We Tried To Do A Thing

Welp, we tried to do a thing.

Friday, July 3 - Hey, I should take Stitch to his first horse show next weekend! This would also be his first ride away from home. But it would be the most low key schooling show, and the most bang for our buck, to be able to do a flat class and 3 trot pole classes for $60. Stitch loves doing poles, so I figured that a trot pole class would give him something to focus on.

Saturday, July 4 - Got to get the trailer cleaned out if I'm going to use it! I had picked up some bins from Ikea that I was hoping would fit in the rounded shelves of the tack locker of my German trailer. They did, and I even had some empty space left in the bins at the end!

This tack closet hasn't been this tidy in ages!

Saturday, July 4, 10:30 pm - A quick stop at my parent's house on my way home turned into rushing my dad to the emergency room, which resulted in a few days spent in hospital. He's doing fine, went home on Wednesday, which was his 80th birthday, and has some follow-up appointments over the next couple of weeks to find out what caused the problems. 

This put the horse onto the back burner for a few days. When I made it out Stitch just got fed, fly mask adjusted, and doused with fly spray.

I had written off the show. I wasn't going to be able to ride on Thursday, and only having one ride after a week off was probably not setting up a young horse for success at this first show and ride away from home. 

But then my plans on Thursday changed last minute. I could ride! And I'd also be able to ride on Friday! 

The show was back on!

Two rides after a week off for a baby horse would be good enough prep, right?

On Friday we had a pretty quick ride over some pole courses - it had been a while since we had done any. I thought we should probably do a couple.

While I was riding, a huge rain storm swept through the area. We were lucky at the barn that we only got rain with a bit of thunder and lightning. The storm came from the west and stayed south of the barn, but hit the central part of the city pretty hard. We're talking manhole covers flying up due to the huge and sudden amount of rain that came down, accompanied by very strong winds that blew down trees (like the one in front of my brother's house). Mass flooding under overpasses - one picture had a car sitting in water up to it's windows.

But the forecast showed that it was supposed to be fine in the morning, so I loaded my cleaned tack up in the trailer, filled some hay nets, shortened Stitch's mane, and clipped his bridle path and fetlocks. Despite this show being the tiniest, low-key show ever, I still have standards!

And then I went to bed just after midnight with the thunder and lightning of another storm coming through. 

And woke up at 2:30 am to yet another one. 

This time, when I checked the weather app, it was showing a 90% chance of thunderstorms for the times that I would be riding. 

When I woke up after going back to sleep at 5am this is what the forecast for the horse show area showed. I was planning to be on just after 8:30 am.

I sent my mom a message, and told her that when she woke up at 5am to accompany me to the show to go back to bed. We weren't going. 

The show was to be held on grass, and with all the rain that had come down over the last 14 hours I'm sure it would be slippery as hell, and for a young horse who's likely going to be all over the place that wouldn't make for a good experience. Not to mention that if a thunderstorm did start up while I was there, the area that we would be in is completely open with no shelter available. Horses would have to be stuffed back onto their trailers to wait it out.

 If I was going to attend, we would have had to leave the barn with the horse loaded at about 7:15 am as we would have been in the first class at 9am (if they started on time). At about 9:25am, I got an email from them saying that they were cancelling the show due to the forecasted thunderstorms. I hadn't pre-entered, but had had to request access to the forms on their Google Drive account, so they must have just sent the message to anyone who had requested the forms.

I was a little disappointed, but it wasn't going to be worth getting out of bed early on this day.

I went shopping instead, and ended up parked on a major freeway in the middle of the afternoon waiting out yet another storm coming through. This freeway is notorious for flooding in major rainfalls, and I had checked a weather app just a few minutes earlier to see when the storm was going to hit, and it showed that I should have been good to get to the other side of the city before it started. It was wrong. And yes, once I got going again, I took a risk and stayed on the freeway, only to find that the next overpass was flooded underneath. I got off at the next exit and took my time driving through the city instead,

The parking lot at the restaurant I stopped off for lunch once I arrived on the other side of the city. I parked far away and tiptoed around the dumpsters to get to the door. No pictures of the huge dump of rain that came down the next day while at my brother's house for dinner, that totally missed my neighbourhood. 

Their next show is the first weekend in August, so we're aiming to go to that one instead. I might even have a couple of barnmates accompany me.

Now I'm trying to find something else to take Stitch to this month. Our summer has been so terrible this year, between seemingly daily rain and the lack of wanting to do anything outside because of the mosquito infestation, it doesn't feel like there has been any chance to have any fun. I haven't had any luck yet finding anything that doesn't involve traipsing through grass and thus the potential to be eaten alive by mosquitoes, but I'll keep looking.

So instead, I booked a lesson!