I know it’s been almost a month since my last post but it feels like Twin happened years ago. A lot, and I mean A LOT, has happened in the last month and I’m pretty lost on where to even begin. I guess I’ll start with some good news… I got a job working at a retail store called Wet Seal a few weeks ago and I’m pretty stoked to be working there. The company has been around for a long time but this store was just opening in my local mall. It was a cool experience to watch and help the store go from literally an empty room to a crazy, bright clothing store. We opened last Thursday and our grand opening is this Saturday.
The day of my first scheduled training at a different Wet Seal was March 18 or 19 and I was sitting in first period totally excited to go to work after school and the barn. Everything changed though when I got a text from my mom saying “There was a landslide at the barn Lynn (the owner of the barn) is freaking out you need to go help”. I jumped out of my seat and just walked out of class without a word and immediately rushed to the barn. While driving, I called my trainer to see what was going on. She wasn’t there yet but told me the hill in front of Brodie’s pasture was coming down and that we had to get the horses out. I’m glad my car is such a trooper because I definitely drifted some turns on the way out there after hearing that!
When I got to the barn, there were a bunch or firemen and search and rescue guys all standing around. I parked my car on the property across a small ravine from my barn and was shocked to get out and see that, yes, the hill was definitely coming down. The nearest fireman near me warned me that I couldn’t go onto the property but that was my pony in there and I wasn’t just going to stand around. I crawled under a few fences and scaled the 4′ ravine (which had bones in the sides of it *barf*) and power walked over to the barn owner and my trainer. ย They had already gotten all of the horses out of the pastures where the land was going but we still had to move other horses around the get them out of the danger zone. Did I mention that a new group with 10 stallions had just moved in and weren’t even there yet? A game plan was set up and we knew where the horses were all going to go and were told that the barn Brodie, and all of Laurie’s client’s horses were in was in the safe zone. After moving horses around (and walking a VERY naughty pony who belong to some couple) Laurie and I started to breath a little bit. Two of Laurie’s clients showed up while we were there to help us out and I’m happy they showed up when they did.
As soon as we all started to switch our brains back into normal mode, the firemen told us we had 30 minutes to get all of out horses out as the mountain was starting to come towards Laurie’s barn. Immediately, Laurie and I made a chart or all of our horses and decided where they were going to go. A barn (Spirit Equestrian Center) 2 driveways down from us was nice enough to let us move all of our horses onto their property. An hour later, 63 horses had been moved off of the property and placed wherever they could be and the hill had moved between 15 & 20 feet. 50 of the horses came over to Spirit including all 18 of Laurie’s horses.
It was a crazy, hectic day full of running around and walking hot, spooky horses. Hours flew by and I realized that I still had to go to work for the first time! Luckily most of the work was done and I was able to leave. It must have been the adrenaline that kept me going but as soon as I started driving, I realized how tired I was. Work sucked that night and of course it was a Friday so the store was super busy but I was glad that my shift was only a 3 hour one.
So Brodie and all of Laurie’s training horses stayed at Spirit for two weeks (which is one of the most gorgeous facilities on Southern California) while we looked at ย new barns that could house all of our horses, was in generally everyone’s price range, had enough arena space for eventers and wasn’t extremely far for everyone to drive. We found Classic Equestrian Center in Moorpark and moved in 5 days later. It has nice barns, 3 dressage arenas, a nice jump arena with an irish bank and hill, a general discipline arena for the western riders and a nice long trail for conditioning.
In the 2 weeks that we were at Spirit, it rained a lot so we didn’t get to ride any of the horses that much, we would just get on them and walk around the property. Everyone agreed that we would take the month of April off of showing so that everyone could just settle back into training. I got to jump Brodie on Saturday for the first time since cross country at Twin and he was fabulous. The jumps were little but we were both having fun. I got tot jump him in a loose ring fat baby snaffle and he was so soft in the face and never once thought of taking advantage of me which is great since when I bought him three years ago, he’d take off with you in anything but a pelhem. My goal is to be able to do all three phases in the loose ring and so far he’s showing his appreciation for the new bit.
My plan is to do Galway in May but we’ll just see what happens. Until next time ๐
xoxo
Ashley & Brodie