Rolex 2014 Part I – Visits & the event

On Thursday I got up, packed up my bags, then headed off to the barn to check on Stampede before I headed out of town. His back had no swelling although the beast still didn’t want to me do anything up there. Makes sense after he was prodded like crazy the day before. I had Stampede do all of his stretches then took him out for some grass.

Happy pony taking a break from his stall to eat grass

As I was leaving Phoenix was having a rousing game of halter tag with his pasture mate for the day, Mikey.

Sticking his tongue out at Mikey

Gnawing on each other’s faces of course

After my barn stop I headed out on my great adventure to and drove the just under 5 hours to get to Hillary from Equestrian at Hart‘s place. Where’s the first place we go after I get in town? The barn! Hillary got on Houston and did a quick flat. It quickly became apparent that Houston is awesome at lateral movement, which I was excited to play with. I got on myself and was surprised at just how lofty his gaits were. The type of trot where you have that tiny pause in the middle of your post. It was very cool, I’ve never ridden a horse with that type of movement.

Allison Springer and Arthur warming up on Friday

On Friday we were a bit tired after our shopping adventures (separate post on my shopping later!) so we just stopped out to see Huey and try things on him. He was not so amused at trying on another bridle for his mom, but he was polite and we fiddled around for a while.

Eating grass after some tack fitting torture.

Posing with his mom

Saturday we did further shopping and walked around the cross country course checking out some of the jumps and watching for our favorite riders. We found Jen from Cob Jockey along the way.

Saturday night we went out to the barn for another ride on Houston. Hillary put on her off the rack La Mundials and got on but we soon decided they were too short so she went back in to change and I got on Houston to warm him up. We had the ring to ourselves so I did some figure 8’s and circles and moved him all around while playing with his buttons. When Hillary came back in she suggested I try his canter leg yields, which I had never done before. I did do a really cool simple change mid leg yield the one time that would probably be hard to replicate, but got some good steps in there on my various tries. It was a very cool feeling and I think it will be a fun thing to work on with my boys.

Next Hillary got back on and jumped Houston. It quickly became clear that Houston is just one of those horses that is cool with doing a bit of anything. He was totally game to hop over the oxer I set up.

After that I got on Houston and took him over a vertical a few times. I hadn’t jumped since the end of March when Stampede showed, but I felt at home on Houston and he was great. Afterwards we went outside to cool out and take some pictures.

Me on Houston 🙂

Sunday we headed back to the horse park in separate cars so I could head home from there. We did some more shopping, including helping Jen (Cob Jockey) pick out her contest winnings, although I was good and didn’t buy anything! Finally we headed to the stadium to see how things would end.

Awesome view!

It was crazy that William Fox-Pitt won yet again. Just the odds of doing that seem amazing!

Thanks again to Hillary for hosting me at her place and letting me play around on her great pony! I hope I can return the favor in the future (and my boys will be good!).

Cuddling with Hillary’s puppy Sonny

It was great meeting so many of the bloggers whose horse lives I read about regularly. I know a group picture of some of us is coming soon on Hillary’s blog.