34 degrees, cloudy, damp at 35538.
Balancing writing, reading, riding and shopping. Yeah, Christmas is looming. Nine days…
Enjoyed an awesome day out with Orange County Saturday. Lemonade Thursday, a Clancy Bloodstock purchase and Riverdee Stable graduate, made it easy. So easy. The day after iconic stallion Lemon Drop Kid died at 28, his son, 9, carried a retired jump jockey over 17.5 miles of beautiful Virginia countryside. Over coops and stone walls. Up and down steep hills. Through streams. Across ravines. Gently over frozen ground. It’s the most fun I’ve had on a horse since Indispensable won the Hobkirk Hill in November 2000. My last race. I sometimes forget how much fun it is to run and jump aboard a nice horse.
Lemonade Thursday is a nice horse. We purchased him as a yearling at Saratoga. He won three times on the flat, posted a 99 Beyer one day, then won once over hurdles. Plateaued in those careers, he retired and joined Annie’s string. Flat work, grid work, delicate work polished it up and he joined Laird George’s string last year. Laird hunted him last week and sent me a text.
“Lemonade was very, very, very good. He was out for two hours and about an hour of it was walking to be honest. Enough jumping to make it fun. George Grayson said if you don’t hunt that horse he’s going to.”
And an emoji smily face.
Some people know how to push your buttons.
I signed up for Saturday.
Of course, I can’t walk up or down the steps this morning. Should have stretched. Well, should have ridden a few more times before our three-hour jaunt. Worth every groan.
I carried my grandfather’s whip. I called Dad afterward and told him I used it. “The brown braided one…” Yeah, that one. It has sat in my closet since the day Granny Nora gave it to me so many years ago. Old school, with a leather loop at the top. I didn’t need it Saturday. But was glad I had it. Grand Paddy would have been glad, too.
