Lesson video!

http://youtu.be/GIfnJGMdvsQ 

Hopefully that works. 2 stride to 3 stride. Both of which George has never done. Thanks Chelsea!

Lessons with Sally Cousins

Friday, George and I took a show jumping lesson with the amazing Sally Cousins. Megan and I drove an hour and a half to Pine Grove then another hour south to Walnut Hill Farm in Manheim for a lesson with a 4* rider. It was a very long drive, but it was absolutely worth it. 

  We warmed up during the end of the previous lesson, to Sally's surprise, George the half draft had a fabulous canter, and was not as green over fences as I had made him out to be.

 Things I learned from my lesson::

1: Anticipate the possibilities. If your jump is along a wood line, your horse will run out away from it. Figure out the most likely problem and prepare for it. He's a big horse. Once he makes up his mind, you can't stop his decision. You must plan for all possibilities and hope you make the correct choice. 

2: Don't be afraid to go wide with your hands. A green horse is much easier to direct with wide hands and its easier to prevent runouts. 

         Photo credit Chelsea Larson

George getting well deserved pats for his super performance in his lesson.  

George Goes To Bucks County

A little behind on the posting again, but I was waiting for a certain someone to edit and post photos from the schooling trial George and I completed at BCHP. It's no fun to have posts without photos! (still waiting.... BOYFRIEND!) I only have one at the moment, so you readers will have to be satisfied with that until I can get my greedy little hands on more. 

      Photo credit Jeremy Benfield

That was a lovely snapshot from George's dressage test that had us tied for first in BN. Woohoo! It was a super steady and obedient test. WAY better than the fiasco at Burgundy Hollow. 

The rest of the day was a little hairy. We had one stop and a time fault in stadium, followed by 3 refusals and time XC. Bummer. Dropped us all the way down to last place. Well, second to last, someone was eliminated. Lol. I was a little disappointed, but can't really blame George. He's still very green over fences and tends to get distracted by the jump judges on XC, then is surprised when there is a jump in front of him he wasn't expecting. Whoops! 

Which brings me to the next bit of news. George and I will be having a show jumping lesson this Friday, the 13th, with the one and only Sally Cousins!!!!! I'm very excited and reasonably nervous even though we're still a few days away. Fingers crossed I don't make an @$$ out of myself. I've not done much riding this month and haven't jumped since the trial... This should be interesting!

Boo boo Updates

It's been a long, slow month of stall rest, bandage changes, and hand grazing. His stifle wound is pretty much non existent, with a little nubbin of flesh that didn't fall off with the rest of the flap. 

WARNING!! Booboo pictures ahead!

   Day of injury to about 3 weeks after

Looks pretty good, right? The one on his hock has taken a bit longer to look decent. He likes to lay down and/or roll EVERY SINGLE DAY and tends to slip his bandage. 

           Pictures up until last week

He's been chilling without a bandage during the day to encourage scabbing and more healing. The vet comes out on Thursday and will hopefully give us the go ahead to start back to work. I can't wait to get back in the saddle! We've lost so much time due to injuries since I adopted him. But you know what they say, best laid plans... Boo. Here's to a better future!

Don't Ever Tell Your Horse....

That he's about to go back to work. Let him be oblivious. Cuz you know what happens when you tell him? He goes out in his pasture and does this::: 

Warning: if you are grossed out by wounds and/or blood, you probably shouldn't read any further

And this::::

Which looks like this after the vet cuts off the skin flap

Awesome, right? He managed to wound himself on two major joints. The vet flushed his stifle to make sure he hadn't punctured or otherwise damaged the joint capsule. Everything was clear, so fingers crossed it stays that way. Looks like a whole lot of boo boo scrubbing in my future. Darn dollar horse is EXPENSIVE. 

Another Schooling Day

On Sunday we took George out to BCHP for some more XC schooling. If everything went smoothly he would be entered in the schooling trial on August 11. Bucks uses a ditch at the BN level with no option, so we needed to make sure he would go over the ditch before I paid his entry. It took a couple tries and a few awkward hops, but now ditches are not a problem! 

      99 problems, but a ditch ain't one!

We schooled a bunch of other BN level fences, mainly the scary ones, so hopefully there will be no refusals this time! 

