Not So Bad

Zoe got her cast off last Tuesday -- what a relief for both me and her! Doc said it has healed extremely well, "better than could ever be expected". I have to keep the leg bandaged until the proud flesh is gone from the heel cut, probably another few weeks. That means she has to stay in her stall that long. Ugh. It isn't the easiest thing to bandage her up. I have to put medicine on her heel, cover it, then wrap the foot with vetrap. She paws all the time, so before you know it the toe is worn off and she starts working to get the whole foot bandage off. I've tried duct taping over the vetrap, but yesterday she had that off when I got there. Good thing it takes 2 days for her to get it off. I am changing it every 2 days, so luckily it seems that it is exposed only for a few hours before I change it. We still expect her to heal nicely and to have no permanent damage. I have to count my lucky stars for that.

Jimmy is progressing nicely. On Sunday I rode through 2 of the 3 tests I'll be riding this weekend. It was a huge workout for Jimmy, but it did help identify some things we need to work on. He is very sticky at the leg yield, especially to the right. I also need to work on the travers and continue with the simple changes. We'll do better this weekend than we did at the last show, so I already feel good about where we are. There is always something to improve.

One issue with Jimmy is that he doesn't like it when I ride with a whip. He gets tense and tends to rush around. It isn't any fun to ride him at all. I tried riding with a whip last night to help get him to move away from my leg at the leg yield, but all he ended up doing was pulling against me and rushing into a canter. It really seemed counter-productive. I dropped the whip after a short time and kept up with the light ride. At the shoulder-in he still doesn't want use his hind in, so I struggle to keep his shoulders over. He just pulls through me the entire time. I'm sure we'll get better at it.

I am looking forward to this show and dreading it at the same time. I look forward to seeing my scores improve, but I am anxious about forgetting the test or messing up. As long as I am having fun with Jimmy and feel that we did the best we could for that test on that day, then it is a success. The competitive side of me wants to get 70%+ on everything and clean up all the classes, but that really can't be my focus. I would be a huge ball of stress if that is how I approached it. Jimmy would be stressed out, too, and he doesn't like to be stressed out. Thank goodness my darling husband will be coming with me. He keeps me together more than he knows. Now if only he could read my tests to me!