Tick-tock, tick-tock...

It's hard to believe that in just over a week, we'll be in Ft. Worth. Where has the time gone?! The butterflies are trying to set up permanent residence in my stomach, despite my best efforts to chase them away. I realized the other day that this will be the first time in over ten years that I've been to any kind of real horse show, and I'm sure I've never been in front of a crowd as big as this one will be. I try to calm my nerves by reminding myself that it absolutely does not matter how well we do in comparison to the other horses - I'm doing this for Eli, and for mustangs in general, and by simply getting to Ft. Worth with a broke horse, we've been successful.

This past week, Eli didn't get much work. In preparation for our move to California, I flew out to look at a house that we're hoping to buy. It's on about 5 acres, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to not only keep my own horse(s) there, but possibly set up a place so that I can work with more mustangs in the future. Most of the work I did with Eli was on desensitizing and groundwork. There are not too many things that freak him out, although I would really like to expose him to an indoor arena and ride him around some other horses in that setting. Not sure if that opportunity will present itself before Ft. Worth, but I think he'll still settle in pretty quickly regardless.

I also finalized my entry into the Idols division in the competition. It's the middle level, and looks like it will have a basic course asking us to show all three gaits and do some basic trail obstacles. I felt like this was where we fit in best at this point. I have no doubt that with more time and a more skilled trainer, Eli would've been able to do just about anything anyone trained him to do. He's so quick to learn. This is only the second time I've started a horse under saddle completely by myself, and there were a lot of times that I was learning right along with Eli. I made some mistakes along the way, leading to some behaviors that I had to go back and correct, so that has kept us from moving past some of the basics. But I have no regrets about not pushing Eli farther. He's only three, and I don't really like to do a lot of hard work under saddle with a horse until age four or five.

We'll spend this last week working on some moves for our two minute freestyle as well as solidifying the basics to get us through the ground and horse course. I do have a few ideas for the finals, if by some miracle we make it. I've got the PERFECT music and theme, and would love to be able to put it to use, but my main focus will simply be to have a good showing in the preliminaries, and to have a FABULOUS time at the event. I'm so looking forward to meeting the other trainers, and spectators. Please stop by and say hello!