Another day, another blog...
(this horse was nuts! I'm amazed they went safely-ish around!)

Headed out this morning to the JRA riding centre, and watched the last hour or so of the first day of showjumping. The course was challenging and several riders made a complete meal out of it, refusals, multiple knock downs, eliminations, etc. I found Suzuki, the lady who helped me before, and she remembered me, and took me to meet someone who had something to do with vaulting, maybe (we were never introduced properly). The upshot is that it seems like its going to be hard for me to get insurance, and they weren't very receptive to the whole idea of me vaulting, but Pete figures we can try and work something out. Maybe I should just try and convince them to let me on their barrels! They're training at 2pm on Sunday, and I'm welcome to go and watch, which I'd like to do-keep me focussed on what I want to do before I get home...

I found out that Suzuki is an international level eventing judge, and so I asked if she knew Karen Brain, to which she replied 'Oh yes, I know of her - very big name!' Shamelessly name dropping, I told her she used to teach me at home, and I think, reassured her that I wasn't a complete nut off the street who doesn't actually know one end of a horse form the other, (thanks, Karen!). She told me that she rode in the states about 35 years ago as an eventer before getting into judging.

The event going on this week is an annual university students competition, mostly among graduating seniors. There are 93 universities in Japan with riding programs, all with their own stables and horses! They generally had very good equitation, although I didn't see a single clear round, so who knows! Like at home, one of their biggest problems with vaulting is finding a suitable horse - with racing being so huge, the majority of their jumping and eventing horses are OTTBs, which aren't exactly the most level headed or big boned horses on the planet! They do seem to import a lot of their dressage stock though.

Anyway, headed home and hung out with Venus for a little bit, reading reviews (a quagmire as usual regarding NCLA), and spent the afternoon feeling...restless for lack of a better word I guess...


Pete got back, newly infected with a cold, poor guy, so I cooked dinner and then he watched another disk of Desperate Housewives while I read more of 'Tully', and then we talked a little bit (and w/ Tonya), about the possible Christmas trip... I'm not really sure what to think about the whole thing anymore, but this probably isn't the place to discuss, however, I'm sure it will all work out for the best, and whatever happens I'll post pictures!

Speaking of pictures, I thought I'd fixed my problem (check out the newly expanded dog park post), but it turns out that flickr, which is where I'm hosting those photos only allows 2MB of bandwidth per month! Seemingly those six photos sucked that right up and now I'm hooped till the next calendar month, which is a totally lame system, and NO, I don't want to pay for more bandwidth, thank you very much YAHOO!

Blah, going to bed now and will be happy and re-energized in the AM.
D