My Kinky Texas Adventure - Part 4

Wow. This is the story that just won't write itself! Apologies to Clover for the long wait. But this is the final installment. I have new stories to tell and they really will be appearing soon.

As I said earlier, the CTK Jamboree was an intense event. There were games and competitions, meals, socializing and generally a lot of energy going constantly all weekend long. When more than 20 people cram into a house and get this active with each other, things are bound to happen. There are those moments of personal triumph and failure. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

I had both types of experiences, but they still took me by surprise.

Probably the greatest anxiety for me was the dressage event. For the uninitiated, dressage is the art of training a horse in precision of movement and discipline. It's easy to see how this would adapt well to the scene.

Mistress has been training Stormy and I to a system of wordless crop commands. The idea is for us to work off reins using sight cues. Because we had been at this for a while, Mistress felt that we should enter in the advanced class. To Her, it is far better to crash and burn in the advanced competition than to prevail as a beginner when, in fact, you are not a beginner. So we signed up for the advanced dressage competition. This meant no verbal communication, a more complicated pattern, and more compulsory gaits.

The anxiety came from the fact that the ponies were not allowed to see the pattern before the test. That is quite normal in these situations, so there was no argument on that point. It's just one of those things that will cause no problem for some and drive others up the wall. I landed somewhere in between. I knew our system and felt prepared to do as I was told by the signals. Still, the element of not knowing what was coming - ordinarily such a turn-on for me - was filling me with the desire to get it over with. Probably that's why I decided to go first when Mistress gave me the option. It's kind of odd, but Stormy and I sort of switched roles on this. Where he had been rather cagey about the dressage event and I more calm at first, now that the time had come, I was the jittery one. Perhaps it had something to do with the comment that Mistress had made after studying the pattern.

"There's one place where a pony's brain might explode, but then we will have a pony brain to play with!"

Ok, let's do this in good fun.

There were ponies in line ahead of me and I did the right thing by not watching out the kitchen window, which afforded a nice view of the dressage ring. I waited patiently and as calmly as I could. When my turn came, I walked out calmly and awaited my first signal from Mistress.

We began our test with a trot to center and a bow to the judges. Then the test began. I did the very best I could and tried very hard to make Mistress proud of me. I went off pattern once when I failed to understand one signal, and I might have turned in the wrong direction at another point, but overall, I thought I had done well. Nothing special, but well for a first time competitor.

When the ribbons were awarded I discovered to my shock and amazement that I had not only done well, I had taken Reserve Champion. For those unfamiliar with these things, that means second place. Foxy Davis' Firefox had taken Champion. What an honor to come so close and be surpassed only by such an accomplished ponygirl.

That was the victory for me. There would also be humbling experiences later on.

Mistress had spent some time working me to the carts before the events started. That was one advantage to arriving a couple days early. Stormy is a champion in cart work, taking Grand Champion at Floating World for a blindfolded cart pulling routing that Mistress had put together for him. We sort of figured he would do well on this, so Mistress spent extra time with me as I had so little experience with carts and blindfolds.

Strangely, the idea of pulling a cart while blindfolded didn't scare me at all. Not only did I feel capable and ready to have a go at it - my practice session having gone quite well, thank you), but I even felt comfortable. I wasn't nervous at all.

Never mind that I had not seen the course. Why would I need to see a course I was going to be driven through blindfolded?

Perhaps I should have taken a cue from the reluctance all the other ponies showed when the ring steward asked who wanted to go first. But when nobody spoke up, I jumped right in. Mistress was agreeable, so off we went.

I wanted to do this at speed. I really wanted to trot my way through this course, and after the practice session I had had a couple days before, I saw no reason why that wouldn't be possible. But very soon after leaving the starting line, I discovered just how disorienting it could be to have a blindfold on. Now, I wasn't new to them, and I had learned to get over my fear of them at our little training spot in Derry, NH. But in this strange field (or strange to me, anyway) down in Texas, nothing seemed to make any sense.

Really, that's the nub of the problem. A pony wearing a blindfold should never try to make sense of anything. He should just listen to the reins and trust his handler. But I guess I was still trying to map out the field in my own head while figuring out where Mistress wanted me to go. It was a mistake.

I did reasonably well through most of the course, managing to get Mistress close enough to the flags that She was supposed to grab as we went by. But at one point, I was reined to a halt and given a signal to back up. In the process, I also got a signal to turn. That's a tricky maneuver that bio-horses don't usually have to worry about, but here I was faced with it.

I turned as I was instructed - or rather, as I thought I had been instructed. But almost immediately, I was halted again and reined forward. One more signal to stop, back up and turn again led to a quick halt and a rein forward. Mistress tried a third time and again, I could not seem to do the right thing.

By this moment, I was unhappy. Unhappy that I was not getting the job done and unhappy that the clock was running (like that was my worry or something). In short order, frustration began to mount and I started to get angry with myself.

That's never a good thing, anger. It makes you do irrational things, and irrational things are even easier to do when you are blindfolded. Your brain starts to make up all sorts of stories about how much of a fool you look and how many are watching. Coupled with a desire to do well, you can find yourself in a vicious cycle until something gives.