                    A scary bench

                  And scary steps

      And a not so scary hanging log with         terrifying giant boulders on either side

I'm feeling pretty confident about the cross country phase, dressage should be fine if I can remember the test, and stadium..... Well, I had a bit of a melt down yesterday when I remembered that BN = the addition of some scary fill under the jumps. 

This was me demonstrating how I would ride to this scary rolltop back in 2012 with Theo

Stay tuned!

On a More Cheerful Note...

At the end of July, while simultaneously prepping Reffy for some more dressagey fun at Burgundy Hollow, I was also prepping someone else for his first BN trial. 

          That's right! George is back! 

              Photo cred. Megan Allen

The original plan was to go Starter, considering he's really only jumped maybe 5 or 6 times, but he totally killed it when we took him up to school XC the week before, so we made the decision to go Beginner Novice instead. 

Now, George is a funny kind of guy. Trot towards a jump and there's a pretty good chance he's going to stop. Or run out. But kick on and canter up? 9 chances out of 10 you're up and over before he could even think about putting on the brakes. He gets all his confidence for jumping at the canter. Our game plan was officially "ride like hell". 

Day Of:

Because of scheduling and me having zero time between phases due to also riding Reffy, we walked the XC course as soon as we arrived at Burgundy Hollow. Cue mild panic attack. They had thrown straw all over some of the bigger fences making them even more scary. And they just happened to be fences we hadn't schoole because they were off the course to be repainted. GASP. 

         No problem. We got this. Ha. 

Dressage was mediocre, George decided staring at the horses out on the XC course was more important than paying attention and not hauling me around the silly white rectangle. I think our score had us in 3rd place. Not too shabby. We had a rail down on the first fence of stadium before I swallowed my nerves and rode like hell! That's fine. Green jumper. Good boy. Cross country was a bit of a mess to start, two refusals in the first 4 or 5 fences, but we got it together and finished the rest of the course, INCLUDING the dreaded green table with straw spread all over it. Woohoo!!! 

We didn't win by any stretch, finished 5th overall in front of one rider who was eliminated. But I was still proud! And many awesome photos were taken. 

       Determined jump face for stadium

         Photo cred. Jeremy Benfield

      Photo cred. Karla Dreisbach 

         Photo cred. Karla Dreisbach

     Huffing and puffing all the way home

        Photo cred. Jeremy Benfield 

YAY GEORGE!!!

Sometimes You Have to Take a Step Back

After my last post and a really bad jump school where Reffy decided he was NO WAY, NOT EVER going to jump or even walk over ground poles, we decided to back away from the jumping and focus solely on our dressage basics and the whole "listening to mom no matter what is going on in the rest of the world" thing. Needless to say I've been a little MEH about the blogging since then. 

My plan for the season had been to start out with the CT in April and be killing in at starter HTs in the summer with the possibility of moving up to elementary by fall. Yeah that's not going to happen. Poor Reffy has such a hard time keeping it together off property we've only muddled through a couple dressage tests since the epic CT fail. It is getting better, but I was admittedly bummed about the whole thing for a while. He continued to go like a dream at home, but being trailer-less and poor I haven't been able to do what he REALLY needs, and that is to haul to every schooling show in a 20 mile radius until its completely old hat to him. 

Which brings us up to the present. We went to a trial over at Burgundy Hollow a couple weeks ago to do just dressage. He was the calmest he's been to date off property, put in two decent Intro tests, made his momma proud, had a whole week off, and was lame the day I planned to start riding again, and has been since.

GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Horses. Seriously. Sheesh. So it's been about a week and a half since then, he's slowly improving, but it seems to have been a stifle issue and they are notoriously slow to heal. Double bummer. 

Combined Test Recap

So yesterday Reffy and I went to our first combined test. It was a bit of an epic fail. Lol. He trailered like a champ, walked around the grounds like a brave boy, and turned into the king of ADD as soon as we started warming up for dressage. I think that our biggest downfall was that we just didn't plan enough time to warm up. For his first outing he really should have had an extra hour to settle and warm up, but that's hard to do when you have an 8:06 ride time and an hour drive.

