AIKEN 2021: Day 1 & 2

 

At some sketchy pit stop in TN

I hope you all are ready for some SMOKIN blog material. My blog has been sort of boring lately and I thought maybe Aiken will give me some content.

Oh, it be giving me content.

Loaded and ready to go!

Day 1: Travel

We had five gals and five horses on the road at 5 a.m. sharp Thursday morning. An amazing feat by itself. The trip was thankfully uneventful and we arrived at the beautiful Jumping Branch Farm around 3 p.m.

You know you are in the south when you see big crosses?

Road to Jumping Branch

It was T-shirt weather when we got there! 75 degrees!

Our gorgeous AirBnB

Hampton and stepbrother Royale both traveled great. We had one of the OTTBs act a little funny (high resp rate), but after some electrolytes, banamine and turnout, he was back to normal.

Some of the girls went on a hack, but I let Hampton just relax while I unpacked and got settled. We were all exhausted, and went back to our beautiful AirBnB, stuffed our faces with pizza and passed out. 

Day 2: Hack day

On the lovely track at JBF

Schooling field

We all went on a lovely hack around JBF on Friday. Some did some schooling, some jumped a little. Hamp and I mostly walked with a little piaffe thrown in for good measure here and there. He felt quite spry and fit. We did have one unplanned dismount in the group when the youngest (youngest horse AND rider) had a moment. But both were ok.

Liz and I did some tack store shopping too. We hit up Aiken Saddlery and Dover. I managed to rein myself in but did buy Hamp a lovely new halter.

I wonder if anyone can smell this journalist around here.

Hacking around JBF

Cute train station

After the horses were all fed and put to bed in their paddocks, we had a fabulous dinner back at the house. And then sat outside by the fire for a bit. There might have been alcohol consumed.

Unbeknownst to us, the first two days here would be the most uneventful.