THE END OF 2009!

Well today is the last day of 2009. I must admit i have been very slack with this whole blog thing. Although in my defense I've been having some terrible back problems so haven't been doing a lot of riding lately.
The start of this season started with on and off lameness from Vi (i think I'll keep her in light work over next winter to see if that helps).
As soon as Vi was ok the Jeep packed a sad and needed seals fixed or something like that.

Finally the Jeep and Vi were ready to go, I've become a bit scared of the whole eventing thing at the moment despite our successful first go together. So it turned to a case of finding a nice local show to start with. Lucky for me Western Hills was postponed so i focused on that being our first day out.

Vi was amazing all day, we had a ok start to our flat classes, the class was absolutely huge and i wasn't really asking/pushing Vi and so she only gave as much as she had to (fair enough too). We had a break during the novice hack classes so i took that opportunity to really work on the two of us. We finished with the open hack class and Vi was amazing every transition was completely on the mark and she was very consistent. Unfortunately the judge didn't like us that day and we finished the Flats empty handed but i was stoked with such a good start for the two of us as a team for the season.
I entered two SH classes the first was a disaster, i rode terribly and Vi cruised around doing her own thing. The judge was awesome gave me some pointers to focus on for my next class. So for the 90cm class i focused on my riding and we did a much better round only pitching into a couple of the jumps finishing in 5th place and a ribbon for our efforts.

I'm hoping our next show will be the Upper Valley Equestrian day where I'm hoping to do some flat classes, dressage and some ring 2 SJ.

In November I came to the difficult decision to find a new home for Amy. She was still lame and thermal imaging showed what looked to be some Arthritic problems in her back legs. She had had a full life and deserved a long and happy retirement.
Lucky for all involved a lovely retired couple offered a forever full retirement home for Amy. She has 17 acres pretty much all to herself, people around 24/7, lots of pampering and free to wander around doing as she pleases.
We couldn't be more happy and i'm allowed to visit anytime, i couldn't have asked for more. It was very sad to see her go.