The Hot Mess Express was running pretty much 24/7 last week. The last Henry update you got was last Wednesday, where I recapped his series of calamities that kept us from actually properly prepping for the show. As of last Wednesday he had pulled a shoe, garnering himself 2 days off, but the farrier came and put it back on. I went ahead and asked him to just redo him, since we were almost at 5 weeks anyway, but he didn’t have his drill press with him that day, so he just tacked the missing shoe back on and came out the next morning to do a complete reset.

That was Thursday.

I get to the barn Thursday afternoon, ready to FINALLY fit a ride in. I went out and set up a few jumps in the field, since it had been, oh ya know, a month since we last jumped. I won’t even tell you how long it had been since we last jumped a course (coughtheJunehorsetrialcough). I set up our little warmup boxes, a 3’3″ vertical, and a 3’6″ oxer. We had a nice stretchy trot warmup, then went for a quick little canter, popped over the jumps a few times, and called it done. He actually felt super, especially considering how long it had been.

And then we went for a walk.

And then he tripped and did this.

Can’t even make this shit up, y’all. He had about 4 hours in these new shoes before he decided he was done with the four-shoe lifestyle. Hasn’t pulled a shoe in a year and now he’d managed two in a week.

I knew my farrier wasn’t going to be very happy with Henry, considering the guy had already been out two days in a row for my ridiculous horse. Turns out it didn’t really matter how he felt, because he had left my barn and gone to Houston to shoe horses for a couple days. No way he’d be back in time to tack Henry’s shoe back on (again). So Trainer confirmed that there would be a show farrier, and I just figured no big deal, I’ll get it tacked on tomorrow when we get to the show.

LOL.

On Friday I worked a half day, got to the barn around 11:30 to load all my crap, and we were on the road by noon. We made good time and rolled in before 2, I got a nice parking spot in the trees so that my tent was in the shade, got Henry’s stall all set up, checked in at the office, and proceeded trying to find the farrier. Someone told me that his son was showing, suggesting I check his stall and see if they were there yet. A little bit of creepy stalking later, I located the stall, but nope – not there yet. No big deal, I’ll just go hang out and wait.

I spent the next 6 hours checking that stall every 20 friggin minutes. By 7 it was obvious that I wasn’t going to get to ride that day, and I really didn’t even want to take Henry out and walk him around since he’s such a baby when he’s barefoot. Getting a bruise the day before dressage wouldn’t be good. We were not exactly off to the start I wanted for the show, not getting to ride him or even get him out of his stall. And with an 8:50 dressage time in the morning, I was starting to get nervous. Really nervous. What happens if the farrier doesn’t show up in time?

I watched my horse looking more and more wild in his stall before I finally did the only thing I could do: go to bed.

This is all important back story before we actually get to the dressage recap. The drama continues tomorrow…