Which is why I have played more polo and rode than studied the past two days. I mean...hi Aunt Annie! I can't lie though; I've ridden every day for three days straight now. Which is a lot for a college student. And. I. Am. Sore. You know how bad English saddles hurt? Really bad. Like I think somebody designed them for their arch enemy. Okay, that may be a little extreme, but they were definitely not made to ride in every day!
However, it was totally worth it! The people that are in Polo club are some of the most amazing, fun, and just plain awesome people in this solar system, let alone on this campus. Last night, we played 5 chukkers (which is a lot considering we normally only play 3 and our horses were beat). And of course, I was simply amazing. The best no doubt. No, really. I'm being serious. I really rocked! My team never lost and I scored at least 2-3 goals every match: the most of anyone there. And I'm not bragging! I'm just telling you how awesome I am...
Here's Kevin (the guy in gray), Mollon (leaning over her horse), (Juanita (in green in the back), and me (in blue in the back acting like I'm not doing anything but had an awesome hit right after this was taken).
And another picture where it looks like I'm doing nothing, but actually turned my horse and scored a goal...right after this picture was taken.
Oh look! And another one!The girl front and center was getting ready to take a goal-winning swing and I cantered up and hooked her mallet and gave her and her horse a bump. So pretty much my awesome-ness was just as awesome on defense as it was offense.
On the left, you'll see little, ol' lone me hitting a goal. Because I'm awesome.
Then, on the right, you'll see my horse acting like I'm killing him with his mouth gaping open like that and rolling his eyes like he's scared for his life. (He likes to act like something is wrong with him besides age and laziness. I'm sure since they have pills for rudeness, they have pills for that now too so he's just out of luck.)
Ah, and finally, I present to you, a partial team picture with a visitor.
(From left to right) Horses: Athena, Sapporo, Peanuty, Gorda
(From left to right) Mounted People: Juanita, Me, Jory, Kevin
People on Foot: Mollon, Laura, Shaniqua (our visitor)
Finally, a good shot of me, polo mallet and all, on Sapporo.
Today wasn't quite so polo filled however. We still saddled up at the barn and ventured into our normal polo arena, but we had two new riders with Marina and me that weren't ready for polo. So instead, we gave the newbies a couple pointers after tacking both our horses and theirs (not the best thing ever...). These pointers included trotting up behind Gorda and hitting her but until she trotted, demonstrating how comfortable the polo ponies were with bumping and running into each other, as well and Athena's ability to turn with only her back legs on the ground. Yeah, she was my horse today. I told you I'm awesome.
Then, we took off! Well...kind of? I guess you could say it was more like bumbling around until we found out where we could ride outside then calmly took off at a walk with an extremely short trot thrown in there. We rode down the road, nothing too exciting that I'll detail to you, but eventually Athena decided she was just not a fan of our direction or distance from her food because she used her wonderful ability to turn on her haunches and head home. We had a fight. And...it was our first fight. We made up shortly after and I'm proud to say that we were able to compromise. And by compromise, I mean I MADE her listen to me. I made up for it later though when I let her all the way out and we galloped through some farmers field who I hope won't mind all the hoof prints digging into his soil.
After this week, I've learned at least one thing between these horses and finals: I want to switch my major to engineering so I can learn how to build a time traveling machine, trek into the past, oh say the late 1800's, and just forget going to college and train horses instead. That's acceptable, right? Toby Keith was right... I should have been a cowboy. -Er...cowgirl.
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