Christmas celebrations

Between eating way too much, being a bad horse mom (so busy!), and everything else that comes with the holidays, it's a miracle I'm posting at all today. But I absolutely HAD to post pictures of my Christmas gift to my 18 month old niece Mahlya. As any good horsewoman would, I purchased her very first horse, a wooden rocker, which she absolutely loves. I took a bunch of pictures, including one where she's giving her new baby doll a ride. Within five minutes, while she wasn't paying attention, she toppled off the back of her noble steed and conked her head on the floor. Of course, as her aunt, I let her cry a little and calm down before I stuck her back on that horsie to make sure she wouldn't be afraid. Needless to say, 15 minutes later (after a cuddle with mom), she was back at her horse asking for help to get on.

Merry Christmas everyone and here's to the next generation of eventers!!

Clipping, Bits, and Lunging

Today Reffy's vacation officially ended! He may get a short one next week due to that Christmas nonsense awesomeness, but he'll be working steadily till then and even more so after. Our session started with a little bit of beauty work. As usual, he was a sensible dude, and allowed me to clip his bridle path, whiskers (until he stuck his nose in a bucket of water and was too wet to continue, doh!), stick the clippers close to his ears to see how that will go, and even clip a bit at the top of his tail where he'll eventually get a fancy dressage tail. My clippers are not so sharp for tail sculpting, so instead I grabbed my pulling comb and got rid of some of those awful dead broken bits. Check out the difference!

His tail when I first brought him home:

His tail after a little pulling and trimming today:

Looks pretty good right?

Then we headed into the indoor to lunge. You would never know he's had a whole week off. I put him in a loose ring, french link snaffle, and though he didn't fuss at all, I think it is too small for his mouth. Tomorrow I'm going to measure him to the best of my ability and then borrow as many different bits as I can until I find one we both like. I'd rather not buy a bunch of bits he's not going to use.

Here are a couple screen shots from his lunging video today.

Once again, I am really awful at holding a whip and line in my left hand and keeping him moving as forward as he should be while video taping. He was definitely much better when I wasn't trying to multi-task. He is also not as bendy and round when he is travelling to the left, so there will be more work in that direction from now on. I just can't wait to get this guy HOME!!! Lol.

We also worked on his habit of turning in every time I ask him to walk or woah.  I think the biggest problem is he doesn't actually woah until he feels like it, no matter what I'm doing on the end of the lunge line. Hopefully if we do a little bit every time and I verbally say woah while I'm riding for a while he'll figure it out. Woah means woah!! ;)

Lastly, I have cracked the awful head tossing, must rub, I'd like to see you try to get my halter on, nonsense after I take his bridle off. Hooray! I tied the lunge line around his neck for something to control him if needed, and just let him stand and settle after his bridle was off. Then I moved and stood in front of him, slipped his halter on, clipped on the cross ties, and viola! no thrashing around AT ALL! Go team!

Tomorrow we'll just continue on with much of the same and I think I'll get on him on Thursday. Stay tuned!

Too Much Excitement

For a Monday!!!!

I had such good intents of going and working Reffy today, but of course, things happen, and I only had time to fit in a quick groom and stuff some treats in his face. And give him cuddles. And take pictures of his Christmas present from Megan. And the chunk of tail he ripped out earlier this week. Gahhhh! As if his tail wasn't already a hot mess. Lol.

Oh well! Back to work tomorrow, and only 2 weeks til he moves home! Yayyyy!!!!!

First Ride!

Ok, so technically it's our second ride, but its the first time I've ridden Reffy since I brought him home. Of course, absentminded as I am, I completely forgot his bridle currently has no reins attached, and all of mine were at home in my trunk of stuff. Awesome. But I am, if anything, resourceful and creative, so after his longe, I buckled the side reins together to make a rein. Not exactly the greatest way to feel his mouth, but they worked in a pinch! All we did was walk, trot, and halt, working on coming back when I squeeze my knees and thighs rather than when I haul on his face. Because we don't haul on faces in dressage. Lol. He definitely is going to need MUCH more work on the longe in side reins and I think a lesson is going to be in order as soon as he moves home. At the end of the month. Woot! I can't wait. Life will be so much easier when I don't have to drive anywhere to ride him.

