Cat

Last night I went out to take Cat’s pictures for her registration pictures. Yes, I know, it should have been done a long time ago. That is why I’m trying to get it done now – so I don’t have to pay more penalty fees (DH would kill me if he realized what my fees were compared to what they could have been).

So here are a few shots of her. She was standing a little wonky in a few but she wasn’t too thrilled to be in the backyard with the kids splashing around in the pool (which she got used to quickly before we left the backyard). Feel free to critique if you’d like. You won’t hurt my feelings. I know she’s a little cow hocked and I’ve been working with my trimmer on that as much as we can. I have seen some improvements but I think she’ll always be slightly cow hocked.

And yes – she’s had a growth spurt so she’s downhill.









We tried taking them in different light but I like the first ones better.



I think this picture makes her look weird





Since going to MIL’s her manners have gone downhill. She’s also going through that nipping stage that most yearlings go through. Last night she made the mistake of trying to “nip” me when I tried to set her up so I sent her out quickly and did some LFR. She was doing very well considering it’s been about a month since we did LFR. I “thought” about disengaging her hip and started to move my body ever so slightly and to my surprised she immediately disengaged before I ever gave her the full cue. Woo hoo! She’s been paying attention!

I thought maybe it was just a fluke and that she was anticipating me disengaging her HQ so I did it again, and again, and again and got the same response. She’s picked up the very subtle cue of me merely bending my body slightly and thinking disengage. Awesome! I don’t work her very often so this give me hope that she’s going to retain what I do teach her and pick up on new concepts quickly.

Now for a few more pics – here are some pics of my new trailer (not stock photos since someone mentioned it wasn’t the same thing).

Side view with Cat (to show size)





Back


Looking in (door leads to dressing room)


“Stud” Stall


Front/Side View

Cool Video

I think this is a pretty neat video & boy can this gal ride!

Only One Practice Left

Last night we had drill practice in a new arena. It’s the arena we’ll be performing in on Friday night. All I can say is – we are bad. Our lines were horrible, we messed up the pattern and we simply just aren’t ready. We’ve missed several practices due to the weather and then we put in a new member who (bless her heart) is doing the best she can. We have practice Thursday night and then we have a performance in the rodeo on Friday.

DH & Chase trailered Max and Abby out yesterday afternoon and rode so I was a bit surprised that Max still had as much energy as he did last night. I was working pretty hard to hold him back with my partner (who is on a pretty slow horse). Friday night should be even better since the adrenaline usually takes over and speeds them up. He wasn’t too spooky though about the new surroundings. This arena tends to spook a lot of horses due to the signs, cutes, etc. so I was pretty happy with the way he acted in the arena.

A bit of good news – the member whose daughter decided not to do drill is now watching the boys for me at practice so I don’t have to worry about my mom/sister watching them all of the time. With the new trailer she can watch then up front and they have plenty of room to play. It was pretty nice last night and I think they boys enjoyed going. She also offered me her 17 yr. old paint gelding. I don’t know all of the details on him but I know she used him for drill last year. She said her dreams of going for family trail rides weren’t going to happen. When things slow down a bit I’d like to go look at him. Unfortunately until next Monday we are gone between drill, shows, etc. so I know it’s not going to happen this week.

Until next time………….

Nothing Too Spectacular

Well nothing too spectacular happened this weekend. Saturday we had drill practice again and I got to use my new trailer for the first time. All I have to say is – that is a long trailer! I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about driving with it but I got to my location and home all in one piece.

The horses seemed to travel better but they were in a bit of a hurry to back out when we got to the arena so it looks like a little “trailer loading 101” refresher might be in their future.

Practice went well. Our new member is picking up quickly. The horses were a bit tired after not being worked that hard for a few weeks. Plus it was almost 90 degrees out so it was pretty warm for us.

My sister would like to learn more about the horses and she’s been playing with Nikki so I showed her how to do LFR with Nikki. Of course she’s lazy so it wasn’t done at lightening speed but my sister got the gist of the exercise.

