Long Time No Post

I figure its time to do a short post, since things are calming down for me.

In major news.. I was accepted into the Pre-Veterinary Medicine program at The University of Findlay. It has been a dream of mine to attend UF since I was thirteen. I cannot express how excited and grateful I am to be starting there in August.

In Cruizer news.. we battled with a mystery lameness (ranging from dead hobbling lame to slightly off that most people couldn't detect) for a couple weeks. Then one day he was magically sound again. Hmm. He's been good as gold ever since. I've shown him three times since my last update. At the first show he won showmanship, was second in hunter under saddle, second in open hunter under saddle, and fourth in hunt seat equitation. He is VERY green in the eq, so I was thrilled with that. He got a bit naughty in HUS, but all in all for his first show in a year I was happy. He placed fourth in eq at the other two shows as well. He does patterns so much better at shows than he does at home. We've been working on equitation patterns at home a lot and almost every time it results in him throwing a temper tantrum/bucking fit because he gets frazzled by the demands of difficult patterns. He's getting better though. At the other two shows he blew my HUS classes by pretending he didn't know his leads. Grr. But, I have to remember he's still pretty green as far as showing goes. He has also now broken off the trailer at EVERY show but one. We need to brainstorm new ways to tie him because he's learned that he can break the lead rope and is having a grand ole' time running around, while giving me a heart attack.

Other Cruizer news.. he went on his first off-property "trail" ride. I was saved by him being barefoot, as he spooked hard at something and bolted sideways on the road (asphalt). Had he been shod, I am sure he would have fallen. I stayed on and we went past the scary objects (a huge rock and a mailbox) with no problem once he got a chance to look at them. The "trail" ride was actually through the field in front of the barn and cutting across the neighbor's yard to ride through the neighboring subdivision. Cruizer seemed to enjoy himself.. particularly when we stopped at a friend's house and he got to eat grass in her front yard. He is overall getting much more confident and "broke." One of my friends also came out and rode him last week (she's a novice and this was her second time riding in like 6 months) and he just loped around for her like a beginner's lesson horse. I was very proud. I rode him first and we worked on the lead changes exercises we learned in the clinic a couple months ago, and he gave me two flying changes at a reasonable pace and without bucking to do the change. Good boy.

In personal news, I broke up with my boyfriend of two and a half years in May. It's been pretty difficult, especially since I'm already under so much stress with school approaching. Its also a blessing how busy I am though.. doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to think.

Its been between 90 and 100 degrees for the past week and is supposed to remain super hot for this week, so I won't be riding at all. Cruizer and I are both very sensitive to the heat. I'm going to go out later and hose him off and sunscreen him though.