What a weekend!

By now you should already realize you will be reading a book. LOL

This weekend the forecasters had predicted severe storms to move in Sunday evening. DH and I decided to try to go for a trial ride but where we wanted to go (north) the trails had been closed due to rain on Friday so we decided to go south instead (their trails were still open).

Saturday night we loaded up and headed to MIL’s. We figured we’d spend the night and then leave out early Sunday morning to ride as the trails are only ½ hr. from her place. She was going to keep the boys for us so that we could have some time to ourselves. When we got up Sunday morning it was foggy, humid and warm. The storms weren’t predicted to come in until about 3:00 so we had plenty of time.

I decided to take Lucy. I wasn’t sure how long she’d last since she seems to fizzle out quickly but I decided I need to start using her more and weaning myself off of Max more so no better time than the present to start. We loaded up and headed out.

When we got there I was surprised there were as many campers as there were still there. They had some severe storms the night before and I know a tent/camper isn’t really the place I’d want to be in a storm. We pulled in the day ride area, unloaded and started to saddle up. We threw our saddle bags on, climbed aboard and headed out on the trail.

Lucy was all ears! She was so excited to see what was around the next corner. Well that was until the next corner was nothing but a mud puddle. Seeing all of the mud brought back memories of Max’s first trail ride. He hated mud but after a day at Stephen’s he could have cared less. LOL

Lucy moved side to side trying to avoid the mud but finally went through it. We pushed on and it didn’t take her long to forget about the mud. Then we hit running water! There hasn’t been running water at Stephens in a long time! I wasn’t sure how she’d do but after a few suggestions to go over it she calmly walked over the water. Woo hoo! No jumping!

A ways into the trail we hit a bad spot. It was deep mud and there was no way around it. I pitched LLL the reins and held onto the horn allowing her to find the easiest way through this mucky mess. She did awesome! The trails were starting to get worse and worse. The hills were slick and greasy and the horses were having a hard time making it up the hills. Going downhill was even worse. I like my horses to go slow and steady down the hills but there were a few where LLL started to slide and instead of slowing down she sped up. She tripped on one scaring the daylights out of me but she managed to regain her footing and take me safely to the bottom of the hill. After that little scare I really made her take it slow and easy down the hills.

I can’t tell you how proud of her I was. The trails were a mess that even wore out seasoned trail horses. On one trail there was a huge tree down on the path. Big enough that going around it or jumping it was the only option for continuing on the trail. There was a trail going up the hill around it but it looked like a mess and LLL was already exhausted. It looked like I could cross a section below it and she’d just have to watch her feet between the downed limbs so we tried. HUGE mistake! She sunk and she was sinking fast. I was afraid that when she tried to back up (the only way out) she’d come up fast and loose me so I jumped off (thank god for mecate reins) and allowed her to find her own way out. She did and I’m glad I wasn’t on her. She struggled enough to make it out that she didn’t need my weight adding to it.

DH tried taking Max the top route and it wasn’t much better but they made it. I decided to see if LLL would jump the tree (the easiest solution it looked like at this point) and to my surprise she did without any hesitation. I mounted back up and we continued on the trail. We finally got to the road and I got off to walk. My saddle had slid clear back on her (I’m surprised she didn’t try to buck me off). I’ve never had my saddle slide with a CSI pad or a neoprene cinch! I moved it back up and we walked for about a mile. She seemed to get a second wind so I hopped back on and rode to the trailer.

She was so good! Max looked just as tuckered as LLL. DH and I unsaddled and offered the horses some water. LLL took a few small sips but Max refused. We let them eat grass and cool down before heading back to MIL’s. Once we got back we turned them out with Cat & Sis to play. They all rolled! I think they were happy to be back.

Here are a few pics from the ride:


Can you see how muddy the trail is? This was one of the better spots.



You can’t see it but up at the top is a huge puddle of water. Hey Jaimee – look at those ears! LOL



DH & Max. This is on one of the maintenance roads so it was rocked (no mud).



This is one of my favorite views at Stephen’s.



If you look really hard in the center of the picture is a big hill that we go back up once we reach the bottom of this one.







Can you see how hot they are?





Look at LLL’s neck. It’s saturated with sweat!





I have some more pictures from this weekend but I’m going to leave it at this for this entry.

Yes I’m playing

I know – I just can’t leave well enough alone! I’ll be making some changes to the “style” of my blog so please bare with me!

American Cowgirl!

This is what it's all about!