Yesterday her kids came back home and she saddled up Nikki for Shari and let her ride in the RP. While Shari was riding, Heather started to rub on Abby who had been standing on the outside of the round pen. I went out and caught her, brought her into the barn and saddled her up for Heather. For some reason Abby freaked when I went to through the saddle up on her so there is something else we need to work on.

I did some LFR with Abby (who is finally starting to get it) and then took her to the RP. I jumped on briefly just to make sure she was going to be ok and then let Heather ride her. I about fell to the ground in laughter when Shari said “MOM! Put your heels down!” There’s nothing like taking riding advice from your 6 yr. old daughter.

They seemed to get alone fine and I left Heather some CA videos so she can start to understand why we do some of the things we do.

Maybe it’s Just Me

Last night we had drill practice again in the cramped little indoor. I had decided to go ahead and put the shanked bit in Max to see how he’d do. I barely had to put any pressure on the reins and he’d respond. If I set the reins on his neck he’d immediately start to neck rein (better than when we just have the snaffle). The only time I had problems was when I would put too much inside pressure on his mouth during a turn. Then he’d pop up his head like “hey, get out of my face”.

During our second “run” I managed to collide knees with two members (I run between two horses coming towards me). The one member hit me pushing me into the other member so needless to say when we were done with the run I was sore.

The decided on the last run that they would put in one of the members who only likes to walk/trot so I asked one of the other member’s daughter if she’d like to ride Max for me and I’d sit out. They show with us so I’ve seen her ride and figured she could easily handle him. I told her to keep his reins long and let him have his head.

They started the pattern and off they went. She’d put the rein on his neck and then get frustrated because he’d over turn where she wanted to go. Then she’d pull back on the reins and he’d flip his head up saying “that’s too much pressure”. I looked over at Terry and asked “is it just me?”. I’m I the only one that rides him and expects him to be soft? Do the majority of riders constantly ride in the horses face?

I was proud of Max for doing as well as he did for what he had to deal with. I need to work him in the bit some more (this was only the 2nd or 3rd time he’d worn it) to teach him how to give better vertically but that will just have to come with time.

On a side note – his attitude was much better tonight.

A Little Bit of Everything

DH went and picked up the new trailer yesterday and Cat from MIL’s on the way home. I was a little nervous having him try to load her by himself since I haven’t loaded her much and this trailer sits a bit taller than the ones she has been loaded in. The good news is he said she loaded fine. The bad news, he said the truck only got 6 mpg pulling.

I took all of my camping stuff out and put it in the front of the trailer. I can’t wait to go camping once the weather clears up and the trails open back up. I think we’ll do a “dry run” at mom’s & dad’s before we go too far away just to make sure we haven’t missed anything.

Here lately I’ve kind of regretted selling the Black mare a little bit. There are days I just want to get on and ride and not worry about training. There are also times I’d like to ride with my sister or a friend and not have to worry about having a broke enough horse for them to ride. At the time I really didn’t have much of a choice. We can only have so many horses and I was over my limit (I was shocked DH let me buy her in the first place but it was with the promise I’d sell her). I’ve talked to her owner and she said she couldn’t be happier with her.

At practice the other night one of the members offered me their Appy gelding. He’s pretty quiet but he’s pretty ugly too (I know, you can’t ride pretty but it sure doesn’t hurt either!). My trimmer was out and also knows of a gal who has a 12 yr. old? Appy mare that has been used for 4-H that he thinks will give her away if the home is right (are you reading this Traci?). I had him give her my number so I can go look at her. Unfortunately DH keeps reminding me that if one comes in, one has to go out.

I need to win the lottery so we can buy some horse property so I can have as many as I want. But the property isn’t the only issue. Hay prices are already through the roof and they haven’t even baled yet. We also got into a bit of an argument with my parents in regards to the horses the other night and thought we were going to have to move them somewhere else. If we had to move them we wouldn’t even be able to take what we have to MIL’s due to the convenience and restrictions she has on her land so we’d have to find a place to board which we wouldn’t be able to afford.

