Three Miscellaneous Thoughts

I completely forgot to mention Willig's stumble to Dr. Revenaugh (this is me: "Duh. I have no idea what could have happened any time in the last two weeks that would make him lame on his right front ... like when he stumbled and came up lame on his right front. It's probably from that time he fell down six months ago and never went lame from it."). However, I'm going to go with the glass half full approach and hope that because Dr. R didn't find anything in his hind, it's just some muscle soreness that I'm feeling (why he appears to work out of it and it's inconsistent) and give him more horsey massages more regularly (that horsey massage class I took 10 years ago will finally pay off!). And that his right front, whether or not caused by something pre-existing, will heal with his injection and 3 weeks of easy work, and he'll be good as gold in a month and we'll have all winter to really train.
Also, when J rode him last week, she mentioned in her report (she's so great and I'm going to miss her so much!) that he had a "nasty stop". Since she was like #1 in the nation and came in 2nd place at the national champs, I couldn't even begin to imagine what she would call a "nasty" stop. (She's also remarkably cool about stuff that I would put multiple exclamation points after in a blog post.) I was so curious I asked her, and she said at the "big" oxer we did in our last lesson, she thought they were jumping it, but then they were off to the right. He just did one of his infamous Willig hyperspeed run-outs. So that type of "nasty" I am all too intimately familiar with - it didn't exceed my imagination at all. It is a nasty habit though, that I'm not sure how to break (the spurs worked wonders, and will need further testing). (And I'm going to hope they came back because he was feeling a bit off and didn't have another way to express it. And continuing with the glass half full, praise him for being pretty much a trooper and not acting worse.)
Today I was at Caber, trying to volunteer to be a xc jump judge, and I got to watch the senior Novice riders for a while. This was very illuminating. Most (not all, but more than half) of the horses starting zigged and zagged on their way to the first fence while they got their bearings. This really surprised me because for some reason I assumed that was a Willig habit only. A few (not many, less than a handful of the ones I watched) were pretty nasty about it, which Willig never is. And these are horses going novice! With adults on them! The riders were also not as balanced as I would have expected for novice, and one fence in particular (#2, a big coop with some brush on top - we jumped it at the last derby) they seemed to have a hard time taking off at the right spot so I got to see the riders trying to adjust. Now, before my head gets too big, I'm pretty sure that anyone watching me would think the same thing, although I need more pictures (and video) as proof to myself. Particularly anyone watching me labor around that show jumping course.
But it gave me hope that maybe my perfectionism and the work we've been doing with Willig will have us ready (now for next year) to really tackle BN next year and not embarass ourselves too much. And being hopeful used to be in short supply and lately, the past few months, I've really been getting excited about him. Which means, of course, three weeks of walking is what our near future holds.