The Dressage Test::

We actually completed our Intro B test without errors, but also without and semblance of submission or collection. He resisted all my downward transitions and anything that was supposed to be straight was more of a 'haunches in'. We had some really great sideways halts. They take that into consideration, right? Lol. Our score was a 50.625 with only 4s and 5s and a single 6 for rider. Go me! Comments included a whole lot of 'resisting' and 'bent the wrong way'. High points? The judge said he was an attractive horse with potential. Woohoo!

Fast forward to stadium warmup. From the second I got a leg up he was on high alert. Reffy was in racehorse mode! I feel so bad for all the little kids on ponies warming up for our division while we cantered sideways practically into people and other horses. Sadly, we ended up withdrawing and not completing the stadium course. He was just so hot I chose to avoid an E (elimination) or RF (rider fall) and just school him over the warm up cross rail when he was quiet and listening.

In the end, some goals were met (surviving) and others were not. So much for ending with a number instead of a letter!

I Swear I Haven't Died!

Oh HAY! You guys still reading? I hope so. Once again, I'm severely slacking in the blogging department, but definitely not slacking in the riding department. This weekend is Reffy's debut at Bucks County Horse Park, competing starter level in a combined training (CT) event. Yikes! It's only been about 4 and a half months since I adopted him but he needs to get OUT and have his first experience as an eventer.

We've had a lot of really good rides lately and some truly stellar lessons, both jumping and dressage. I've been feeling pretty confident that Sunday won't be a giant flop, until this Tuesday's jump lesson. We've discovered that Ref has some pretty serious ADD when it comes to working while any other horse is doing anything within eyesight. He's ok if he's working outside while the other horses are out in the field, but if his buddy Quincy is in the cross ties while he works in the indoor? No dice. If someone tries to brim a horse in while I'm riding? Concentration is blown. And god forbid his girlfriend is out in the paddock just MOVING while I'm trying to lunge before a lesson? Cue mouse falling off the wheel. That's what we had on Tuesday. He completely ignored me while I attempted to lunge him, and once I got on (after girlfriend had gone back inside) he was still up in arms and not listening. Trying to focus on the job at hand and actually JUMP the jumps was pretty much a battle of epic proportions. We had quite a few run outs, zero brakes, and steering was like trying to turn a car with no power steering (really hard!). By the end I was exhausted, overheated (it was also 80 degrees), and wishing my horse who had worked and acted like an idiot for close to an hour would just WALK. Gah!!! Lol.

But I will not be angry or let down or get too frustrated. Reffy is a green horse who I have only had 4 and a half months. He's only jumped (with me) 3 times. It will get better. I'm not worried (yet).

As an absolutely amazing plus to everything, my horrible eq over fences has disappeared. I don't know if it's the new jump saddle or that combined with things FINALLY clicking in my brain, but my past two jump lessons, my leg position has greatly improved and I am no longer jumping up my horse's neck. Woohoo!!!! Go me! And go Megan for nagging me and getting me to this point. Lol.

So this Sunday, we will debut with an 8:06 am dressage time (ewwwww) and a 10:02 stadium time. Our goal is to end with a number, not a letter, and to just make it a good experience. We also plan to school cross country afterwards so that should be fun!

As usual, I'll leave you with some pictures from the past couple weeks. Not sure what order they'll be in because they always seem to move from the order I upload them in, but here are the descriptions::

-Trotting in a lesson
-Walking on contact (yay!)
-2 stills from a video of jumping through a gymnastic grid
-Reffy showing how handsome he is after a bath/mane pull/leg clipping

First time for everything!

And tonight was my first official fall off the new boy. Go team! We were trotting along, perfectly happy, round and forward and lovely, when mister OTTB caught sight of something out the window and darted inside. Since I was completely caught off guard, I found myself standing in front of him, holding my reins, wondering how I got there. Whoopsie! Luckily 15.3hh is not too far to fall from. And I'm a pro at sticking my landings. Needless to say, mister 'oh my god everything is now SO scary' continued to spook around the ring for a while until he realized mom was not going to fall off again, and thy he should just buckle down and do some work so he could be finished for the night. Horses are ridiculous.

Tomorrow we'll have another ride, then a good lunge Saturday night before our lesson on Sunday. Eventually I may get around to blogging about last week's lesson, but it was a bit of an epic fail on my part due to extreme exhaustion (note to self, lessons after working a 12 hour day of manual labor are not a good idea)

Until next time, here are some more pictures of the handsome Reformation.