On another note: Do you remember me telling you about the two loose horses we caught a couple of month’s ago? A yearling and a mare and the mare foaled an hour after we left? Well I drove by the place Tuesday night on my way to drill and they had 2 more horses out so I stopped and they were home this time. Well last night DH and I dropped the truck off (it’s getting some repairs done) and decided to drive by and look a the river to see how much of the road it had washed out. On the way home we drove past the horse place and I joked and said – nope, no horses out this time. DH replied “yes there was”. I put the car in reverse thinking he was joking but he wasn’t. I knocked on the door but no one was home so I went to the barn and got a lead rope and a bucket of grain. The whole time I was drooling over the beautiful horses they had in their barn.

I walked out and the filly started to walk towards me. I shook the bucket and bam! She took off the other direction. They pulled in the drive laughing and said “let me guess, there’s a horse out?”. Come to find out they didn’t even think she was halter broke so it probably would have been a task to have gotten her caught. We helped run her into the pasture and I asked them what they did. They are horse traders but I guess I’d classify them as “high end” horse traders. They deal mainly with halter horses and well broke horses.

They walked me through their barn and the scrawny little palomino yearling that we’d help catch a few months ago was now a HUGE beautiful yearling! The only thing I didn’t like about him was his pasterns. They were pretty upright but I’ve been seeing that a lot more in halter horses lately.

They said in the 9 yrs. they’ve lived there they’ve had horses get out 4 times and 3 of the times I’ve found them. DH and I joked and said “they probably think we are letting them out”.

She took my number and I’m hoping to pick up a part time job checking in on their horses while they are gone (they are gone a lot). They had a hired man but he went to work somewhere else and they just haven’t replaced him yet. I sure wouldn’t mind making some extra money right now with the way gas and hay are going to be.

Floods and Drill

Last night we had drill practice. We haven’t practiced in a while due to all of the rain. The road leading to the arena where we are supposed to ride is flooded and closed so even if it wasn’t raining we couldn’t access the arena.

The floods of ’93 were bad enough but they are expecting the floods of 2008 to be worse. Here are a few pictures to help you understand just how bad it’s getting. Of course it’s raining now and they are expecting more tonight and tomorrow with a possible dry day on Fri. & Sat. but then rain again on Sunday. Pretty soon we are going to have to buy a boat to get around!



See how high the water is on the fence?



This is a bike trail but as you can imagine all of the horse trails are flooded and closed as well.



With all of the flooding we had to go to the indoor to practice. When we got there they typically quiet (and empty) barn was packed with people and horses. They were all boarders from downtown DM that had been flooded out of their stables and forced to move their horses. I’m so glad our horses are on high ground!

One of the younger members decided to quit. She was starting to panic when it came to loping and she was forgetting the pattern. This left us with trying to start a new member with just a few weeks to go prior to a performance.

Since the arena was so small and we had a new rider we took things a little slower. We did really well until the last run (we ran it 3 times) at which point Max decided to kick the new rider’s horse. He immediately got corrected but this is not typical behavior for him at all so it took me by surprise. He’s usually pretty good about not kicking & it’s definitely not a habit I want him to pick up.

I’m thinking about putting him in a mechanical hackamore to see how he does. I’ve been fighting a downhill battle with DH riding him. Our styles are so different and I find I fight Max when I get on and ride him. I think if I ride more like DH (well as much as possible) it won’t be as much of a battle for Max and it won’t be so confusing. We’ll just have to wait and see how he does. We have practice again tomorrow night (weather providing) so I’ll put him in one then and see how he responds to it.

Too Cool Not To Share

Just click the play button below. This is about Molly the "miracle" pony.

Natural Rider?

