My Valentine's Day gift to myself

My Valentine's Day gift to myself: a 15 hour trailer drive to Southern California in two days!!  Not exactly the most romantic of gifts.  That said, there's not much I'd rather do than be at one of the top CDIs on the West Coast watching our top riders be awesome and inspiring the rest of us to be awesome too.

Today's trial run through the freestyle with Victor went very well.  Then I ran through the GP which, well, sucked.  Admittedly I did push a little more than normal and put more expression in the passage, more activity in the piaffe, more uphill carriage in the changes and so on.  The resulting test was pretty rocky, as he misinterpreted my aids for more activity in piaffe and lurched forward into passage, had mistakes in the ones, and got stuck in the pirouettes.  Plus he was wandering all over the place on the diagonal in the extended trot.  Yuck.  I'll run through it again tomorrow and see if I can ride it a little more cleanly. 

The freestyle went very well though, I was slightly off the music starting both pirouettes but was able to get back on the beat very quickly.  Otherwise it is a much easier test for Victor than the GP, I can't decide if it's just because the test itself is a little easier, or because I ride a little better to music.  I'm really looking forward to riding it in competition, I think it is just a cool freestyle and I think the spectators will love it (hopefully the judges will too LOL). 

Majek schooled his passage and some passage-trot-passage transitions to add more lift and cadence in his basic trot.  Tomorrow I'll run through my tests again with him.  I have been very happy with how he's been in the tests I've schooled, unlike Victor, he stays better in front of the leg and so I feel more confident riding the tests.  However he also doesn't piaffe anywhere near as well as Victor does and I know better than to try and push it too much.

In other news I found out I entered the wrong tests at the show next week.  The ride times came out and there Victor is, in the PSG/I-1.  One frantic phone call later and it's all better now.  How embarrassing, but oh well.  I'm hoping that's the only major screw-up I'll have this coming week!

On the plus side the driving conditions for Monday and Tuesday are looking downright glorious.  It's been in the mid to upper 50s here in Boise during the day and just hitting freezing overnight, and dry as can be.  It's been looking equally dry and warm for the entire west coast for the next week.  Perfect, perfect, perfect weather for driving through the sometimes sketchy areas of Southeastern Oregon and Nevada that we have to go through.  No snow in sight.  And in mid-February.  Yay!!