Back to the riding part. He definitely started to get the whole halt with the squeezing deal, but trot to walk he pretty much blew me off and I was bouncing around like an idiot with my stirrup leather width reins clutched in my hands. Glad no one saw that! He started to get a little fussy over my half halts, possibly from the chunky reins that gave me no feel or from the fact that he doesn't like his bit. Currently I have him in a plain eggbutt snaffle, because it was attached to Megan's bride (which I'm borrowing). I'm gonna hopefully get my hands on a couple double jointed ones with fun center links to see what he likes best.

The rest of this week I probably won't be able to get to the barn with everything going on right now (drs appointments, parties, etc). But next week I'll be back on track and hopefully making some progress. Yay new horse fun!

Fun with Side Reins!

Oh hey! I forgot about this blogging thing that I was doing. Just kidding, it's only been 5 days. But I have been slacking a tad. So here's what you've missed!

Last Thursday Ref had his first lesson in lunging with side reins. The ever fabulous Megan came out in the cold and dark to make sure I wasn't doing anything that would screw him up. What a smart cookie he is! He has obviously never been worked in side reins, and was a little tentative going forward the first time they were attached. But no meltdowns, hooray!

Friday Shoshana came to meet him for the first time so he just had a little free lunge in the indoor while we cooed over how stinking adorable he is.

Fast forward through the weekend where I tried to pretend I have a life other than horses (ha!) and was an awful, neglectful mom, to today, Monday! I lunged him in side reins again, going up a couple holes after he was nice and warmed up and remembered what he was supposed to do. He looks so fancy when he gets his nose out of the sky and carries himself! I'm still blown away by how QUIET he is. Granted he wasn't excessively hot when I tried him the first time, but he's pretty unflappable. And he prefers to put forth as little effort on the lunge line as possible. Apparently I need to strengthen my whip cracking muscles (or figure out some other way to get him to move out of his stilted short stride). I tried to take some video but it's really difficult to hold a lunge line and whip in one hand and video with the other. The picture is the only decent still from the video I could find, but he was much rounder when I wasn't trying to finagle everything at once.

Also, Reffy will be coming home at the end of the month. Woo hoooo! I can't wait. Then I'll have to invent reasons to leave the farm. Haha. Such a hard life!

My horse is adorable....

When dressed in dressage tack. Just sayin!

<3 him :)

Scraggly Tail Syndrome

I have always had the pleasure of owning and riding horses with exceptional tails. Dusty's was ridiculously thick and grew like a weed. One winter I kept it bagged and by summer he had 4 or 5 inches that drug on the ground. Theo was the same. Beautiful, full tails all around.

Reffy, on the other hand, is not so lucky in the tail department. His is fairly long, skims the ground when wet, but he has some unfortunate fried and bleached layers in the top half of his tail. His tail bone also brags an abundance of flakey, itchy skin. Poor guy.

Today started his, probably weekly, ritual of tail management. After washing as much as I could dunk in a bucket full of water with some Mane and Tail 2 in 1 anti-dandruff shampoo and conditioner, we set out on the fabulously tedious task of detangling his tail. By hand. While rubbing copious amounts of MTG into the tail bone. And spraying the entire length with a lanolin based hair moisturizer. Lol. The whole process took about an hour, and man was he a champ. He stood, and by stood I mean napped with a hind propped, in the cross ties the whole time.

I didn't have enough time to work him today, but I'll have plenty tomorrow. I think maybe he'll get all fancied up in dressage tack for his lunge. ;) Onward!!!!

Reffy comes home!