Last night I had a few appointments after work so I didn’t get out to the barn until later. When I got there I found that my sister had been kind enough to clean the stalls for me and sweep the alley (they’d been in the night before due to a storm).

I realize this sounds like a nice, sweet, gesture but it is actually much more. You see sis is scared of the horses. She typically won’t even set foot in the pasture if I’m there and heaven forbid there is a horse anywhere close to the barn. We all grew up with horses (from age 8 up) so I’m not sure where her deep seated fear of horses comes from but it’s real and it’s there so I won’t ignore it.

I know the last show we went to she rode and actually enjoyed herself (at least I think she did). She has asked me to teach her how to ride so she can help her kids more since she knows that for at least one of them (Shari) this passion of horses isn’t going away anytime soon.

My sister has become comfortable with Nikki but it’s hard not to be comfortable around her. Besides being a hair taller than a lab, she’s cute as a button too. I’m trying to get her confidence transferred over to the big horses but that’s posing to be a real challenge.

Last night we (I) saddled up Sis and we went to the RP. I put my sister on and taught her how to flex (although Sis isn’t the best on to show that on since she’s stiffer than a cob) and explained the ORS. While she got comfortable with that I jumped on Max.

She seems to be ok at the walk or the canter (in a small pen or arena) but she is scared to death of the trot! I tried to teach her how to trot & post last night but she wasn’t comfortable giving me the control. When she finally did I was amazed! She is such a natural rider. Her legs are where they need to be, here seat is where it needs to be and beside needing to learn to “feel” the horse a little more she was in cadence with Sis most of the night.

I was pretty ticked! (sarcastic smiley here) I’ve ridden my entire life (well most of it) and I have to work to ride well yet my sister who is afraid of horses has such a natural seat. How does this work again?

I’m proud of her. She’s trying to overcome a fear and I really do think she enjoys the horses. I just think she “thinks” she would enjoy the smaller ones (Nikki, Abby) more but I’ll bet she’s riding the big ones in no time at all!

New Trailer!

Finally! After 9 yrs. of being on my own (married) I finally have my very own trailer! I’m excited but a bit nervous at the same time.

We’ve always used my parent’s two horse trailer. It has done a great job but it’s seen its better days. Lately we’ve been hauling in MIL’s open trailer because it has brakes and it looks nicer (yes I know I’m shallow). The problem we’ve been running into: not having enough room!

It seems like we never take just 2 horses anymore. Even if it is just MIL and I going to drill practice I take two horses of my own and they don’t fit very well in her extended two horse stock trailer.

DH & I went and looked at a used trailer and it was just too small. We wanted something we could potentially finish off with a “weekender” package inside. Looking lit a fire under DH’s and he decided to start looking. There is a new trailer place not to far from us and there is a trailer that I’ve looked at for a long time and have always wanted but figured it was way too expensive so never pursued it.

Needless to say we ended up looking around and always coming back to this trailer so we purchased it Friday! It goes in tomorrow to have an A/C installed, Wednesday our truck gets a hitch installed and by Wednesday afternoon I should have my new trailer!

It is a 2008 Titan Renegade II 3 horse slant gooseneck. The only downfall is that it is a steel trailer but we are poor folks so we had to go with what we could for now. Here is a “spec” picture and a layout. I hope the ponies can get in and out because it does have a pretty high step up! We might have to add a ramp down the road if they have issues.



It has the stud divider, rear collapsible tack, drop down windows, emergency door and the diamond plated covering to help prevent rock chips.



The inside has an 8’ short wall and has a door leading to the stud stall. There are lights all over too! Nothing like being able to see when you are loading!

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

When I was younger I rode quite a few horses. I’d get bored with them by the time they were 3 or 4, sell them and move on to “fresher” horses. One thing I noticed was that “most” of them were fine their 2 yr. old year (yes I started two year olds) but when they were 3 it was like they’d hit the “terrible twos” of a child. They’d test you more just to see what they could get away with.