Practice, practice, practice

Last night we had drill practice but it was running ½ late so I had time to work LLL before everyone showed up. MIL and I did some ORS’s at the trot in the arena and then moved on to the lope. I swear if LLL could be any slower she’d get passed up by a

One of the other members came so I’d lope LLL around and them pull up between MIL and the other member. LLL would walk along fine and then decide to pin her ears at Scooter (team member’s horse) so off we’d lope away from Sis and Scooter and then we’d come back and walk in-between them. She got the message pretty quickly.

Once everyone started showing up I hopped on Max to warm him up while MIL ponied LLL. Then I took LLL and ponied her off of Max. OMG is my arm sore today. She dragged herself behind us. Apparently we need to work on coming off of pressure with the bridle. Finally after a bit of give and release she figured it out and came up next to me.

We’ve decided instead of trying to have a team of 10 & a team of 8 to just have two teams of 8 so those who are on both teams don’t have to remember two patterns. We ran the first team of 8 and let me tell you we need a lot more practice!

It was time for the second team of 8 (this team consist of a few members who don’t like to trot or lope) so this time I rode LLL. She was cranky at first (never!) but then slowly started to enjoy herself.

After that run the original 8 ran again. This time we were a bit better.

Once we finally finished up I took LLL to the arena and laid her down again. It took a bit longer tonight and she had a little bit of struggle/fight in her but she finally went down.

I’d really like to be able to get her over to the arena this weekend and work on the passenger lesson (for both of us). She needs to do a lot of transitions and I need to learn to stay with her better. She almost lost me a few times last night because she can change directions pretty quickly.

One thing she likes to do (which annoys me) is to try to “hop” a lope when she’s supposed to be trotting. We go no where but we kind of rock this pathetic attempt to get out of trotting.

She’s also having problems with bridling and having my hand on her poll. I see she has a small scrape on her poll but she was horrible last night with bridling so we need to work on it.

Weekend Update:

Yes this is going to be long!

Thursday night we got the ponies out and practiced barrels in the pasture. The kids for some reason couldn’t figure out the pattern so I jumped on Abby to show them and woo hoo the rodeo began.

As soon as I whacked her with the crop her back legs came up and her head went down. This happened a few times so we moved to the RP. She was not a happy camper at all! The bigger the fit the faster we went. Her behavior made me very nervous about taking her Saturday to the show.

Friday night we loaded up the ponies and hauled over to the arena to “practice” at the arena. I let Chase start out on Abby & figured I’d get on only if she was being bad. Of course she was an angel. The kids kept doing the pattern wrong (going to the outside instead of the inside of the barrels) so I figured Saturday would be a joke.

Saturday we loaded up ALL of the horses and headed over to the arena. The kids did all of the classes (it was an all games show), DH & MIL did most of the classes, my sister (who is scared to death of horses) rode in a few classes & actually enjoyed herself and I rode a few as well.

Here are just a few pics.

Chase & Shari doing the egg & spoon race. Chase dropped his egg before they even started the class but they gave him another one.





Then they did the candy bar race



They all got their patterns correct and Chase even won his division for barrels.

Tybo even joined in the fun and did a barrel pattern (I’m standing on the other side of him holding his hand/jeans and MIL is leading Sis).



I even “ran” LLL in barrels and poles. We had a 5 minute pattern time but it was fun. She spooked at a shadow on the ground in the arena though – silly horse. LOL

We had TONS of compliments on Abby. I think I could have easily sold her a few times. She was great with Chase and didn’t give him any flack until the end and I think she was just tuckered.

Needless to say we came home with a lot of happy children (and adults) and a stack of ribbons. We have to wait for them to post the results so we know who got what.


Sunday I helped out with a NBHA event at the arena and then came home and saddled up LLL. We worked on flexing, yielding the HQ, and then ORS. She kept trying to go back to the barn so we had to make that a not so nice place to be. She did get pretty upset with me a few times when I whacked her. Her “defense” it to turn sharp and fast to try to throw you off balance. I just pulled her head around and whacked her on the butt harder and then asked her to do what I originally had asked her to do.

We finally started getting some nice, smooth transitions so we moved into the RP and I just loped. I worked on me more trying to get into rhythm with her instead of riding against her (which I feel like I’m doing sometimes).

After that I hopped off and did some RP stage 2. She wasn’t thrilled. Once she was good and tired and following me around I unsaddled her and put on her halter. I then put the long line around her belly and proceeded to see if I could lay her down. She struggled a little bit and my ½ hitches weren’t hooked right (which didn’t help) but without too much of a battle she went down.

