The weather still looked pretty iffy on Thursday and Friday, although the rain chances lessened as the week wore on. Thursday brought 40 mph winds, so trying to jump anything in that seemed a bit dangerous to me, considering the fences were blowing over.

Friday morning it rained a little, but the footing held together and I jumped Eli around in preparation for the show on Saturday. He actually did really well, until I decided I wanted him to jump a certain jump a certain way, and I got really picky and fried both my brain and Eli’s, to the point where we could not get a good approach or good distance to the jump no matter what I did. I ended with cantering around on a looped rein so that we both relaxed before ending the ride. I only have video of the good part because my camera wasn’t fully charged, so it shut off after 19 minutes of film. Perhaps not being able to relive the horribleness is a good thing.

short course from patentlybay on Vimeo.

Eli got another bath and I wrapped him up for shipping, planning to meet him at the show before sunrise on Saturday morning. I am not sure it’s crucial at this point to get him in the ring prior to the classes starting, because he has been at this venue a number of times now, and my trainer and I are trying to convince him it’s his home away from home so he doesn’t have to jump out of his skin at every little noise. He doesn’t think twice about the jumps, just the stuff outside the arena. Even so, I wanted to walk him around and let him take everything in first in the morning.

Tomorrow, I’ll post about how the show went for us!