Saturday was the one year anniversary when we brought this little buggar home, so we took a photo to mark the occasion.  He’s growing like a weed!

 

A new simple custom Breyer "Heartbreaker" trotting TB foal that I painted to a softly shaded red dun with paint markings.  Owned by Elizabeth Wardlow of Ohio.

I'm still fairly crushed over our first ride of the season, but I do know what to do for next time.  I've got some sole guard on order and will put it to good use.  I'm trying to "get back on the horse" psychologically - and will work even harder for the next ride.

Some words of advice from veterans:

"Dare to risk failure, because even if you only get to the first vet stop, you will have learned sooooo much."  - Julie Suhr (30,217 AERC miles)

"I would rather go 60 miles in a 100 than to finish a 50, and I would rather go 40 miles of a 50 than to finish a 25 miler.  Endurance rides are specifically designed to enable people to risk non-completion without catastrophic consequences to either horse or rider, such that the consequence of most "failures" is that you don't "get credit" for the miles that you do complete successfully. In the overall scheme of things, such a consequence is a big "so what."
My life is riddled with failures. Here's to hoping that everybody's is...since that means that at least they tried."  - Kat Swigart (5,540 AERC miles)

I'm back in the studio painting A WHOLE BUNCH of models!  Whoo!!!!  Lots of sales pieces coming up very soon!

A trail photo from the Still Memorial ride. 

Schwarzennegger has also said not to be afraid to fail - if you've never failed you've never tried. 

I HATE to fail at anything.  It just makes me mad....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLYECIjmnQs

https://vimeo.com/126626321

Deflated

Very frustrating weekend.

My horse came up stone bruised at mile 40 of the 50 at the Still Memorial ride.  Only 10 miles to go and we would've made it.  It really pissed me off and was super-depressing.   The rocks were pretty bad on the ride and most people had padded shoes on their horses.  I hadn't been to this ride in a few years and had forgotten how bad it was.  Ox and I had such an excellent ride at Jubilee a few months ago, and this first season-opener really took the wind out of our sails.  *Sigh*.  It was a big blow.  But we will try again at another ride.  Not giving up yet...

And..... I just about had a stroke on the trail, as we almost stepped on a rattlesnake at the ride!  There was a huge fat one sprawled out in the middle of the trail and I didn't see it when we came trotting around a corner.  Ox put his nose down and did a half-halt hesitation for a moment, and it was enough for me to pull him up.  I had no idea why he had hesitated until I heard rattling and looked down to see a damned snake right next to the horses front legs - LIKE WITHIN 6 INCHES!!!!  No joke, it was terrifyingly too close.  Thank god it decided to quickly slither off the trail with it's tail blazing.  If we would've kept trotting, we would've stepped on it for sure.  It scared the holy living be-jeezus out of me!!!!  What would I have done with a snake-bitten horse out in the middle of nowhere...?

Also.... I learned that my beloved breed is kind-of a joke to some of our regional riders.  I over-heard a couple of ladies who own some crosses refer to them as "ickies" (instead of tekes).  They were laughing about how they're total nut-brained idiots when it comes to endurance.  Unfortunately this isn't the fist bad review that I've heard about the breed in our area, as I've been around other people at different rides that don't have the best points of view about these horses either.  It was disheartening to hear even more bad opinions.

And to top off such a lovely weekend, the air conditioning went out in the truck on the way down to the ride.  Luckily it wasn't too hot outside yet, so it only climbed up into the 90's inside the cab.  Craig wasn't thrilled.  It more than likely won't be cheap to fix.

The whole weekend definitely wasn't great, but the only good thing was that my new helmet brim worked out pretty well.  That was it.