I rubbed all over her. She got VERY upset when I touched her nostrils. I mean to the point of trying to bite me while she was down. So once she got better about it (not perfect just better) I asked her to get up. I had to kick her pretty darn hard to get her to move. Once she came up to her belly she laid there for a minute or two and then went flat on the ground again. I finally got her up and then asked her to go down again.

She didn’t “struggle” as much this time but instead stayed up on 3 legs with her face crammed in the dirt. I swear her teeth have to be dirt covered. This time when she went down she fell like a ton of bricks! She hit hard but she went on the opposite side as last time so I was able to rub her other nostril. She wasn’t as bad about the right side.

When I finally got her up I rubbed her nostrils and surprise, surprise, there were no issues. She followed me around like a lost puppy dog. I think she had a very humbling experience.

Not much to report

Yet I’m sure I’ll still be able to write a mini novel. I haven’t done much since last week. Call it burn out, call it lack of motivation, call it whatever you’d like I just haven’t had the desire to be out at the barn.

We had drill practice last night in spite of the weather (storms moving in) so I decided to only take one horse. I didn’t want to be messing with 3 horses and 3 saddles if it decided to pour down rain so I just took my steady Eddy (Max).

We are trying to practice with a team of 8 & a team of 10 and we happen to be on both teams so when we got there the team of 10 ran (walked) first. We have one member who is not very comfortable on a horse so we can’t move past a trot (if we can even move into a trot). It is very hard to remember the pattern at a walk/trot and it takes forever to get through it. Max was in a “go, go, go” mood last night and he wasn’t very patient walking.

We finally got to the team of 8 and we were able to run. Of course one horse was fresh and wanted to buck which scared one of the other member into thinking her horse was bucking (which he wasn’t) so we had to slow down. We ran the pattern twice and Max did well. I was trying to be more thoughtful about my body language while I rode and it seemed to help quite a bit.

Once we got done I decided to get on Sis. She’s been really stiff lately and the shows will be starting soon so I wanted to see how much work slowing her down we’d have. She is one of the few that flexes vertically better than laterally. She needs a LOT of work laterally. I can’t even begin to imagine how nice she’d be if she was soft laterally.

I was surprised at how quickly she came back to her WP form (so was MIL). I actually think she moved/traveled better than last year at the jog but we still need to work on her strung out lope.

Can you go any slower?

I’m going to make this entry short (for me) because I actually have work to do today.

Last night we took Abby to drill practice. She hesitated a few times before loading in the trailer but quickly decided she’d like to be in the trailer instead of outside of it so in she went and off to practice we headed. DH went along and took Max so he could ride a bit before practice started.

When we arrived at the arena we unloaded and started tacking up. Abby was great. She didn’t look around, get nervous, etc. She just stood and waited to be tacked up. DH took off into the arena while MIL and I finished up. Once Abby was ready to go we went in and walked around the arena once before I mounted up.

Once I got on her I quickly learned that we need to work on 2 things – her gas pedal and her steering (kind of important). LOL She was pretty good around the other horses. She pinned her ears a few times and humped her butt up once but she quickly relaxed.

When we started the first run (at a slow canter/trot) she gave a little kick up with her heels when I asked her to go into the lope but then she finally went into it. She was great when the other horses would come at her, behind her, etc. but man is she slow!

We only trot/cantered it once because another horse was sore and we had another new horse to work in. Then we switched to our team of 10 and walked it. The clouds were moving in so we all untacked and headed for home. She loaded up nicely but we do need to work on that some this week at home.

I need to take her over on a weekend and work on the passenger lesson and on post to post. She’s still a good pony though!

Arena work never looked better!

Yesterday a drill team member e-mailed me asking me if I’d like to go riding with her. She lives south of us about 20 miles and owns 250 acres of land. Of course I accepted! DH agreed to take Chase with him (they were working on the race car) and I took Ty. Peggy’s daughter said she’d watch Ty while we rode. Perfect!

MIL and I saddled the horses at the barn and loaded up. We got to Peggy’s at around 6:30 and headed out on the trail. LLL was a bit excited but then I just hopped on (no GW) so it was to be expected. This was her first outing with other horses on a real trail.

