I do realise that it’s well past the first quarter of the year and a goal recap is in order. It’s in the pipeline.

First, exciting news: our neighbours had a dusting of frost over their vlei (marshland, to our foreign readers) this morning. Frost means dead bugs, which means the end of bug-borne diseases for the season, so it was a most welcome sight. And only four weeks after the mist on the river: that old farmer hasn’t been wrong before and he’s not wrong this time.

This week has been blessedly routine as we plod along towards SANESA Q2, for which all the horses and riders are more than ready. I expect great things this qualifier – like determination, guts, drive, grace and patience – from my riders. I’m riding Midas in dressage and jumping again and he’s feeling great. He’s figured out how to jump a one-stride and I don’t expect any trouble.

Magic has the sniffles. I can sympathise; so do I. Neither of us have anything more than a cough and a bit of snots, so I’m letting us get over it ourselves. Magic’s the only one that gets time off, though. Hard life, being a pet.

Exavior had a lot of time off lately and it shows. He fools around in his field a lot and keeps biting Magic’s butt, a sure sign of boredom. To his credit, when I finally lunged him, he was super well behaved and didn’t show any homicidal tendencies. Always a plus.

I’m hoping that Sunè has found her child. This little boy, who isn’t my favourite but only because good teachers don’t have favourites, is a busy little daredevil but his lessons on her are considerably less heart-failure-inducing and she seems to rather like him. This pony was born to be a first pony.

Ash is super. She escaped from her tiny paddock yesterday, but only went as far as the nearest patch of grass, whence I retrieved her two minutes later. She loves her hand-walking and will be doing 30 minutes by the end of next week. I think after that we’ll trot her up gently and see if she’s going sound.

Destiny continues to attempt rising through the ranks in his group and continues to be thwarted by Starlight. Needless to say, he hasn’t done much this week except get lectured about picking on the boss mare.

Faithy is almost a complete equine good citizen. She just needs to get in the box and trot up without squishing me. We do lots of carrot stretches and those funny Masterson Method wiggles, but apart from that I basically just brush her and try stuff on so that I can take cute pictures of her.

I’m sharing Midas with Vastrap’s kid to give the little brat some miles under a rider more suited to his height. He carries me with ease but I do feel sorry for him with my ankles waving around under his tummy. This has been a huge success; Midas is as quiet and reliable as the day is long and the kiddo rides him beautifully.

Arwen and I continue to chip away at the Elementary work. Our canter is improving; the more we work those simple changes the more I figure out how to really get her collected and “jumping” and to carry my own weight. The lateral work is a bit of a sticky point because I don’t know what it’s meant to feel like and can’t see what we’re doing wrong, so we’re kinda waiting on dressage coach S to come and save us from that one.

I’ll wrap this up with a blast from the past that cropped up in my Facebook memories. This hails from a time when I was way too cool for shoulder-hip-heel alignment, breeches, or collared shirts.

Guess who? Do we know any other ginger giants?

Yep, this is Cointreau d’Or – Exavior’s momma, probably when she was still in early pregnancy with him. How cute is it that she has a really short sock on the same foreleg as Lady Erin does?

She was very cool to ride and these photos have made me really want to put my butt back on Xave, too. All in God time.

Glory to the King.