Since LLL has been here she’s been an angel (in her own witchy angle way) when it’s come to riding outside of the arena. Last night MIL and I decided to ride down the road because every where else was too muddy. LLL was being a stinker and I was reminded of the “terrible twos”. It’s not as fun as I remembered it to be.

We started off down the road, LLL in front and moving out. She decided she wanted to trot (yes I said she decided) so I let her. She’s not a very “forward” moving horse so I don’t discourage forward movement from her at all. All was going well. I was talking to MIL about Lucy spooking. So far she hasn’t spooked with me but there hasn’t been anything to spook her (deer up close, pheasants flying out of the bush, etc.). Not more than two seconds later she spooked.

It wasn’t a huge spook by any means but a spook none the less. I looked at MIL and she looked at me, both of us questioning what in the heck she spooked at. The only thing we could figure was the little sparrow that flew out of the ditch.

Of course LLL’s confidence wasn’t quite as high now so she settled in behind Sis. We went a little further and another “killer” bird flew out from the ditch. This time when she spooked Sis decided to join her. They were both being weird. Sis is usually very good so the only thing we can think of is that the storms we’ve had have made them a little more “sensitive” than normal.

We rode down to the big hill (we call it roller coaster hill) and LLL started stomping her feet, swishing her tail, shaking (which I hate) sideways (like when they shake off dust after rolling). I asked MIL if she had a horse fly on her. Nope – just a regular old house fly was all she could see. I had sprayed her but obviously not enough for her liking. She was not a happy camper. I finally got tired of it and whacked her with the mecate to get her to move on. From there she turned into the drunken sailor and didn’t want to go in a straight line, still pissy about the flies, on an adrenaline rush and spooky at tiny birds.

I stated zig zagging her across the road trying to get her attention back on me. When we hit the bottom of the hill I decided to lope her. We loped to the top of the hill, shying at a few things on the way but when I said “whoa” she was more than willing to stop. Sis was coughing so MIL didn’t want to go too much further so we turned around and headed back.

Going back home wasn’t too bad. We trotted quite a ways. LLL’s head up in the air and her ears perked forward. When we got to the cross road MIL and I started talking about vertical flexion so I’d show her on LLL and she’d try it on Sis. LLL wasn’t the best but she was starting to understand the concept. We’d trot off, squeeze with out legs and ask for softness in the face. Lu was not happy about that! She doesn’t want to be “trained” she wants to be “ridden” and her “tude” shows back up whenever you try to “train”.

I ignored it and we continued. She finally did what I asked and we moved on. We got back home and rode around a few “scary” obstacles and then I laid her down in the back yard for the kids. They thought it was pretty cool. She needs to quit going down like a tree falling. I want to yell “TIMBER” when she goes down.

She seems to be a bit aggressive when she’s down which completely throws me for a loop. She’ll try to strike, bite, etc. but mainly when you are up by her head. She hates her head being touched when she is down (so can you guess what I do). Any other horse I’ve done this with is very “humbled” once they are down. What is weird is that when she’s standing up she could care less what I do to her head.

So I let her get up, took her to the barn & tied her up. I jumped on Sissy because we need to start getting her back into WP mode. She is so stiff! I spent 5 minutes flexing her before we walked off. After that we worked on the bending exercise. This really gets her to soften, drop her head and slow down. MIL was amazed with the results at a trot. We still need to work on her lope but she needs to be a lot softer in her rib cage before I push that too much. At the end of the night she was staying in the circle with her head bent a little and when I’d let her move straight she was moving well.

It was almost 10:00 and I’d lost my sun so it was time to head in for the night. The weather here has been so off and on. It rained all day yesterday but was nice enough for us to sneak in a ride once we got home. I hope we can do the same today. T-storms are expected all week.

Blogger Is Having Issues

It wouldn't let me put this video in the last post so I'm going to try it here. It's just a video of Bishop walking around the pasture. It's not high quality by any means.



