Battle of the Barns.

The anticipation is KILLING me here. KILLING me. So we have nine days left before the three-day show madness. Whew.

Here's my list of things to do:
-Braid her mane down so it will lay flat for the show, versus her signature mohawk.
-Buy a new pair of show breeches.
-Make the trailer sparkly clean since Jax is gonna ride with us.
-Finish tailoring my jacket, because it has been laying across my sewing table with the sleeves half-attached waiting for me for two weeks.

Riding wise:
-Perfect our walk to canter transitions. We can get them, and they are SO much better as a whole, but BTB has some serious competition.

-Fix our flying changes. Yes, we can do them; no, they aren't always pretty. I just have to remember to keep my shoulders square, otherwise we'll botch it EVERY time. Her cadence is lovely, and she doesn't flop around at all when she does them. Yet and Kate did a great job training her :)It's more me than the horse.

-Run through a "scary" course a few times. With our limited jumping, I want to be SURE we won't have any mishaps.

On another note, Patti wants us to start in Green Horse 18" and then do the HUS and *maybe* Open Hunter if all goes well. I feel pretty good, given we jumped four 2'6 fences in our largely 2'-2'3 course yesterday. That's as high as we plan on going until she's five, and we won't be doing that again any time soon. She has such a bouncy jump over the "big" stuff- she REALLY uses herself. Our first few times over the 2'6 ers were interesting. I have been tortured enough that I don't hit her in the mouth or lose my leg, but my upper body got... creative... hahaha. We'd get a long spot coming in, which, go figure, messed up the distances for the whole line and resulted in chippy awesomeness. The long spots are easy to deal with- it's the chips that get me, because she snaps her back so hard and jumps over her knees. (See last jumping photos, hahahaha.)

But it all comes with the territory. She loves jumping, and usually I roll my eyes at statements like this, but I really think she enjoys it. It has to be more interesting than drilling flatwork. Trail work is her favorite, without a doubt, but this probably takes second.

Oh yeah, I was saying something. Uhm.

Duh, leads.

I have some freaky lead anxiety. Maybe just because Berky was always a PITA to get to swap and it always killed our classes. I think tomorrow I'm going to take her out to the XC/big jump field, set everything to poles, and just work patterns and getting our swaps consistently in a more open area. Our little arena has room for about ten strides before you hit a corner, and it makes turning slightly ADHD four year olds difficult.

I mean, it's ridiculous. A fixed wrong lead is better than a chip, so I *should* be freaking out about chips. But I mean, chips last a split second. A bad lead takes at least three seconds of sheer terror and angst to fix, and then by that time you're all worked up and YOU DROP YOUR INSIDE SHOULDER AND HOLY CRAP YOU GOT THE WRONG LEAD AGAIN AND OH NO THAT WAS OUR LINE WE JUST WENT PAST. (Story of my Berky-showing career, hahahaha.)

So really, again, it's all for my comfort rather than her inability. Come on, we got our leads yesterday even when the big fences made her a little looky, so we should be just fine. Whew, hahaha.

Man, I miss my big boy so much. I know I should just get over it, but man. Battle of the Barns was my first show with him, and I can't help but associate it with him. Hrrgh, I wish he was still here :/