A very important message from Miss Brandy!

Hello everyone! It's about time I had your undivided attention, so listen up!

I spent Saturday and Sunday with some of my bestest friends, and mom was nice enough to take the head divider out of her trailer so I could have some quality time with my buddy, Ari. Since we had to spend all weekend on the trailer, mostly together, but sometimes separate because Mom would take us out to ride us, I got to talk to Ari a lot.

I also got to have a chat with this handsome bay fellow, Taco. Looking at Taco is just like looking at myself in a mirror- he looks just like me. Striking, bay, tall, long and lean.

Taco (Thanks AM for the pics)

Brandy. See the similarities?!?

Anyway, while I was talking to Ari and Taco, they both mention this thing called "blogging." So, I asked Mom yesterday what this blogging thing was and why I hadn't gotten to write one yet. Ari said he hasn't gotten to do many posts (whatever that means, I thought posting was when mom got her fat tushie out of the saddle, but I could be wrong), but Taco said he writes on his blog all the time!

So I asked Mom if I could blog about my weekend, and she said yes!

So, first of all, I want to thank my friends Big Flo, Taco and Elby for teaching me how to be a good "training" horse. I guess when you're a training horse you get to jump bigger things and scarier things, plus, you get extra credit for being "catty" and "quick with your legs." I think I'm really good at getting my feet out of the way. When mom gets me into an iffy spot, I just pull my feet up to my belly and push with my big back end. Mom calls me a plow horse, sometimes, but I just think she should be glad I'm so powerful so I can get her over these big jumps! It is kind of fun, though, I admit. I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to, you can be sure of that!

I'm a big horse, now! Just like Flo, Elby and Taco!

See? I'm pretty tidy with those feet, I think!

I mean, look at the power back there!! (Thanks to LV for the pics!)

The best part of the stadium course was when I had to do three jumps in a row with two strides in between. It was pretty awesome, because, like I said, I'm really good at being quick with my feet. Mom had messed things up a couple times already, so she just left me alone and let me sort it out. Good thing, too, who knows how badly it would have gone if she'd tried to help! I'm so good to her.

See my ears? I'm totally counting strides. Mom's smiling because she knows I'll take care of her.

Success! I have to earn my cookies somehow.

I also had to jump a "skinny." This is funny because there is nothing skinny about me and mom, but there was plenty of room on either side of us to clear this thing. Skinnies at Aunt Amy's are much smaller, probably because since she is so tiny she has a different perception of how skinny a jump should be. But whatever, I just jump what they tell me to jump and this "skinny" was no exception!

You can see that I'm gauging the distance on either side of me here with my ears. They're my radar.

So, I jumped this whole course and only hit one rail, but it didn't fall down. That means I'm clean, says mom, but I don't agree. I have dirt on my legs and poop in my tail, but if she thinks I'm clean, then I guess I'm clean!

This is one of my favorites. I'm awesome, am I not?

And this is just so you can see how high I can jump. See Taco and Aunt Stacy smiling for me in the background?

Here's a video of me carting mom around the course. Big thanks for Karen for videoing it. And congrats to my cousin, Maybe, for finally figuring out how to make mom the happiest- by jumping all the time when she says so!

The good news is, you can see just how happy mom is in this next picture, which means I DEFINITELY got a LOT of cookies when I got back to the trailer. In the end, I was in fourth place, but I wasn't that far behind Big Flo, which is pretty good for me! Elby, Flo and Taco are kind of dressage super stars (supah-stars?!) so I have to work pretty hard to be close to them. Mom says its okay as long as I try because that is what eventing is all about.

Cookies are good, but a happy mom is the best. Well, maybe in that order.

So, I spent the rest of the day on the trailer after that. It was okay, though, because it was warm and breezy, the trailer is nice and cool and I got to play halter tag with Ari all day while I ate and watched everyone else do their thing. Mom says I can't post about the day without posting this pic:

She says it has something to do with three generation of eventing. The blond on the left is Aunt Amy. I like her because she makes mom ride me right, but I do have to work hard when she's around. It's okay, though, because I get bored otherwise. The girl on the right is my cousin, Anna, who owns Murphy, who is like the big version of me, pushy, opinionated and awesome. She helped my mom meet Aunt Amy, so I guess she's okay. And sometimes she comes with cookies and tells me nice things. She also makes fun of my brother, Ari, so that makes her even cooler, in my book. 

Speaking of Ari, he wanted me to tell you about his day, too. He wasn't going to come, but mom said something about my friend, Little Flo, not feeling well, so Ari took her spot. Mom wasn't feeling too hot on Saturday either, but I don't believe her because she did a whole lot in one day without too much of an issue!

So, Ari did novice and he was a good boy. Mom says he was very honest because she didn't ride him very well in jumping and his dressage was nice! He was in second place, just half a point behind the winner! Aunt Amy says mom gets a little complacent on Ari and just lets him go along without really trying very hard. Thats not fair, because she always pushes me to do my best! He's a couple pictures of the the stupid idiot Ari, because mom said I had to, so you can see how awesome he is.

There.

ANYWAY, back to me.

On Sunday, mom took me to Percy Warner Park to school XC! I won't talk about it too long, just rest assured that I was AWESOME. I got to jump down a bank into the water which is kind of old news, but the bank had a LOG on top. Mom wanted to dive into the water headfirst, but I stayed underneath her we did it again and again until Aunt Amy said she finally had her feet out in front of her enough to stay on. Mom said something about Rolex, which is kind of pushing it, but I can see the similarities. We'll just say I'm a mini-Rolex horse.

This is Winsome Adante, 3 time Rolex winner. I'm pretty sure we're related. There are no pics of me on XC Sunday, so you can just pretend this is me and mom. There are some distinct similarities, at any rate.

 The other awesome thing we did at Percy Warner was the trakehner, the log with the ditch underneath it. Mom says it gives her heart palpitations just looking at it. I don't really know what that means, but I guess it means she just keeps her leg on and stays the out of my way because I jumped the heck out of that thing. TWICE! I got lots of pets for that and Aunt Stacy and Megan even said how awesome I was. Aunt Amy seemed pretty proud of us, too, but its all in a days work.

*sigh* Mom says I have to talk about that stupid jerk Ari again. He was good too, blah blah blah. Jumped well, he was brave, didn't stop, but didn't want to jump into water, so that was a battle, but eventually he did it anyway, mom is starting to figure out how to ride him forward and not pick him down to nothing at the base of the jump. Enough of him, back to me!

So, as you can see, I was a super star! Mom says she will be back later to talk about how awesome her students were, and maybe she will let some of their horses blog, too. She better talk to me about this, though, because I'm pretty sure I'm the only horse out here smart enough to work one of these stupid computers, so I'd have to help them. It's not easy to do with hooves the size of pie plates, I'm telling you!

Oh, I guess I should also make sure to say thank you to Leslie Vancil, Anna Moreland and Karen Golski for providing me with the media in this post. I can talk and talk and talk, but unless you SEE how awesome I am, you'll never believe me.

Oh, and just for good measure, here is a picture of my cousin, Delivering Maybes. She did her first three phase this weekend with her mom. Her mom did really good this weekend. Maybe it was because she wore my mom's vest with the pink laces down the sides. (tee hee... maybe)

I didn't get to talk to Maybe while I was there, but I wanted her to see this picture of me from June 2009, my first time out on XC:

And with that, all I have to say is... Perchie Power!!