Magic Harvest Time

My very pregnant pony!!!!! Due at the end of January. I am very, very excited for the foal!

I am sad.

I have made the decision to sell Pilot. I suspect that the decision was the hardest part and it will be slightly less painful from here on.

It feels something like grief.

The reasoning behind the decision makes me sound like all I care about is winning, which isn't true. The reason is - my chosen sport, the time, money and effort put in to showing - is not what Pilot wants to do. I have tried for two full years, have made excuse after excuse for him. He has improved out of sight, but he is still inconsistant. Lets me down again and again. He does not enjoy it. I do not enjoy it.

So, I am taking him to a show tomorrow, and one next weekend, that I have already entered for. Then the day after that, he is going to spend some time with a friend of mine who does jumping - showjumping, eventing. She is going to get him up and going and then I will make a decision as to how I will market him for his new career. I want him to be going the very best he can - not so that I will get the best price for him - but so that he gets the very best home possible where they will love the pants off him.

It is the right decision, but it breaks my heart.

Pilot and I at a pre-season training event.. am pleased to report that I have lost a decent amount of weight since that photo was taken a month ago! I still quite like the photo though.

I feel a little better today.

I rode Pilot yesterday. He started off being a lunatic, basically! Full of spring grass. Safety First.... so my behavioural work had to take a back seat and I put him on the lunge and let him leap around like an idiot for ten minutes. Lots of trot/canter transitions. When he looked pretty hot and bothered I got back on. It needs to be said that I was beside myself at this point - I had worked myself into a panic that I couldn't ride my own horse... I was scared of SOMETHING... I was shaking and I couldn't bring myself to ask for canter because he had been bucking so much and it seemed to be in the upward transition to canter. Honestly I was a mess - trying to breathe and tell myself that I have never actually fallen off him.. that I have been riding him for years... that I just needed to do it... finally I did it and all was well. When I called my friend Helena to tell her about it, she said she reckoned that I wasn't afraid of falling off, I was afraid that it was all going to turn pear shaped and that I wouldn't be able to fix it. Good point, actually. I'm so worried about failing with Pilot. Managing to force myself to do something I was irrationally terrified about last night has made me feel much better about myself.

This morning I finallllllllllllllllllly went to the doctors for a check up and poke around of all the bits and pieces. Not my idea of a fun morning but am relieved that I ticked the box of 'things to do'. Will be interested to see the er, results.

Today is 'Love your Body Day' and I am NOT fulfilling my duties as an EDEN collective member. Two reasons - I take enough time off work farting around with therapy, and, I am not particularly loving my body these days. Slightly more since I am losing weight... but not enough to get all smug about it. Notice there are no full body shots of me in my skinny emo jeans and tight tshirt - what a fucking awful sight that was. Coming into summer I am plagued by sleeveless clothing items and clothes that are tighter and memories of being skinnier. Damn damn damn. It twists my guts and forces me to make boring decisions daily.

fucking hell - after all that they have gotten back together.