Howie hurries and a little more run

Started my Tuesday afternoon sessions with Howie this week. The objective is simply to get more time riding in hopes of starting jumping competitions this spring.

Howie was very strong today and, as usual, in a big hurry right from the start. Howie's walk was almost as fast as Duke's trot (Laura was riding Duke at the same time) and Howie's trot was as fast as Duke's canter. So I had to work really hard to keep Howie at the pace and rhythm that I wanted. Howie did eventually slow down a bit, but even at the walk at the end of the lesson he was a little speedster.

Laura and I talked a little about the possible impending purchase of Meyou, the horse Evan brought to the Tacoma Polo Club for Laura to consider for herself of one of her students. Meyou is exactly the horse I would be looking for...a jumper and a bit of a polo player, but I wasn't expecting to buy a horse until next spring. Meyou's even a chestnut, which makes him even more appealing...to me anyway. I'll be talking to the parents and looking at my budget very closely to see if "Me and You Forever" (Meyou's full name) will come to pass.

For the run in the evening I changed my workout to two minutes off, one minute on. Wow...how an 30 additional seconds can seem to drag on forever. But in the end, I was able to do it and actually felt pretty good during and after the workout. I'll continue this interval set for a couple weeks and then bump up again by 30 seconds.

Tacoma polo

The club had a tournament this weekend, so I did the spectator thing this time around which was great since it would give me a good chance to really watch the game. Now that I've been playing, I was able to see and understand a lot more plays. There was some exceptional polo during the tournament with a couple teams that compete around at different clubs on the circuit. After watching the full on polo, I'm not too sure that I ever want to play at that level, it gets pretty rough and although I'm sure I may get injuries from pentathlon training and competition, I'm not too keen on getting injured in a hobby and then not being able to do the pentathlon. So I'll be choosing the slow chuckers for a while.

On another note, Even - one of the polo gurus at the club - brought a horse for Laura (my riding coach who was down watching a friend play) to consider for training...an 8 year old Chestnut named Meyou (short for "Me and You Forever"). Meyou has done some jumping and has played polo once...chestnut, jumper, polo, exactly the horse I would be looking for...just next spring. I had planned on looking for horses in the spring but with Meyou showing up, I may have to reconsider the timing. Keep an eye on my pentathlon journal for more news.