Love is in the Air

I've noticed from my regular blog stalkings that horses are pairing up left and right. Well, maybe now Mae can join the club. A new gelding recently arrived at the stable. He is GORGEOUS. Dare I say he may now rival Mae for the prettiest horse in the barn? Yesterday, when I took her to the cross-ties right by his stall, they kept trying to nose each other through the bars. Mae often doesn't get along with other horses, so I was touched by their little moment. Of course, her previous boyfriend, a rather homely but sweet old guy, was watching sullenly from his own stall.

I don't know the new gelding's name yet, and I haven't met his owner, but I'm already half hoping that if he and Mae get along, we can take some trail rides together. Mae doesn't do trail rides alone and so far we haven't found a suitable riding buddy. I can only hope she won't figure out that he is challenging her for the title of Most Beautiful Horse in the Barn, because then it'll all go to hell.

In other news, I finally caved and agreed to ride in the schooling show at the stable where I take lessons next weekend. I've always been kind of obsessed with shows, but I was reluctant about this one because I'm half afraid I'll be the only adult. It's only a show for the lesson program, so no outside riders or horses. Since I believe 90% or more of the students are between the ages of like 7 and 14, I didn't want to be that one pathetic grown woman in the bunch. But my instructor told me I was being silly. Actually, what she said when I asked her whether any adults would be riding was: "Oh, sure! Well, um, some really good teenagers at least. 15- and 16-year-olds." Ha ha!

She gave me the option of competing in either the intermediate or advanced division. I chose intermediate after considering whether my instructor was smoking crack. I would probably enter the novice if she'd let me. :) I'll be in the intermediate walk-trot class (which is used as kind of a warm up for nervous kids, I think) equitation and pleasure. I also considered entering a beginning jumping class but decided my jumping skills weren't up for it. I never jumped during my younger riding years and am pretty new at it now. I was also stoked about entering a dressage class, because I think I still have the Training Level Test 1 test memorized from when I was 11 years old, but they decided to scrap the dressage portion and make the show only one day long instead. So anyway, I'm sure I'll have some sort of humiliating show tale for you after next weekend!