It’s T-minus three weeks until our annual winter migration to Florida. The packing has long-since commenced, and we’ve gotten smarter over the 10 (10!) years we’ve been heading south, leaving more things there so there’s less schlepping. There are spreadsheets. There are whiteboards. There’s even a Google Doc. But it’s still quite the ordeal.

First, logistics: Hay in Virginia runs between $5 and $7, depending on where you get it and how much of it. In Florida, the same timothy hay we get will run me about $18-22. Grain is relatively comparable, and bedding is relatively comparable, but the hay is a doozy. So instead of hauling horses myself, I load my 2+1 Jamco full of Virginia hay and shove as much as I can into other peoples’ trailers as well. (The horses ship commercial.)

But that means that I’ve got the dressing room of that trailer for the personal effects of 12 horses. It’s quite the game of Jenga, but somehow it works. Tack. Blankets. (It does occasionally actually get cold in Wellington, so we take sheets, ceramic sheets and mediums for everyone.) Supplements. SUPPLEMENTS. And then everybody’s individual stuff: boots and helmets and whatever special things people want to bring. Saddle pads. And neoprene boots—I prefer neoprene in Florida because you can rinse it out and dry it, rather than having to wash after every use like fleece-lined boots. The sand in Florida is really abrasive, and I spend a lot of energy keeping legs clean, healthy and dry.

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With the 2020 show season officially in my rearview, it’s time to maximize the next few months before we head to Florida. We are still heading to Florida, even with the world’s many unknowns, because while showing is lovely and fun, my team and I really go down to train in the nice weather and to be close to my coach, so I can get more help with my herd. If we actually get to show, then great. But the training is the key.

Fortunately, all three of the 9-year-olds in my life are in a place where the training is really important right now. For Gretzky, aka Puck, he’s ready for his Prix St. Georges debut, and for Elvis, he’s pretty darn close to having the passage, piaffe and transitions between them that could take us down centerline at Intermediaire II. That means my time is being spent making them both a lot stronger for collection.

This is where it’s nice to be at home, specifically my home. My farm sits on 135 acres of rolling hills, and this year we’ve had a perfect autumn with the right amount of rain to make the ground fantastic. So I’m working out of the ring at least two days a week. For Puck, canter pirouettes on a hillside are giving him a lot of balance and a lot of coordination, and for Elvis, piaffe down a hill is helping with engagement. Any hill work is fatiguing, of course, so I’m careful about watching the amount of time that we spend working, and I give lots of breaks to help keep injury at bay. But it’s been extremely helpful already.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!