In this case, something gave rather spectacularly. When I got yet another rein signal to move forward, I moved ahead about three steps and straight into a hay bale. That sent me ass over tea kettle into the dirt.

And that did it. One wall coming up, and I hit it hard. I said something that I won't repeat here - goodbye head space - and threw a handful of dirt at the ground. Mistress called out to the ring steward that we were done and would not complete the course. That stung more than the fall because I wanted to finish this cursed course and show it that it could not defeat me. I wanted everyone to know that I would get the job done no matter how many bruises it cost me. Mistress unhitched me from the cart and sent me to the pony pen where my anger was readily apparent to the rest of the ponies waiting their turn. Another bad move on my part.

Firefox came over to me and told me how brave I had been to go first and that even though I didn't finish the course, I had dome very well. All I could do was remind her that I had failed to finish. When it was clear to her that the message wasn't getting through, Firefox grabbed my bridle and said, "Hey! I'm trying to make you feel better!"

One case of perspective coming up. I stopped dead in my tracks and thanked her. Then she gave me a hug.

Still, I felt I had disappointed Mistress and that stung enough to bring tears. I stepped into the pony trailer where I could be alone for a few minutes and let them flow. It proved good therapy, and once finished, I looked out through the slats in the trailer to see Stormy starting into the course with Mistress at the reins. He seemed to have some trouble at some of the same points I did, but he finished the course in one piece. I came out of the trailer to see him, but he had already headed to the house for some reason.

I found him in our room. As it turned out, he had also hit his own personal wall. We talked about it and spent some time going over what had happened with each of us. When Mistress joined us, we had some private time together to talk about what had happened to each of us. It was one of those deeply private moments, and I won't go into any detail, but one thing I did carry away from it was that I had not disappointed Mistress at all. She knew me a little better than I knew myself on this score. When She saw how upset I was, She elected to stop even though She knew I would have gone further. But She also realized that if I had had any further trouble - almost a certainty given my level of frustration - things would have been much worse. I had to agree. She was right. It was better to take it on the chin and stop with dignity intact than to break down completely.

I got an honorable mention for the blindfold cart challenge even though I didn't finish the course. That was a surprise to me, and helped put me back on track. After all, there was still more to go. The weekend was nearing its close, and it had been very intense. Stormy and I both had issues to deal with, and with the help of our Mistress, we came through it.

And though it may embarrass him, you should know that Stormy took the Champion ribbon in the blindfold cart challenge.

The evening event was Freestyle Dressage. In this event, ponies and handlers put on dressage presentations that they had rehearsed. Mistress created another tandem dressage routine for Stormy and I again using Her crop signals instead of reins or verbal commands. Others put on their own presentations and there was some serious creativity at work here. In the end, Mistress took home the Third Place ribbon for Her work with us. Not at all bad for a first time out!

There were two final events that made the weekend complete for me. Neither of them was a competition. One was a collaring, the other a wedding.

A collaring is a ceremony in which a Dominant takes ownership of a submissive. In the pony world, it might better be called a bridling. I had mine at the 2008 Winter Flea (that story is told in an earlier entry on this blog). But this would be special to three people - Mistress, me, and Stormy.

Stormy was originally owned and trained by E.R. of the Equus Eroticus Ranch. When she and her husband Paul Reed moved to Texas, it became difficult for Stormy to get the time to go visit for training and such. They had made a wonderful video on human pony training (which is still available, by the way), but visits became very rare, and Ms. R began to transition out of the scene. Stormy met Mistress at camp Crucible and at just about the time that his interest in pony play was reaching a crossroads. The chemistry between them was good, though, and he asked Her if She would mind taking up his training. Mistress agreed, and arrangements were made with Ms. R. There were attempts to get a long-term lease from the EE Ranch, but the proprietors were unable to make it to Camp in the years that followed. So it seemed a great idea to get it done at CTK. After all, the EE Ranch wasn't all that far away.

So it was that Paul Reed arrived with the lease in hand. Stormy would belong to Aphrodite's Meadow Stable on a 99-year lease for the price of one American dollar. The deal done, Mistress presented Stormy with his stable collar - the exact same colors as mine - and placed it on him. That made Stormy an official pony of Aphrodite's Meadow. It also made him my stable mate in earnest. It was one of the most moving moments of my year.

The wedding joined Foxy Davis and Sherifox in a midnight ceremony. Although it was cold outside, everybody basked in the warmth of the glow between the two of them. The vows were down to Earth and so sincere. Everyone who attended joined in congratulating the newlyweds and celebrating the special moment.

The week had been long and the games well played, but as with all of these events, it had to come to a close soon enough. Mistress, Stormy and I were taken to the airport on Monday morning for our flight back. I was happy to know that I could get a seat on the flight that the two of them were scheduled to take. Originally, I had to fly out on a different plane and sit in Minneapolis (I think) for five hours. Not a happy thought for me, so it was worth the additional $50 to get on the plane headed for Atlanta instead. We made it that far as a threesome before Stormy had to switch for a plane to Hartford. Mistress and I continued on to Boston, and the trip finally came to an end.

It was good to be home. I had played hard, hit some walls, and learned a lot about myself as a pony. I learned a lot about my abilities and limitations. Now I have some limits to stretch.

No doubt Mistress will help all She can.