Yesterday (Sunday), Jeff, Ashley's dad and the owner of the farm where I work/live, and I drove out to Midatlantic Horse Rescue with his trailer to pick up my boy, Reformation. He loaded like a champ and made the 2 hour trip to his new temporary home like it was nothing. Of course, you can't bring home a new horse without some kind of excitement, and ours came with unloading. Reffy had a bit of a meltdown coming off the trailer and bonked his head pretty good on the step down :( Poor kid! No bumps or boo boos between his ears, but he did manage to scrape some hair off his nose. No more excitement please!

After that, he settle right into his stall, realized his straw bedding was NOT for eating, and got down to business munching some hay. Sadly, I had to go home and clean stalls and feed horses before I could come back and play with him. We had a good romp in the indoor, along with a nice roll in the sand before he was tucked in for the night.

Today, I got to come out to the barn around noon, now that I'm only working at home. Woo hoooo! My intentions were to see if he cross ties and lunges, and if he doesn't, start teaching him. Well, what do you know, the boy does both! He gets a little antsy in the cross ties, but didn't try and set back on them or walk through (I had the front and back doors closed, effectively boxing him in if that had happened). He definitely needs a little refresher for lunging, he gets confused when I ask him to slow his gait and stops and turns in on me or tries to change direction. We'll fix that in no time!

The rest of the week will be more of the same. Grooming in cross ties, lunging with and without tack, before Megan comes on Thursday or Friday to give us a lesson in proper lunging with side reins so I know I'm not doing it wrong. Wooo hoooo! I just love this horse :-D

Pictures are:

Cute nose speckles ;)
Grazing after lunging
Cross tied!
Hanging out in his stall.

BIG news

It's been almost a month since my last post, and I have plenty of reasons (excuses) for that, but mostly I've been a little down in the dumps. Between getting injured at work and not having a horse to work steadily towards a goal (Pepper the hony is probably moving this winter) it's been a rough month for me.

But never fear! I am about to be back with a vengeance, because..... Wait for it......

I BOUGHT A HORSE!!!!!!!!! :-D

Last week one of the boarders at home mentioned a horse that was available on the Mid Atlantic Horse Rescue. He had been previously rehomed but his new mom was not the perfect fit for him and he had been returned earlier this fall. I looked over his ad, obsessed over his videos, and sent him on to Megan for her opinion. The line that sold me on going to see him? "Perfect for a rider with talent but no money". Megan agreed it was worth a trip to Maryland, so I emailed Beverly Strauss at Mid Atlantic and set up our visit.

Needless to say, everything went fabulously, and I am the proud new owner of a 7 year old, 15.3 HH thoroughbred gelding named Reformation. His rehoming fee? One dollar. That's right. $1. UNO. Eins. Since Mid Atlantic is a rescue, they can't bring in new horses until other are rehomed. And Reffy needed to go ASAP. I can't believe how incredibly lucky I am. They are such great people, they just wanted him to find the best home where he would have a job and a purpose and someone who wouldn't put up with his testy TB nonsense.

Our journey begins as of next weekend. He will be coming home to live down the street until a stall opens up where I live. I am so excited to get him started on his way to being an eventer. I see lots of lunging and dressage rides in his future ;)

Yay Dollar Horse!!!!

Always the guinea pig!

Since I'm the kind of person who will basically ride any horse without question, and I haven't passed the "bounce when you fall off" stage of life yet, I get recruited to do all sorts of fun things. Like be the first person to find out if Karla's percherons are broke to ride. Meet Belle! Next time, it's Lois' turn.

Frankenstorm!

It's been a scary couple of days here on the northeastern side of the country. Hurricane Sandy ravaged the coast and left millions homeless, without power, and facing months if not years of cleanup and rebuilding. Luckily, here in the Lehigh Valley, we didn't get hit as bad as some areas. At home, we only lost power briefly during the early hours of Tuesday morning. I don't know if she had anything to do with it, but if so, thanks to one of our boarders, Audra, who works for PPL, for making sure we have electricity! Boots and Saddle, on the other hand, is still in the dark. Nothing like mucking 30+ stalls in the pitch black.
Boots also sustained some damage, mostly to the slate roof of our ancient hay barn and to one of the pastures and the lower outdoor ring where a tree fell through a power line and the fences. Still no word on when we'll be back on the grid. Hopefully soon!

