my hands in her hands to put me next to the bathroom.  People thought I was afraid to fly - how embarrassing.  It was one of the worst trips home ever, for sure.

I used my helmet as a purse on the way home rather than check it. #onepersonalitem

I had my husband take a taxi the 52 miles to the airport because I wasn't sure I could drive myself home, and then I asked Karen - best blogger friend ever - if she would be willing to drive me and Connor to the horse park (thank goodness he only lives 20 minutes from the HHP now).  Yeah, I had a horse show, and yes, I seriously thought I would recover from food poisoning in 36 hours and be able to show on Saturday.

Nope.  Let's scratch Saturday.

Thanks Karen for this photo I didn't even know you took!  This is how we spent Saturday: sit in a chair for a while.  Do one thing.  Sit in a chair for a while.  Do another thing.

If I hadn't been sick, I would have had a schooling ride Friday and a test Saturday before my test on Sunday.  As it was, Sunday was my first ride in over a week.  In retrospect, I really should have scratched, but I was feeling better and it's really hard to kiss $300 goodbye and not have a single thing to show for it.

I was really hoping we could repeat our amazing 1-3 from the schooling show in May, but we did not. I was super not present in the ride, and was basically hanging on for dear life riding whatever horse I had...which was not my best horse.  Turns out just because we're progressing doesn't mean he'll go well if I don't ride at all.  Push button, this horse is not.


It wasn't all bad though.  This wasn't a judge I had ridden for before, and she gave us a lot of constructive comments.  We ended up scoring a 58% on a day when the highest tests were only in the mid 60's, and we deserved every bit of it.  Our comments were "lacking lateral suppleness and push".  Noted.

At the end of the day, I shrugged my shoulders and chalked it up as an expensive life lesson.  And immediately texted NK to start taking lessons again.