December 4th - 10:41pm

Megg's last full day at the farm. So sad! Her dad is coming to see Buenos Aires/the Argentine Polo Open so shell be here another week but not with us! Super sad but also exciting she gets to show him everything. Hes arriving tomorrow and we're doing an asado. Definitely excited. But it means we have an early start tomorrow to try to get everything done in the barn. Worth it though.
Today was another hot, long day. The heat seems to be a pretty consistent theme at this point. It was suppose to rain though so will definitely take heat over rain. Was on Geologo first followed by Picaro. Then Uxmal. Did some work with Martins help over some poles with him and he was a very good boy. After was Nixon with more pole work and Nacar to finish off the morning. Nixon and I had a better ride than usual and actually ended pretty well. Nacar was also a little rockstar today. Dont know why I like that horse so much but I do. The afternoon consisted of a ride on Jour then on Quantum. Jour was a little fresh since he hadnt been worked since Friday but quickly settled into work. I played over a pole on the ground for a bit and definitely the realization of how much better Ive gotten since arriving. Had a little bit of it on Nacar when we were able to canter around and throw some lead changes in without a problem. On a green horse that I use to not be able to do any one. Yes he's gotten older and better trained but considering lead changes use to blow my mind, thats a pretty big accomplishment. Anyway with Jour, I was cantering over the little pole and remembered something Bernie Traurig said my first week here. He was getting on Andrea for missing her distance to the first cavaletti in a line twice in a row. He was like "how can you be happy with that!? If someone told me to get the distance Id make sure I did it every time even if they wanted me to do it a thousand times!" At the time I thought that would be crazy to be able to canter the cavaletti and every time get the correct distance. Not just a couple times but a thousand. Today with Jour I must have cantered that pole at least 20 times and without making any big frantic adjustment, got right there. Saw it out of the corner and just rode forward right to where I needed to be. Not a single bad scramble to the other side. Definitely not something I could have done that consistently when I arrived. Let alone ride Nacar or Quantum, my last ride of the day. This job definitely isnt easy. The days are long, hot and not always fun. Things hurt, sunburn happens (despite liberal applications of sunscreen) and the horses arent always perfect. But rides like those where I realize how much Ive learned make it all worth it.