A bump in the road - and a stint at a mental hospital

The much anticipated Traverse City show turned out to be quite a disappointment.

Sandy and Francis took Saumur and Daughtry to TC on Wednesday. Later that day Sandy sent me an email trying to tactfully tell me that Saumur was not dealing well (quite the understatement!) with all the construction going on. Saumur wasn’t even able to walk around, he jigged the whole time, ready jump and blow at any moment – and Sandy and Francis had him out for over 2 hours.

JP and I got there Thursday, and were just amazed at all the commotion. Building of the stall tents was in full swing (stabling for 3,000 horses, in anticipation of the five weeks of Hunter/Jumper competition). The rings were under construction, with huge earth movers and water trucks constantly driving around. Oh, boy...

I prudently started with just hand walking Saumur. From there we progressed to longing, and then I finally got on. Back to the “barrel filled with black powder, ready to explode-” feeling. It took almost all I had plus Sandy’s patient coaching to get us through. Three hours later we finally managed to work around the rings. Sandy called me a “brave woman”, because she really never had seen Saumur in this state, so being able to get on and just ride him was already an accomplishment in her eyes.

My first test on Friday was marred by a lot of tension, and tongue issues (due to the tension). The second test was better, we got a deduction for error due to a missed change in 3-3, but all in all it was OK. It was nice that Megan, Kat and Judy came to visit, and they were very encouraging because I felt pretty lousy about not being able to do better. It definitely helped when they called me their “hero” for trying to ride through it.

The Saturday morning test felt good, but I made a lot of stupid blunders by just not being accurate. I was so focused on keeping Saumur on me that I missed a lot of easy things, like keeping a 10m circle at 10m. But afterwards Saumur walked off on a long rein, totally relaxed, which was great.

Unfortunately, for the last test we had to go to another area of the showgrounds where the earth movers and water trucks were at full swing. Saumur saw that and his whole body tensed up. He started to jig and was very close to losing it again. I opted to scratch, because I wanted to end on a decent note and not have everything falling apart at the end.

So all in all, I wish I could have done better, but we got through it and I'll chuck it under “experience”.

At least we had a lovely dinner with Sandy and Francis at a mental hospital. Yes, that's right. This seemed to be a very fitting place for me! -- OK, it was a FORMER mental hospital, now an upscale Italian restaurant .. but still.. one can’t help but wonder..