Back in action

I know it's been a REALLY long time since my last post, but Captain Careless has been doing his best at avoiding work through pasture inflicted injuries. It started with a rather impressive bite wound to his chin (skin flaps included!)

and continued with a mystery swelling of his left front ankle. Awesome. 2 weeks of vacation later, we are now back in action.

So far, we have had 4 lunge sessions and our first ride in weeks. For having a bunch of time off, AGAIN, he's come back pretty steadily. My ride on Sunday night was not the greatest, but that is to be expected. The plan is to ride 3 days this week (tomorrow, Weds, and Thurs) lunge Friday, and lesson for the first time in I can't remember how long Saturday night. Super excited!!!!

Hopefully I will be able to get back on track with my blog posts now that I'm actually working my horse again. This winter has absolutely not gone as planned, and we have A LOT of work to do before our attempt at not dying debut at the Combined Training event at Bucks County in mid April.

So, I will leave you with a bunch of screen shots from videos taken over the past week. One is even from a little free jump session! Woot!

Shameless Plug

Alright blog readers! I apparently have no shame, so here goes!

I am entered in a "booty" contest to win a pair of fancy (ie expensive) jeans from a local pet/western clothing/tack store. I, like many of you I'm sure, am a poor (unfortunate as well as lacking financially) adult amateur who could never in a million years afford to buy such a fancy, booty flattering pair of jeans. So if you would like to help me out, click on the link below

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.538390456181848.117650.154239187930312&type=1&l=fd51b7eef4

Find photo number 8, click on it, and hit the 'Like' button. If you have trouble finding it, it matches the picture at rhe bottom of the post. Voting ends on February 15th, and the booty with the most 'Likes' wins a free pair of jeans up to $99!!!! So tell your friends! Share my booty on your Facebook pages (that sounds so dirty). Help a girl out! A million thanks to everyone who has already voted or will vote thanks to this post. Love you guys!!!!

And there you have it. My last shred of dignity is gone. Oh well. We knew it would happen sooner or later ;)

It's a MIRACLE!

So in my last post, I talked about how the farrier was coming on Saturday and would be checking Reffy's sore heel. Well, he hoof tested him literally everywhere, and found no sensitivity at all. So that was going to either be a good thing or a now what, have to call the vet thing. Saturday evening and Sunday I didn't get a chance to lunge him, but first thing this morning I took him up to the indoor and trotted him around. AND HE'S SOUND!!!!! On all 4 legs! Woo hoo!!!! I'm hoping to turn him loose in the indoor for a while tomorrow morning (right now it's all pushed around for a sawdust delivery later) and then lunge him Tuesday night. I think we'll just lunge all week and let him get back into the swing of things and ride once he's back on turn out. That boy was feisty today! So, guess I will be ordering hind boots for turnout tonight.

Hooray!!!!

Soak, cold hose, hand walk, REPEAT

The title says it all. The extent of my schedule this week has involved a lot of convincing Reffy he wants to stand still while I soak his bruised heel, then convincing him to not step on the hose while I cold hose his scraped up and fat hind leg, followed by convincing him he REALLY doesn't want to roll in the nice sandy indoor while I hand walk him at about Mach 50. The plan is to continue this sequence of events until Saturday when the farrier comes to shoe horses and check his heel, and then to hope he is magically sound after that.

A girl can dream.... Right?

Seriously horse?!

This is what greeted me when I brought the horses in today. Thanks Reffy. You're officially not allowed to go outside until I buy you protective boots.

P.S. leave the stinkin mares alone and stop kicking at the fence!!!!! >:-O

Good news and bad news

Since things have been going so well, it's inevitable to get a bit of bad news. Reffy is lame. Poop. He's looked a little ouchy the past couple days but since the ground is so uneven and solid I figured that was the problem. I lunged him a bit this morning and he was definitely off on his right front. No obvious reason, no swelling or exceptional heat. He's a tad warm in the heel area, so for now we're going to assume he's bruised himself and treat it as such. :( Luckily, he's not the kind of horse who goes outside and acts like a maniac, so he is still on normal turn out.