I will also add for all of my NH friends that Bishop only has his feet trimmed 1-2 times a year because that is all he needs them trimmed. He has beautiful feet! I need to get pictures. He has a thick hoof wall with a natural bevel to it all of the way around.

He has naturally squared his toes off though and I find that interesting. It’s amazing how pretty those “nasty TB” feet can look. ;)

Meet Mr. Bishop

Mr. Bishop is an OTTB that a friend of mine took in as a rescue several years ago. He had a slab fracture to his knee. One of his eyes is a bit cloudy because for some reason they decided to do a cornea transplant. She isn’t sure why but other than it being a bit cloudy he seems fine. He is HUGE (well for me anyways) but he is beautiful too. He is also a very graceful mover which for some reason I didn’t expect from an OTTB.

My TB experience is very limited. In high school I exercised some TB’s for a gentleman when they weren’t on the track. Other than that, I just picked them up from the trainer at the track or dropped them off. I did however learn that you don’t pull back on them to get them to stop!

T (that’s what we’ll call my friend) has a few horses that will never be placed due to injuries but Mr. Bishop was cleared by the vet to be ridden (even raced) again so she’d like to get him going so he can find a good home. I know her time is limited (she also does wildlife rehabilitation and has 12 baby raccoons and a couple of baby squirrels at the moment) so I’ve offered to help. I’d like to get back into horses the way I “used to” be into them and the only way that is going to happen is by getting a bunch of different horses underneath me.

So last night the weather was lovely (a bit sticky but I won’t complain too much). T got Mr. Bishop out of the pasture and brought him down to the RP for me. I took off the lead, put on a headstall and sent him out. I’ve worked with him once before and had a heck of a time getting my inside turns from him. Anytime I’d step in front of his drive line (even if I was moving backwards) he’d turn away. This time I got my inside turns! I moved back and then over and slowly caught his attention. Anytime he’d start to go into the fence I’d go right back to the hip. It didn’t take much pressure at all to get him going.

He was beautiful moving around the RP! I wish I would have gotten some footage (maybe next time) but it was later than expected and I wanted to keep moving forward. He drives up under himself so naturally and he keeps his head & neck level while he moves. He’d make a beautiful hunter/jumper!

After I got him moving out I decided to saddle him up. I threw my saddle up on him and checked to see how “grithy” he’d be. To my surprise he wasn’t girthy at all so I finished cinching him up and then attached the back cinch and sent him out. That’s when the crow hopping began. Silly boy!

He crow hopped around the arena a bit. I kept changing directions to take his mind off of it but his undies were in a bunch. When he finally quit I retightened the girth (front and back) and sent him back out. He was fine so I brought him in and put my reins on. We did some flexing from the ground. He was stiff! I needed more power! We got some minute gives to the left and some decent ones to the right. I decided to see if I could get on (with the help of a step stool of course.

He felt weird but it was a good weird. When I got on we immediately did some flexing and then I did some yielding of the HQ to loosen him up (and to make sure I could stop him if something did happen). I slowly began to spiral him out and we finally were walking around the edge of the RP. We did some ORS until I felt comfortable enough to trot him. Wow! For a big horse he had a nice trot! I really like this guy. He could be a lot of fun and he could make a really nice horse for someone. The only “problem” I ran into was after a bit of trotting he decided to start tossing his head. I think he was just tired (it had been a while since he’d been ridden and he’s quite plump) so when he’d do it I would turn him hard into the fence and send him on the other direction.

I was amazed at how slow he could go when he got by the gate. Needless to say I let him rest on the opposite side of the RP.

We had a huge storm this morning (I had water in my kitchen) so I’m not sure if I’ll get to work with him tonight or not. I’d like to try to work him every night this week weather providing.

Here are a few pictures (DH took them so this is as good as it gets).



This isn’t me riding (T got on after I rode) but it will show you his size. T is as a little bit smaller than I am and she looks so tiny on him! This was about as high as his head got.