Ho Hum

Basically nothing interesting has been happening. Work, work and... oh yeah, more work. I've been counting myself successful if I ride three days a week.

But the pony time that I have been getting has been good. Misty's been getting most of the attention since she is the one for sale right now. Our last dressage ride was fantastic.

Yesterday, both girls got lunged and bathed. Then the farrier came and trimmed their toes and they got wormed. Fun day I'm sure for them, lol. It's been forever since they got their hooves done since I've just been touching them up every so often when they look long or rough around the edges. It's been maybe five months?! Partly why I love having them barefoot! But Misty's hooves like to grow in a weird fashion because of her scar that I'm not comfortable with "fixing" plus they both had a lot of false sole going on and some wavy/overgrown bars which I don't want to deal with, so farrier it was.

In other news, Misty is learning the ropes of doing more bridleless and liberty work. She's catching on a lot, but we haven't quite progressed to absolute freedom in the saddle with no bridle, I still have the halter on as back up. It's so fun though! I miss riding Jazz and Grady bridleless. Well, I miss them in general.

Anyways, after Misty got lunged I stuck her in the wash stall and didn't cross tie her. She was perfect and didn't move a muscle, save making some grumpy faces when I got the water too close to her face. I wish Jetta was as trustworthy! But I've done four clicker sessions with her in the wash rack and now she walks in without even pausing (we were previously bickering for a couple minutes before she'd get in) and now she mostly stands still 90% of the time without pawing or bobbing her head. Success!

Sneak peek for my next post. Super blurry video still, but hey! We both have fairly good position!

Long Update

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a crazy weekend and I just haven't had the time or patience to sit down and write out a post! But I have lots of pics to make up for it.

So let's see...

Thursday

I went and looked at the barn of the people who want to buy Jazz. It wasn't anything fancy but the fencing was sound, all the stalls were matted (albeit a little wonkily) and had runs attached. Footing in the arena looked adequate and there was some turnout. They live right across the street from my favorite horse trails to ride on and have a creek running through the property that they can swim the horses on. Fun! So it's almost official. Jazz will probably go to her new home sometime next week.

I also lunged Jetta and she looked perfectly sound and definitely ready to go back undersaddle. She got her toes trimmed while I was out and was quite fresh. I meant to bring tack home to ride her in, but completely forgot. I briefly considered riding sans tack in a halter but luckily decided against it. If it had been Jazz or Grady I would have hopped on and gone on a trail ride but Jetta? After almost a month off? I think not...

Showing off her fancy trot in the rain

SO FANCY

Jetta says hi and wants to say that this is still her blog, she doesn't understand why she hasn't been on here recently!

Being a crazypants.

Friday

Went on a trail ride with my friend AR. Her horse just had his teeth floated so she ended up riding Jazz and we just went down the street to her grandparent's house. It was nice to get out of the arena since I haven't trail ridden in quite a while! Jazz was just amazing as usual - the turkeys flying out of the brush at us unexpectedly and AR's decidedly non-horse sense dog running between her legs didn't even cause a flick of her ear. Misty was not quite as nonchalant but wasn't spooky. It was a gorgeous day since it finally decided to stop raining and let the sun come out!

B-e-a-u-tiful day for a trail ride!

AR on Jazz and Sammy the dog ahead of us on the trail

Saturday

No pony time unfortunately.

Sunday

Finally made it out to the barn. Saturday was a little crazy so I definitely needed my time with the girls. I had fantastic rides on both of them, both in dressage tack. Can I just say that Jazz has an amazing lengthened trot? For a QH especially. Jetta needs to take some notes. And speaking of Jetta, I am SO EXCITED to start riding her again. Funny how much I've missed her despite her being such a tough horse to ride.  Misty is doing good, she too has such a nice trot once she gets in the "groove". I feel like we've reached the point where her jog has become well established enough that we can play with transitions within the gaits and it's going well. Canter... not so much. But progress is progress and I'll take it!

Why do I even bother making her clean?!

Needed my saddle/barn time

It was a matchy-matchy kind of day.

So that's life! I have my fingers crossed that tomorrow is going to be another trail ride, either with AR or maybe if she flakes on me I'll take both girls for a ride and pony one. Life with horses is good :)

The Amazing Jasmine

I'm back! I had a great trip, though I definitely missed my ponies and one of the first things I did today was go visit Misty and Jazz. 

I mentioned a while ago that I got Jazz back. She was supposed to be leased to a lady for a whole year, but she ended up not being able to keep her for the full time and had to bring her back after nine months which was really sad because they got along perfectly.

The plan is to find Jazz a new home, hopefully permanently. I can't offer her the attention she needs. She could retire at my parent's place, but they are not horse people and after what happened with Grady, I'd really like her to have someone who is actually a horse person to look after her. With that said, she is definitely not ready to retire and while I was worried when she was coming home that maybe it would be time, after simply watching her run around the pasture her first day home, I knew she wasn't ready!

I hopped on her the next day and she was great. Definitely still in western pleasure pony mode, but she felt fantastic. No stiffness at all. This is a horse I rode almost every day for 7 years - english, western, trail, eventing, lessons, you name it, she did it! And I'm just amazed that she hasn't needed injections in all that time. This is what good breeding is all about!

After that one ride, she basically sat for 2 weeks. She did nothing but eat, which was good because she needed some weight unfortunately. Luckily for her, putting weight on is simply a matter of getting turned out on pasture = instant hay belly.

I came home for a weekend and as the sun was setting - my absolute FAVORITE time to ride - I decided to go for a spin on Jazz. Of course I hadn't brought any tack with me, so it was bareback and in a halter. Gosh this horse is amazing! I forgot what it was like to ride a trained horse that I could trust without a doubt.

This lead to me asking my mom in the morning if she'd take some pictures of Jazz and I. My greatest regret is not having pictures of Grady and I that showed what an amazing bond we had. While my bond with Jazz is not quite as strong, I still wanted to have something to show what an incredible horse she is, so we went to the neighbor's outdoor arena and had an impromptu photo shoot bareback and brideless. Gosh this horse is amazing.

Note: I hate not wearing a helmet and I honestly do 99.9% of the time because I know accidents do happen regardless of how good a rider you are and how perfect your horse is. And I also want to set a good example for those around me. With that said, I did choose not to ride with a helmet, simply for aesthetic reasons. These are going to be pictures I'm going to frame and while I think riding without a helmet just because it doesn't "look good" is silly, I'm going to be hypocritical. I still think it's a good idea to wear a helmet at all times. Honestly, it felt really weird and I didn't like not having my helmet on...

I love how they turned out. The lighting was perfect - the sun was coming up and the background sky was a stormy dark grey.

My favorite for sure

You can see her itchy spots where she's rubbed herself raw unfortunately. Which is why I decided to move her up to the barn near school so that she can heal and Jetta can just sit at home until she gets all healed.

I went out to see her yesterday after I got back from my trip and she was way, way better. Hardly any scabs left and the hair is already starting to grow back, whew. She is much happier up here! I lunged her a little bit then did some liberty work. Ahhhh, I love how good she is! She is such a pretty, smart and well behaved horse. Worth her weight in gold and I hope I can find someone who loves her as much as I do! I so wish I had the time and money for three horses because she is definitely one of those one in a million kind of horses.