I hope everyone and their horses are safe in the area. And prayers to the people in coastal areas who have lost so much.

George's upcoming trial

I officially entered George in next weekends schooling horse trial at Bucks County Horse Park. It will be his first full event at starter level (and my 5th ride EVER on him, but who's counting?). I'm definitely excited to see how it goes. I'll get in a practice ride the day before and hopefully all goes well. The plan for next Sunday is as follows::

1: LUNGE!!!! No hour long warm up trotting at Mach 50 while my trainer tells me "you didn't look like you were having trouble controlling him; that's a good thing!" and my arms are noodles by my dressage ride time.

2: Canter stadium (with better brakes!)

3: Complete XC with no refusals. That doesn't mean I don't plan on walking him over things if that's what it comes down to. He's 17.2 for gods sake. The jumps are like ground poles to him!

9 days and counting!

Happy Halloween!

Tonight I carved my pumpkin. Because I live on a horse farm, I usually stick to that theme since my jack o lantern sits outside the barn. This year I printed a stencil off of pumpkincarvingonline.com

It turned out super great!

Boo! FHI2012 and a week of craziness

Been a while right? Things have been pretty nuts around here. Between showing the pony to prospective buyers, working, and being super stoked to go to Fair Hill for cross country day, I haven't had a lot of time to blog.

As crazy as its been, this past week was pretty AWESOME. The infamous Dusty Pony has found a new little girl to teach and take care of and will be moving to his new home before the month is out. I'm really happy, but also sad. It's been a great 12 years and I have learned so much from him and with him. I never thought I would sell him. I had always planned on him growing old and crotchety in my back yard and giving pony rides to my kids and the neighbors kids. But it's time to move on. My eventing dreams are at the forefront of my mind, getting stronger every day. I'll miss him every day but he'll be so happy to have much less work to do.

On Saturday I went with Megan and her friend, Malinda, to the Fair Hill International 3 day. And WOW was it awesome. Got to see a lot of big names take on the 2 and 3* courses. It's funny how not scary the jumps seemed. I must really be insane. Lol. I also spent some time fan girling Doug Payne from afar (sooo not brave enough to go talk to him) and walking within inches of Will Coleman. Sigh. I wish I wasn't such a chicken! Haha. I'm sure the last thing they need is a 28 year old staring slack jawed and drooling over them. Soooo not classy.

So now that I'm super motivated to be an awesome upper level rider, poor Pepper is going to work her little hony pants off. The plan is to take lessons on her to keep up my riding, save some money through the winter, and hopefully REALLY start horse shopping in the spring. I can't wait!!!!

Pepper's First Ride

Well, today I finally sucked it up and got on the grey hony mare. And it was REALLY uneventful. Lol. That's a good thing! From everything her mom has told me I was expecting a lot more drama.

I started off like I normally do, warm up on the lunge, trot and canter with side reins, then it was time to mount up! I was all decked out; skull cap, crash vest, emergency brakes (ie Malinda on the end of the lunge line haha!). We walked off annnnnd nothing. She was insanely quiet. Steering, not so great. She kind of goes along like a drunken sailor. No big. We can deal with that. Her trot was pretty good too. Steady, seemed to understand leg to outside rein half halts to some extent (score!). Had a few lovely moments that were of course not caught on the minute or so of video I had Malinda take as evidence. But we survived! And I know I can safely ride her. So now we get down to business. She needs to lose more weight. Chubby ponies are cute when there are 8 year olds riding them. Lol. Not 28 year olds attempting to be eventing stars. (In my dreams at least!)