The first hill we went down was nice. LLL was rocking back onto her hind end and taking things slowly. I hate when horses rush down hills. Peggy was very kind asking where I wanted to go and where I didn’t (there weren’t too many places I didn’t want to go). There were a lot of trees down off of the trail path so I took LLL over to them and we walked over the logs. A bunny ran out in front of us and caught her eye but only for a moment.

We came up on a dry creek crossing and LLL hesitated. After a few circles and not allowing her to go over it she finally walked over it without trying to jump. Peggy then asked if I was ok with water. Sure I was! Lucy on the other hand – she’s not to fond of water.

I told Peggy I’d like to try but I didn’t want her to wait on me all night. The creek was very rocky and had a small drop off and Lucy didn’t like it. She was practically sitting on her butt to avoid going into the water so I got off & did some sending exercises with her (which I still need to work on at home). I stood on a rock in the middle of the creek and sent her back and forth. She jumped the creek quite a few times before she finally decided to just walk through it.

Once I got her going through it then it was a matter of getting her to slow down and watch where she was going. She was bolting across and landing on big rocks. I was glad I’d put her boots on or her legs would have probably been cut up. I sent her across to the original side and mounted back up. We walked up to the creek and I asked her to cross which she did in a very nice, calm manner.

Once we were across Peggy showed us this beautiful rock hill! I wish I had taken my camera. We turned around and crossed the creek and headed off in a different direction. I put LLL up in the lead and we headed up a steep hill. I started chanting “I think I can, I think I can” as we went up the hill because LLL was starting to loose momentum. We made it and joked that I was going to give her a heart attack. For as much as she does she sure is out of shape!

We rode up and down more hills and over more creeks. Lucy was great! She would stop to paw in a few of the creeks but beyond that there was no more hesitation to go over them. I even asked her to cross a downed tree that was about as wide as she was tall (at the belly) and she managed to stumble across it.

When we got to the bottom of one hill we hit an open field and as we rode across it Lucy was acting weird. I thought maybe she was bothered by the old dead weeds hitting her belly but then MIL yelled “she’s trying to lie down” at which time my crop swiftly made contact with her butt and we moved her feet! She only did that one more time before she decided it was better to just keep going.

We headed back up the hill (chanting again) and finally back to the barn. When we got to the trailer Lucy tried to walk in like “I’m done! Let’s go home!”. LOL

Last night was so good for her! MIL and I joked and said that a few more rides like that and she’d be begging me to do arena work instead. LOL

Here are a few pics of the tired pony from last night.





If the rain holds off tonight Abby will have her debut with the drill team.

Greene County Horse Fair

Saturday we had 2 performances at the Greene County Horse Fair. When we got there the arena had standing water in some places and it was cold! We saddled up and went in to see how bad the arena was. It was bad!

There were chunks of metal, broken glass, etc. in the arena and there were holes! You’d be loping around and all of the sudden your horse would drop down in a hole. No one was happy with the conditions but we decided to perform anyways.

The first run went fairly well. We had to push the horses through the deep footing but we managed to get through it and make it look smooth. I had a few issues with Max’s brakes but then I knew that was an issue before I went.

In between runs the boys “roped” off of a stimulated roping horse and then entered a stick horse contest. Chase won 2 prizes for his stick horse in barrels and the pick up race. He was pretty excited about that.

After that we ran one more time. The second run………….it wasn’t quite so pretty. The horses were exhausted and footing like this just takes everything out of them. I had given my spurs to another member so I didn’t have any and we don’t have poppers on our reins so I had nothing to “whack” with. There were a few times when I thought Max was going to just stop and say “I’m done & there is nothing you can do about it”. Luckily we made it though the performance but it wasn’t pretty.

We loaded up and headed home. DH thinks that Max has a swollen pastern but I think it’s just irritated from his bell boots so we are going to give him some due time off.

DH had to work Sunday so the boys and I went over to MIL’s & spent the night so I could work with Cat in the morning. She’s been giving MIL some grief so I told her I’d help her.

Sunday we got up and I went out to work Cat. She was full of beans! I think she’s just going through one of those “typical” stages but we worked through it anyways. During LFR stage 1 she wanted to bolt, run, stop, rear, back up, etc. Quite a few times I had to run towards her to get her to go forward. She finally got gave up her card when she got tired.

She’s really starting to turn a copper color under all of the blonde hair. I can’t wait until she’s all shed out. Here are a few pictures (not the best but they’ll do).



Look at that butt!



She has her mama’s chest



I think she has Tuffy’s head too.