Which brings us to the good news! Ashley's TB Quincy got to go outside today and Reffy finally has a pasture mate! He's pretty unconcerned about the new guy in his field and prefers to eat his hay rather than get rowdy. Quincy on the other hand is hell bent on chatting up the ladies over the fence, and the gelding in their field is NOT happy about it.

Q and Ref are pretty adorable together though. Eventing buddies in the making!

Q likes to make silly faces for the camera ;)

2013 Goals

Since the weather this week is not conducive to working my handsome Reformation, instead I'm working on a list of hopefully achievable goals and riding plans for this season. Always, things will be subject to change according to progress, finances, and unforeseen circumstances.

February:

• Continue to lesson (dressage) once a week, possibly twice if weather and work schedules permit
• Be able to canter and not die in a controlled manner by the end of the month

March:

• Start jumping in lessons
• Ride in my jump saddle at least once a week to strengthen my two point and get back in galloping shape (even though we won't be galloping for a looonnng time)

April

• Combined Test at Bucks County on the 14th, starter level. School cross country if weather and conditions permit! 

May

• Mix and Match at Burgundy Hollow

June

• Midatlantic Horse Rescue All Thoroughbred Benefit Horse Show!!!

So far, that's all I've got. Fingers crossed that the weather will improve soon and I can get back on my horse!

"Hey mom, its cold out. Why are you laying on the ground to take my picture?"

Playing Catch-up

I'm finally sitting down and updating today. I've been a complete slacker in the blogging department, but this should be a long one since I have almost two weeks of stories to write about. We'll start with last Saturday (the 12th).

After our week of ups and downs I was looking forward to Reffy's first dressage lesson. Of course, as luck would have it, my guy came in from the pasture Saturday night with this boo boo on his hind leg.

Now it doesn't look like much, just a little scrape, but in my experience with TBs, they tend to be delicate flowers when it comes to boo boos. I took him up to the indoor to lunge him and see if he was sound. Thank goodness, he was. I cold hosed his leg to bring the swelling down and gave him some bute just to be safe. 

The next morning I kept him in and lunged him again to make sure he hadn't gone lame over night. He was still sound and our lesson was still on. Hooray! My mom and sister (and my baby niece) were coming to watch so the pressure was on. Lol. Reffy decided the best way to impress everyone was to thrash his head around and chomp like a maniac the whole time. Its so hard not to get irritated with him sometimes. He definitely needs more holes in his flash noseband to keep his mouth shut. The lesson itself wasn't too bad. We need to keep working on our downward transitions from the trot. Brakes were a bit of an issue and he pretty much sticks his nose in the air as soon as I ask him to walk. Gah! We also worked on riding straight down the quarter lines since he prefers to just bop along on the rail and not steer at all. Lastly, we worked on figure eights with a straight line in the middle, changing bend between E and B. Ref was pretty good when changing from his stiff way (to the right) to his easy way (to the left) but not so great changing bend from left to right. He just needs practice!

All in all, Megan was pretty impressed with how he looked since the last time she saw him. It had been about a month since she came out and gave us a crash course in lunging with side reins, and she insists that he looks taller and longer since then. He really does look like a completely different horse. 

picture Megan took during our lesson

Fast forward to through a week of mostly lunging and only one ride Thursday night (I had a house guest Tues-Fri). He was actually quite good, and there was much less chomping since I punched extra holes in his flash. 

Yesterday we had another lesson. It was super super nice out, but insanely windy, and since our outdoor is still a swamp from all the rain/snow, we were confined to the indoor again. Not so good. Lol. When its windy, the doors bang and the roof creaks. That can be a recipe for disaster. Reffy lunged quietly and I made sure to work him in the scary corner with the banging door. As soon as I got on however, the wind picked up and I had a spooky coiled spring under me. One of the boarders, Malinda, had come up to see how things were going and thankfully agreed to grab my vest out of my car, just to be safe. Megan pulled up as she was bringing it back up to the indoor and she was a little worried since dressage lessons usually aren't scary enough for crash vests. Lol. Luckily, it was only a precaution, and once we got to work he was focused and calm. Such a good brain on this horse! Things went so much better this time. Less thrashing, better steering and brakes, and he even started to figure out that he's supposed to remain on contact through his trot/walk transitions. We're getting there! Megan had me pretend I was asking him to walk, and at the last second before he broke from the trot, leg him forward again onto contact. We will be doing a whole lot of that over the next couple of weeks. I need to remember to continue to half halt on the outside and support him with my leg through the transition instead of expecting him to do it himself. We also tried a little canter, but abandoned ship when he tried to run into it every time instead of stepping right into it. No mach 50 trotting allowed! More cantering at a later date I'm sure, but for now, we will continue to perfect the walk and trot.  

