Quick update

It's bright and sunny and WARM.

Her leg is perfectly normal this morning and I don't have that bad feeling anymore that something is brewing. I'm still glad I told my trainer yesterday that I needed to take it easy (walk/trot only) as I really feel she stressed it somehow in the mud on Tuesday. I feel that I averted disaster by following my gut, but I guess I will never know for sure!

Farrier trimmed her this morning. Her club foot was REALLY apparent for some reason this trimming cycle, even with me trying to keep her rasped. I'm lucky that the renegades still fit so well - the fit is very forgiving.

Adjusted the cables in the boots and learned a very important lesson. OK - 2 very important lessons:

• Do not decide to shake the dirt off of the rug you are working on outside, if you have left the itsy bitsy allen wrench on it. People will look at you funny as you crawl on your hands and knees in the mud, swearing.
• It is much easier to adjust cables on new boots, than it is on boots with some miles on them. The yellow front pair were a PAIN to adjust. The black, brand new hinds were as easy as pie.

Went on a canal trail ride. The arena is still sopping wet and unusable. I NEED to school my transitions, straight lines etc, so I multi-tasked. That straight-line boring canal bank is good for something! Did a little endurance trot, did a little flexion/bending/transitions etc. My boots stayed on like a charm. I may need to loosen the hinds. The heel captivator is very snug and I don't want her to become sensitive because of the pressure. I feel like if I loosened them up, the boots would still stay on. Have I mentioned lately I love my renegades? I still have time to chicken out, but I am planning on using boots at the Buckmeadows 50 mile ride. It's close to home and isn't a disaster if something goes wrong (I'm only doing one day, it's not a 100 miler that I have a lot invested in etc.). I don't have any spare boots right now so hopefully everything turns out OK. I'm sure as it gets closer I will start to hyperventilate more. Far be it for me to actually continue what worked all last season.....no, I have to go and do something DIFFERENT this season and figure it all out ALL OVER AGAIN!

Lesson went very well last night. Starting next week we are going to start schooling on the intro A and B patterns! Whoo hoo! No major Ah HA! moments this week, but did get some work accomplished that was quietly spectacular (working on walk/trot/halt etc. transitions). She's getting rounder and rounder and was actually reaching OVER the bit yesterday. Very nice. Trainer is still happy with our progress.

She has all sorts of new muscle - the slight hollow behind her shoulder has filled out and she's actually starting to get a butt!!!! The trainer says she can see a HUGE difference. I take conditioning pictures about once a month. I should take a look at them from before she started endurance, after 6 months of endurance, after 12 months of endurance, and after 2 months of dressage work. Might be fun to post if there's a lot of difference.

This was kind of a pointless post, but at least now if you wanted to know how it was all going, you do. And if you didn't, you probably didn't read this far anyways.