Pepper also doesn't really seem to know the actual cues for any of her gaits. Kick and cluck means trot. Kick harder and kiss means canter. We'll work on that. As much as she hates it, and never really settles, she's going to need to spend a lot more time on the lunge and in side reins. I'm dreaming of her first dressage test already! And when she's thinned out enough to free jump! ;) Onward and upward!

Picture is a screenshot taken from a video so it's blurry. But yay cute pony! She needs a real dressage bridle, for sure!

Another Project

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from a friend and farm owner who brings her students and horses to schooling shows at Boots every summer, Heather McCarty. She offered me the use of her 7 year old, 16.3 HH paint/warmblood gelding, Bullet, to ride and event. Super score! Surprisingly, he's only been broken about 2 years, but Heather sent him for 3 months professional training when she bought him as a 6 year old, and planned to resell him afterwards. Well, her riding students fell in love with him and he's been helping her teach lessons ever since. Recently he's picked up some naughty habits with her less experienced students and needs a little refresher and a job to keep him from thinking up new tricks. So, yay me!

I rode him today, and man did he give me a workout! Definitely more woah than go. He's got a good start in dressage basics, and with some practice (ie dressage boot camp!) I'm hoping to get him to a trial before the season is out. Jumping is pretty much point and shoot, so not worried about that aspect. As long as we can get some weight on him (he's a bit of a hard keeper) look for him out and about in a month or so! Yay Heather!
Check out her web page!
http://www.horseng.com

Also pictures are not me. Lol.

Pony for Sale

Well, my horse search is not going very well and my bank account is getting smaller and smaller, so I am offering my pony for sale.

The Facts:

-14.1 HH, 18 years old, Palomino with silver mane and tail
-w/t/c, has jumped up to 3 feet, limited to 2'3" and under (my own choice, he deserves to not work so hard!)
-barefoot and SOUND. No major injuries in the 12 years I have owned him.
-has shown local schooling shows and a little Penn Jersey.
-trail rides like a champ! Goes through water, over bridges, past bikes, dogs, strollers, screaming kids, etc. I put my never ridden before friends on him with no worries.


Please contact me with any questions or to set up a time to come see him!
Email: eplechavy@gmail.com
Phone: 6107049119 (text is easiest, I don't always have great service at home)

Horse Shopping: Part 1

It's true, broke as I am, I have done some horse shopping lately. My awesome momma has agreed to help me out as long as the purchase price is not insane (meaning the cheaper the better!). I thought I had hit the jack pot last week when I found a Craigslist ad in the Harrisburg area that listed not one, but FIVE young, decent sounding horses. All in the same place. So I emailed, asked for pictures and more info on the ones I was interested in, got 3 not so great pictures back with no descriptions as to which horse they were. Darn. Second email. Asked about soundness for eventing and whether I could come and try them over the weekend. And then I waited. And waited. No response all day Friday. Called the girl around 6, left a voicemail and waited. And waited. Sent ANOTHER email asking her to please call me to set up a time and waited. Then waited some more. Argh! You would think if someone wants to look at 5 horses you have for sale, you would be all over that, right? Not the case.

Finally, Saturday morning I get ahold of her and make plans to drive out the next day. Score! So Sunday, I bust my ass to get all my work done since I'm expecting to possibly ride 5 horses and that could take all afternoon. Jared and I make the hour and a half drive, me on breeches and boots and him armed with cameras and instructions to take pictures and video just about EVERYTHING, and guess what?
We spent half an hour standing around in a muddy pasture looking at muddy, skinny, beat up horses that I did not even sit on. And it wasn't because I didn't want to. Apparently she literally thought I wanted to drive an hour and a half to just 'look at' the horses. Cue aggravation.

So now I will make the drive again this weekend (with Megan this time!) to actually try a couple. Stay tuned for more drama I'm sure. I guess that's what happens when your budget maxes out at about 500 dollars. Anyone wanna donate to my horse fund? Lol.

Birthday Week!