This week we probably won't do a whole lot of working at all due to forecasted highs in the low 20s. Brrrrr!  Therefore we may not lesson this weekend. It all depends on the weather. Hurry up spring!!!!

Ups and downs

Yesterday Reffy cantered in side reins for the first time. It was a bit of a hot mess. Lol. To the left he had some problems picking up the correct lead, and after finally getting him on it, he had no brain left to go back to trotting in a productive way. Gahhhhh. Luckily, his lead was no problem to the right, and he gave me a lovely couple strides of canter on the bit. Hooray! Still no focus for trotting after though. At least his melt down was over doing something new instead of just losing his brain.

I almost didn't work him today, but since I have a lesson on Sunday, I sucked it up and ventured back out to lunge around 7 pm. Thankfully he was all business and went about his job without any fuss. The left canter was still sticky but I tried to let him trot into the corner a bit after I asked him to put his balance where it needed to be to pick up the correct lead. He definitely just needs to be stronger to get it on the circle. No big. And eureka, his trot work after cantering was not an epic fail! Such a smart boy. I took a couple videos so I could post screen shots**, sadly I always remember to record him when he's going left and not as nice and consistently round as he is to the right. Oh well. I'm also re-posting a pic from one of his first sessions in side reins so you can see the difference, not only in his body, but also his stride! He's gone from lookin like a quarter horse to actually starting to resemble a sport horse. I sent the shots to Megan and she says he looks like a completely different guy. Way to go Reffy!

I also took a trip to horse girl Disneyland today, or Horseman's Outlet for you normal people, and picked up a new dressage bridle, longer bit (no more Pony leftovers) and a couple pairs of full-seat breeches for myself. Yay for buying things! And I looked at jump saddles on consignment. Darn my little butt. All the ones I'm interested in getting my hands on were like 18s. Boo. Oh well. I'll just keep looking and saving my pennies.

Tomorrow the farrier comes to do Ref's feet. I'm still on the fence about whether I want to try to keep him barefoot behind for the rest of the winter or put shoes on. Guess I'll have to chat with our guy, Gabe Nonnemaker, and see what he thinks.

Until next time!

**The pictures with the leg wraps are from today.

Random riding and fun with tiny ponies!

Today I went to visit Shoshana (who used to half lease the Dusty Pony) and her adorable halflinger cross Izzy at Horseng Farm. We had a super fun time playing with her and a project pony, Reggie. I'll link to the videos at the end of this post.

Izzy is such a sweet mare, we think she may be part Morgan due to the insane flatness and length of her back. She's had a real good start thanks to the girls over at Rocking Horse Stables (apparently I'm giving props to EVERYONE today. Lol) and her dressage basics are spot on. Sadly you can't see that in the videos because they were taken after I asked her to canter and she definitely still needs a bit of work there and has a bit of trouble getting her brain back to work after cantering. Take my word for it, she even leg yields! Hopefully we will see them out and about at schooling events this aping and summer.

And then, there's Reggie. Adorable little Reggie, who has only ever been a leadline pony at 5 years old, was purchased by Heather McCarty at Horseng (she realized his coggins had 'bad pony' in the name section), and is currently being trained to be a riding horse by Shoshana and another girl. He's a welsh and only 12 hh. Needless to say, my ride was comical. And what a naughty pony! Lol. Sometimes he just randomly stops and tries to bite your feet. Or he goes sideways with his neck curled around so that you fear he may topple over on his side.

Of course, I'm in love with him. I think he's adorable. And he's Reffy's mini me with his face markings and one white hind. Who wants to buy him for me?! Lol.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2tlOyR8EZ9w Izzy trotting

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0K6U3Pjb02U Not getting away with refusing jumps

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BQjmQJX_5XA Reggie jumps and I laugh

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-2fg09WhzVM Jumping barrels in hand