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?