Last day before India!

So yesterday was my first ride on Spartan in, what, a year? And he was...lazy. Like bizarrely and perplexingly lazy. I've just gotten so accustomed to him being a racing and rearing FREAK that this change is difficult to process, and I'm almost sure a lot of it stems from the return of his dreaded ulcers. This is frustrating, since I just came back from a 1 and a half month vacation in India, and before I had left I had just finished treating the ulcers he had accrued from his time in stall rest. He was in gleaming, dappled health on my last day, like you can sortof see in the picture above. But after dealing with some changes in his schedule while I was gone, including annihilating his tendon on a halter and colicking convincingly enough to warrant an emergency vet call, his ulcers are back with a vengeance and he, consequently, looks like absolute shit. Horribly dull coat, huge weight loss, declined appetite, the works. Back to square one--ugh. So I ordered some Prerace omeprazole since they were having a sale (yay!) and hopefully he'll be back to his goofy self soon! Without the never-ending injuries though, please! Everyone at the barn already thinks he's crazytown. Sigh.

Here is a pic of the aftermath of the halter situation. Gross right?

Anyways, so our ride was pretty nice. We rode in  the outdoor (because I have no sense of self-preservation) for a 10min walk. He could see his pasture buddies from there so he pranced a bit initially, but soon his laziness and utter lack of fitness won out and he ambled along amicably. Barn friend, A, commented that he looked very happy to be out and about again :)

The plan is to take it very slow: from incremental tack-walking to trotting and finally cantering. I let  him be loosey gooesy this time since it was our first ride ever, but next time we will focus on straightness and bend and some halt transitions. Here is to hoping he stays sound!

On the law school front, technically I'm supposed to be looking for a roommate, which, in practice, has yet to be really carried out. I think it's just best to wait until Accepted Students Week is through this weekend and people have a chance to officially settle on Virginia before I really gun for finding a roommate. Right now I'm just not seeing enough students looking yet--what's a girl to do? 1L class sizes are only around 350 people, so the pool is kindof narrow in the house-hunt, but oh well. I'm convinced things will work themselves out eventually! I'm sad to announce, however, that USN Law School Rankings for the year came out a few days ago......and it appears that Penn Law finally managed to best Virginia and eeked up in #7, putting Virginia at #8. I will be honest--I am upset. I was enjoying Virginia's 3-way-tie for #7 all last year and was hoping it would keep ascending up the ranks, but, alas, it was not meant to be. At least we broke away from Berkeley and left them at #9! It's the small things :)

From today: so lazy but so cute!