Playing



In “her” barn at MIL’s




After that I took MIL over to a mutual friends house to see her new filly & her other horses. Then we went back and cleaned out the barn and unloaded all of the tack from Sat. We’ve all decided we need a new trailer with a tack room because we are tired of hauling tack back and forth from the barn to the trailer.

Our next performance is in 5 weeks. I’m going to try to work Abby into the routine to see how she does. We are supposed to have a fun show this weekend for the kids but it is supposed to rain almost all week so I’m sure it will be cancelled.

I Found Lucy’s Buttons!

Last night Chase and I went out to work with the horses. He’s had a few minor problems with Abby the last couple of rides that I thought I’d work through. I saddled up Sis, Abby and Lucy. I tied LLL to the patience pole and put Chase on Sis & I work on some LFR with Abby. We worked in the RP and I had Chase work on ORS only. Wow was Sis stiff! Abby and I need to work a bit more on the ground work but to her defense I haven’t done anything with her since we got her. After some light ground work I got on.

Abby is awesome! I told Chase I might steal her from him (he of course wasn’t very happy with that). She’s such a smart pony and she’s no smaller (she actually feels bigger) than LLL. She immediately picked up on the flexing. I picked up the rein and her head was at my foot. We had a few “drags” going to the right but she picked up. Then we started on the ORS. She had a harder time with that because she wanted to continue to go in a circle but she picked it up fast enough.

I had to hop off and mark Chase’s reins and when I did we put Ty in the saddle. Normally he’s not very thrilled to be anywhere near the horses but he loved it. He was all smiles. He even looked like a “real” cowboy when he kept spitting off to the side. When we’d stop Abby Ty would start to rock back and forth like “come on – move!”. He rode for probably 10 minutes before we finally talked him into getting off.

I jumped back on and continued with what I’d started working on before. Chase went home with DH and I had the pen all to myself. I kicked Abby up into a trot. She’s not very smooth.

Once she picked up on that we bumped up into a lope. Abby had only loped a few times since we’ve gotten her (heck she’s usually too lazy to trot) so she wasn’t thrilled that I was loping her in circles around the RP but she did as she was asked. She actually strides out very well at the lope and it’s a lot smoother than her trot. She was getting pretty tired so I pulled her into the center and flexed her some more and then hopped off.

I tied Abby to the PP, grabbed LLL and headed to the RP. By this time it was starting to get dark so I though I’d just RP Lu some and put her up. She was full of piss and vinegar! She took off around the RP bucking and farting. I actually got a chuckle out of it because she doesn’t typically play so it’s nice to see every once in a while.

I decided to get on. If nothing I’d just walk/trot/lope around a few times and get off. That was the game plan anyways. I’ve had the problem that when I put Lu on a loose rein and ask her to trot in the RP she does very small tight circles by one panel so I decided to push her through that. Once she finally stopped going over by the panel I would rest her on the opposite side of the RP. Then we kicked it up into a lope. She hesitated like normal so the crop hit her butt like normal and for the first time she popped her back end up to say “piss off lady” and I responded with “oh you liked that huh?”. Needless to say she didn’t think it was very funny. We loped around the RP for quite a while until she started to flow around better. She was booking it compared to how she normally goes.

She kept going back towards the one panel and trying to rub my leg on it (this isn’t new) but I’d had enough. When Abby did this earlier I’d immediately turn her into the fence and whack her outside shoulder so I did the same with Lucy. Holy shit! That girl can turn!

I’ve ridden a reining horse once but that was in college and while Max can turn he doesn’t even remotely compare to Lucy. Well that was fun so when she went back over we did it again (only this time I was ready).

If she could do that nice of a rollback what else could she do? She can spin! That’s what else she can do! I don’t remember how exactly I found that button but I did. I trotted her to the center of the RP, sat back on my pocket and put my leg on her and she started to go into it. I clucked and she sped up. Now don’t get me wrong this wasn’t dizzy, puking fast but it wasn’t turtle slow either.

Of course now that I figured it out I had to do it some more right? Of course I did. She’s not as quick going clockwise as she is counter clockwise but we’ll work on that later. During all of this Lucy acted like she actually had fun! OMG did she actually enjoy being worked? Could it be?

I decided I’d better quit while I was ahead (besides the fact that it was now pitch black out). Lucy is out of shape and gets hot fast and I still needed to cool her down, untack her and Abby and feed so we headed back to the barn. It is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow and I have a drill performance on Sat. so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to hop on her again but hopefully soon!