Okay, so I have to do a recap on yesterday. I had three jump lessons after hacking Puccini in the morning. The first was on Justinian, who is one of my favorite horses here. I had never jumped him before and so was feeling pretty excited and nervous. The exercise ended up being a short five stride, just cavalletti and crossrail, and then a right turn to a triple combination of Swedish oxers with two strides between each. It felt fantastic, and I got to repeat the exercise on Herodes and Boss as well. It's really cool to repeat the same exercise on multiple horses, because you start to feel exactly what sort of ride each of them needs. They all have different issues: one might drift a little left, one might get a little strong, one might be a bit short strided. Those lessons really helped me to realise just how much riding here has helped my adaptability. Still have a long way to go, but the feeling was pretty righteous :)
After the lessons we went to Baral, a breeding farm about an hour and a half away. We rode in the back of a pickup through their fields to sneak a peek at the newborn foals and their mommas-- and of course, Invasor's first two babies, two bright chestnuts! Then we watched a bunch of Baral's young'uns going through the free jump. Their free jump area was really beautiful, surrounded by thick foliage and deliciously shaded from that intense Argentine sun! We ended up taking home five youngsters to break-- Rodrigo's project for the next little while.
Today was possibly even hotter than yesterday. Since most of the horse jump schooled yesterday, it was a morning of hacking today. I lunged some of the mares for Rodrigo in the morning, and then rode Boss, Herodes and Holendesa. In the afternoon we did the usual barn chores, plus a photo shoot with the young mares. It was truly sweltering in the sun today and I was pretty glad that we didn't have any left over to ride in the afternoon... looks like this heat will stick around through tomorrow, and then all the forecasts point to a bellyacher of a thunderstorm on Friday. As long as the ring doesn't flood and we can get back to riding quickly, I'm not gonna complain about a reduction in this humidity!
Found out that the horses at home have left for California, which makes me simultaneously wish to be home and also wish to be heading down to Indio with them! I hope all of our young horses do well and that the playing horses take to the climate change all right.
Missing the family and home as usual, but really diggin' Argentina right now, and savoring my last few weeks with Katie, Alice, Rodrigo and everyone else!
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