I have to admit, I've been slacking in all horse aspects this week. No excuse, other than I just don't feel like it. Theo's imminent departure this weekend is looming over me like a giant rain cloud. It's also raining for real. And that always makes me less than motivated to do anything. So since I have no new grey mare stories (although I'm determined to work at least one of them later today) I figured I'll make a list of all the fun or nice things that has happened or will happen on this, the week of my birth. Lol.

1. I got to see Jared Tuesday night. He made me dinner and baked me an awesome fun-fetti cake with pink icing.

2. I had off yesterday, my actual birthday. I got to sleep in! Hooray!

3. I got about 8 inches of my hair chopped off. Time for a change. And *gasp!* bangs.

4. I finally made a phone call about an OTTB I've been stalking for the past couple weeks. Now I just need to find a couple more to look at at the same time so the 4 ish hour drive up to the racetrack in NY is worth it. Not getting my hopes up just yet, but fingers crossed!

5. The season premieres of Big bang Theory and Grey's Anatomy are tonight! Woo hoo!

6. And finally, Jared is coming down tomorrow and staying the whole weekend. :)

I feel better now. Hooray! Here's a picture of Jared's awesome cake. That's me riding a unicorn and slashing two swords at the wer-bats flying over head. My bf is strange.

A week in review: Grey mare drama

It's been a busy week with horses that's for sure. We'll start with the new girl first, since I'm sure everyone is dying to hear about her since my mention in my last post. Maija is another grey mare, a thoroughbred, I've just started working. Her mother, the hilarious and awesome Tiffany Finlan is currently dealing with an excessive work schedule on top of wedding preparations and asked me to ride her over the next couple of weeks til things settle down and she has more time. I had ridden her once before months and months ago and knew she's had a good amount of training, mostly dressage, and it would be a piece of cake and a good way for me to keep my riding legs. Hahaha. Famous last words, right?

My first ride on her was Tuesday. I tacked her up, threw on a surcingle and lunged her since she had been on vacation for a week or two just as a precaution. No issues there, so I get on and instantly the first thing that comes to my mind is "maybe I should have worn my vest". Thats really not a good thing. Lol. I don't know what it was but she had lost her shit a little bit. After fumbling around with an extremely tightly wound horse who would get light in the front anytime I asked for contact for about 10 minutes, I decided the best idea was to throw her back on the lunge and REALLY work her before I got back on. Much better. I put her through her paces to figure out what I was gonna be able to ask for. Walk and trot were good. Canter not so much. Leads were iffy, transitions need mucho work. Laterals, just leg yield and shoulder in, are lovely to the left but non-existent to the right. Typical OTTB.

Weds and Thursday were much the same. Although I think some of the canter transition issues stem from probably not doing a whole lot of cantering this summer and me needing to ask a little more aggressively. It takes her a long time to warm up enough to be round and stay round, so maybe more lunging is in order before riding. We shall see!

She also has this ridiculous quirk I had completely forgotten about until it happened on thursday. While standing in the cross ties for girthing, she will sometimes fall asleep. We're talking legs give out and she almost falls down asleep. It's really weird. And slightly disturbing. Lol. I've only seen one other horse do that in my life. It's insane to watch. I just poke and lightly smack her to keep her awake. Ohhhh horses.

On to the pony! Work wise, Pepper has been doing really well this week. She lunged every day except Saturday (I was in Hersey with Megan to see Dave Matthews!) and really seems to be getting it. She's actually given me a nice round trot a couple times WITHOUT side reins that almost made me pee myself. Pony is smart! Hopefully it will translate well into riding in a few weeks.

As for her general handling issues, things are not progressing as well. I've pretty much given up on cross tying, at least for now, since all she does is break clips and freak herself out. Single tying has been working out pretty well so I don't feel it's necessary to push it. I've also taken to hosing her off outside in the grass because I think she gets claustrophobic in the wash stall. This Friday we identified a whole new level of awful. Pepper does not like being sponged off. I don't know if it's the sponge itself or maybe the smell of the liniment (which of course was meant to make her feel better, god forbid). She basically melted down, flew backwards, sideways, all over the place, and managed to knock the entire bucket over even though I had placed it over ten feet away just to avoid things like that. Ugh. Oh well. I'm going to experiment with smaller sponges or wash clothes and see if that makes a difference.

