Still Truckin'...

I wasn't home in time to see Zydeco tonight before he was tucked into bed for the evening, but reports from my trusty stablehands (A.K.A my parents)are all positive. Zydo's leg was like normal this evening when he was brought in from the pasture, where he lives to torment Summer by hauling him around the field by his halter. Zydo is sometimes kind of a jerk like that.

I'm currently in show-season fantasy land, whereby I go through every day dreaming of the show season to come. I guess the trick here is to not actually TELL Zydo of any of my show-y plans.

We face the same issues for this season as we did for the last: Zydo has arthritis, and while sometimes he works perfectly and seems fit as a fiddle, his medication is contraband in the show circuit, and so he can't go in certain shows because of it. I, personally, don't consider Zydo's medication to be performance-enhancing, but The Powers That Be do, and so, if he requires this medication to continue on, then we will only go in non-recognized shows from now until ... Well, I'm not sure when.

Two shows that have caught my eye right now are ones judged by people I love and respect (respectively) more than any other people on Earth. My long time friend will be judging one this April (April!?!? I'm supposed to be able to do a twenty metre canter circle by April?!) and another come July. The one in July is judged by a woman who used to coach my mother, and I would love to have her comments written out on my scoring sheet.

I crave ribbons. The taste of winning ribbons that I got last summer did me in entirely. I did not expect to get ribbons last year, and Zydo won me a first and a second place prize. I often still feel my winner's high from that day, and occasionally when I have nothing else to do, I look over the pictures from that day.

However, I also crave the feeling of not getting a ribbon. It's odd, I know, but I want to go to a show and simply be proud of my performance. I truly feel that if Zydo and I went to a show and came out with nothing, I would still be happy to have gone with him, to have been in public with such a horse, to have ridden my best and to have completed the mission. So if this show season brings me nothing else, it will be one more experience with a horse I love to death. Last year, the ribbons were just perks from time well spent. I didn't expect to get them, and when I did, I felt like I was sitting on the moon.

I want that again, but at the same time, I'll be happy this year if Zydo can show up, do what I tell him to do, and go home again in one piece.