Cob Jockey: Year in Review: January-June 2017

January

The Pixio started to change the way I blogged, and I noticed Connor was standing square in the crossties regularly for the first time. It was a slow blogging month with a lot of work travel.

February

We jumped in the outdoor because it was 67 degrees in February (!), figured out we needed more bend like all the time, I picked up a second car basically just to drive to the barn and back, and wrote about changing the way I save for horse shows.

Oh and we won this Dover contest.

March

I hit the end of my rope with Connor being 50 minutes away, and decided to leave my barn, which set off a bunch of chain reactions. It made me start to take more responsibility for myself as I planned for life away from my trainer, made me decide to sell my beloved KieferBuilt (and get it fixed up), and I also started the remote saddle fitting process to replace the Devoucoux I co-owned at the time with a fellow boarder.

Blue dot: my house. Red pin: where Connor is now. Yellow star at the very top of the photo: where Connor lived for five years.

April

I started to think through the feed change Connor would go through when he moved, I found my Dressage saddle unicorn, and got a 67% on 1-2 at Heartland. I also day tripped to Rolex and hung out with a ton of bloggers!

May

My job took me to Churchill Downs, I got my trailer back, bought some Gary Mundy stirrup leathers, replaced the floor of my trailer dressing room with vinyl wood-look flooring, and rode the best 1-3 of our lives at a schooling show. I moved Connor to the new barn and instantly loved it. I struggled immediately with him being hard to catch at the new barn, and had a seriously life changing ride on Kristen's Phoenix on the way home from a work trip.

Changed my whole year

June

I flew to California for work and had the most amazing trail ride and winery visit with a bunch of California bloggers! I came back from California with a horrible case of food poisoning and decided to attend the rated Dressage show that weekend anyway because I am not a smart person. Connor got FAT being on pasture for the first time in five years, and got muzzled. I hauled out for a lesson with NK for the first time in a year, conquered my fear of trailering over hills, and finally committed to the baucher. My riding started to change dramatically thanks to the lessons Mr. P taught me the month before, and due to spending more time riding on my own.