On the plus side, I think she's lost some weight! The fat patches behind her shoulders seem smaller. Hooray for not so obese ponies!

Picture below is Maija.

Grey Horses

As some of you know, or maybe all of you if I don't have any readers who don't know me personally, I make my meager living as an Equine Sanitation Engineer. Yeah that's right. I made up a fancy title for 'sh*t shoveler'. For the past 6 years I have been employed at Boots and Saddle Riding Club in the Lehigh Valley. As glamorous and mentally challenging as my job is (not), I usually have a good deal of time to contemplate things. Most of my blog posts are written in my head as I clean stalls. Today, of course, is no different.

When I was first a horse crazy child and pre-teen, my dream horse was a grey Arabian mare. That's what I wanted. Nothing else would suffice. Nowadays, I know better. Arabians are not my cup of tea. Neither are mares. And grey horses in general? All they are is a pain in the butt to keep clean and the reason for the purple hand/fingernail look on show days.

I have to admit, in my slightly obsessive search for that costs next to nothing, diamond in the rough, those darn grey horses still seem to catch my attention more than any other. I think it's the fact that grey horses, which always end up as white horses, are portrayed as being magical.

Pegasus was white.
Unicorns are white. Shadowfax from the Lord of the Rings is white (lol!).
My favorite movie growing up was The Last Unicorn. It was a late 70s, early 80s, cartoon about a unicorn trying to find out what happened to all the other unicorns. I'm pretty sure I borrowed it from the public library so many times they eventually gave it to me. The original version had some cursing in it. My new DVD copy has been changed so it's suitable as a G rated movie. Darn. Maybe that is the basis of my love for grey horses.
Over the years I haven't actually ridden or even worked with many grey horses. Dusty is a palomino and Theo, a chestnut. Now all of a sudden I have access to two. Pepper the hony and Maija, who I'll post more on later today or tomorrow. Seems like I've finally gotten my childhood dream. Pepper is possibly part Arabian and both are mares. Maybe I should just start eventing grey horses only. Seems like it worked for Becky Holder and Michael Pollard. ;)

Two steps forward, one step back

The title definitely embodies Pepper the pony's training right now. After 2 pretty good days last week (thurs and fri) where we managed some solid work on the lunge, Sunday was a bit of a disaster. She had Saturday off while I was out of town visiting the bf, and it did not bode well for getting down to business straight off yesterday.
All I wanted was for her to walk. In a circle. Around me. Just one full circle. But no. Wasn't going to happen. She jigged every couple steps, went back to her halt and face nonsense at the slightest movement of the line, and was really starting to try my patience. Gah! Finally, after about half an hour of trying to get just ONE consistent circle at the walk, she just barely gave it to me and we moved on to trot. Ugh. Same thing. Pepper just wants to CANTER!
New tactic. Not going to fight anymore. You want to canter? Then canter until you can't anymore. I think she literally cantered a solid 10 minutes. And we're not talking a nice slow canter. Most of the time it was balls to the wall borderline gallop. I'm amazed by how much stamina she has for how overweight and underworked she is. Lol. Ashley says its the 'ayrab' in her. Ha! After she settled herself down a nice slow canter I eased her down to trot, and continued to trot until she broke to the walk herself. (another 10 mins or so) Crazy pony.
Yay! Now we can actually do something productive now that you're exhausted and finally willing to pay attention. Haha. We finished up with starting to bend in her side reins and a nice long walk and shower. Hopefully I can manage to at least lunge her to get her crazies out on a daily basis so working gets easier. I don't know what I'm going to do when she's actually fit and a good weight. Calm n Cool anyone?

Pictures are her new/used English bridle and a screen shot from a video of her working in side reins. Go circus pony!

Changes

It is with great sadness that I announce the end of my partnership with Theo, the big red horse. His owner has decided to move him to a different farm and retire him from his brief eventing career. To say that I am disappointed would be a gross understatement, but she feels with his navicular he has made it as far as he can go. So two weeks from today, a mere 2 days after my birthday, I will say good bye to the irritable red head I have grown to love and probably never see him again.

As much as I would love to say the plan from here on out is to purchase a young ottb prospect to retrain and bring up through the levels, my finances currently do not allow for a budget much higher than free. And sound, sane, young, free horses are hard to come by. For now I will continue to work with the pony mare and hopefully take George out a couple more times before the season ends. I wish he lived closer, that would make things a lot easier.

Thank you to everyone who has and will continue to support me in my endeavors. Hopefully with the closing of this door another will eventually open.

Progress

I went back and realized there were some typos in one of my posts. I figured I could just fix it and everything would be fine. Apparently now I have to republish it and that's kind of annoying. From now on I think I'll just leave the typos alone. Haha.

Ok! On to the horses. I finally got my butt in gear and worked Pepper again. I've been kind of slacking since last week, which is bad since I had a whole weekend of doing mostly nothing. Oh well. She's definitely starting to figure out the lunging process and responding better to my voice commands. We seem to have squashed the halt and face in problem by just wiggling the lunge line when i ask her to slow to a trot or walk. Whatever works, cuz that was really annoying. Haha. I also FINALLY remembered to bring home an extra bridle and pony side reins and she looks seriously adorable in English gear. After a few tense moments when I shortened them to actually have contact and all she wanted to do was go backwards (I worried she was gonna flip over; yikes!) and then she seemed to figure it out.
*lightbulb moment*
You mean if I go forward and carry myself with my head on the vertical it's not going to feel like my face is being ripped off?!

Yeah I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it went in her brain.

So now that I know she can successfully work in side reins without dying we're looking at another couple weeks of lunging to build some muscle, drop some fat, and get her to balance herself. There were some really fancy moments that give me hope for possibly taking her through the lower levels. Onward we go!

I'll try and take some pictures of her adorableness tomorrow ;)

Totally Random Tuesday

Tuesday used to be my first riding day of the week. Since Theo is still on vacation til after the 13th, I'm just going to post a lot of random nonsense and pictures. Because I want to. So there. ;-P

1: Theo is a cribber of epic proportions. At one time, he wore a collar 24/7 until it started rubbing his neck off. Ouchies. Now he just cribs to his hearts content.

Because he cribs so much, and has for many many years, his teeth are like little chicklets.

2:  Some of the boarders at Boots and Saddle have hay boxes. They're like hay racks only cooler and more mobile. Normally they fit about 3 average sized flakes. I have one for my Pony because he's a picky hay eater and tends to waste it if it's on the ground. It also makes the hay last longer for the vacuums in the barn. Great for when tied to trailers! The down side? If you stuff them too full they pop apart at the bottom and are a pain in the rear to put back together.
Want your own? Go to healthezhayfeeder.com


3: My equitation over fences used to be REALLY awful. We're talking, my trainer feared for my life, awful. Apparently years of no lessons has given me some pretty bad habits. I'm your typical leg swung back, heels up, shoulders round, way up the horse's neck kind of jumper. In general, AWFUL. A year of lessons with the incomparable Megan Allen and I'm getting better. Not perfect, but better. (and I don't scare the crap out of her anymore!). It's worse when I jump big things. Probably because all I'm thinking is 'woah that thing is huge!' instead of 'heels down, leg forward, back flat, WAIT!' Good thing eventers don't have to look pretty while jumping. Sometimes you just gotta get over the jumps and not fall off. I think i'll keep working on my Eq though, so Megan doesn't slaughter me.

Oh yeah. And sometimes I do things like jump my pony bareback over tires in near perfect form and then be completely unable to reproduce it in a saddle. Bareback eventing, anyone?