Drill and Dressage Ponies

First off, an update on Mr. Tux (I keep forgetting they call him Tuck now). I absolutely love getting updates on past horses. It makes me so happy!

"Sorry I still haven't gotten pics of Tuck up yet. He's still training up well and looking great. He's in perfect weight about 1400# with no belly. We put him back in his own bit and I bought him a nice bridle with a cavesson and flash - just over $100 from England on Ebay - Rheingold brand. He is a real favorite in the barn. We were very pleased with the job you did with Tuck. Have a good summer."


His "own bit" would be the Myler loose ring, versus they had him in a Sprenger loose ring for a while. Not sure why the bridle is relevant, lol but I'm thrilled that he's going well! He is such a fancy dressage horse, I can't wait to see pictures and I hope she starts showing him soon. And hey, they might be interested in Misty so I could have two horses in the same area! I need to take them up on their offer to come up and stay a weekend to visit Tux and take lessons with his owner's sister who's a dressage trainer. 

In my current horse land... Monday I rode Jetta, the poor ponies were completely forgotten last week with the busyness. Two and a half weeks till summer!! She wasn't as amazing as she'd been the past few rides. She warmed up quite spooky and full of herself on the lunge line. Probably didn't help that I'd decided to lunge at the spooky end of the arena. 

It kind of set the tone for the rest of the ride. She wasn't bad, she was just tense and didn't want to soften or unlock her jaw so we ended up doing a lot of serpentines and counterbending to get her to relax. The counterbending helped a lot and by the end she was a lo more supple doing the serpentines than at first, but it was still just an eh sort of ride. I can't wait till I can ride her more regularly as I'm sure that's 90% of the problem. 

Jetta looks fat too. Geez. But what I was hoping you could see (but can't) is that she's got some nice sweat at the base of her withers. Yay, lifting at the base of her neck!

How Jetta feels about baths

Misty was very good today. I think she needs to have her grain drastically cut though, lol. She's definitely a chunk at the moment and after watching her gallop around me for about 5 minutes on the lunge... she certainly doesn't need the extra energy! It's funny what a change this past year has brought! Last year I was stuffing her full of all sorts of orchard grass hay and alfalfa and grain and still pondering what else I could give her to boost her energy levels. 

We had a nice dressage ride, until I discovered a major training hole. We have absolutely zero ability to do a counter canter. Like none. First off it's so hard it's nearly impossible to get her to pick up the "wrong" lead. You cue for it, she gets it for a stride then immediately switches to the "correct" lead. Finally I convinced her that she could canter in a straight line on the wrong lead. Then as soon as she'd get any sort of "turn" going, she'd switch. By the end, we could make it halfway around a corner before switching, so I just called it good. We'll come back to that. 

So to end the ride, I picked up the flag again. I think she'll make a nice drill horse! She could care less about the flag and we cantered around with it snapping in the wind. I've always wanted to try drill! Jazz was the only horse I could have ever done it with and the absolute one thing she was terrified (this is the horse that would go through, over, under, between anything) was flags. 

Flag pony!

Then I decided to play around on her back to make sure she'd tolerate any shenanigans likely to be thrown at her if she gets a young rider. She could care less, but note to self: apparently I am too old now to slide off the butts of my horses because I tweaked my knee coming off. Oww. 

The result of the butt-sliding. Misty's going through round 2 of shedding I think...

Mostly Complete Update

Lots of little things all happening right now. School has been kicking my butt this week but I'm handling it. Unfortunately the ponies have gotten the short end of the stick through all of this. I rode Jetta on Monday. That was it.

But we had a really good ride. I think we're finally making progress!

So, the news (fair warning - no pictures and very wordy post!):

I finally found out how Misty and I did at the trail competition. At the last competition we got third in the Open division! Wow, I was surprised that we made it all the way up to Open! At the show before that one we were 4th I think in Amateur? Like I predicted though, there was no belt buckle :( Basically I had to get First in Amateur or Novice, but since I got First in Novice at the first show, that knocked me into the Amateur division so I wasn't eligible to win Novice. Bummer... I ended up with an overall score of third in Amateur. So close! The lady that won the Amateur division definitely deserved it though. She's a good friend that I've known through JF for years. An older lady with two horses who does natural horsemanship/classical dressage (albeit western) and takes her time with her horses. She did a very good job with her horse Champ, even doing some obstacles that no one else was able to complete! And she's been competing in the trail competitions for as long as they've been going on and has never won a buckle.... So I guess I can gracefully concede the victory to her, seeing as I have 5 horse belt buckles ;)

In other news, I finally got my new dressage show breeches! I've been hemming and hawing over what to get and then ultimately decided my budget ($150) wasn't large enough to allow a purchase of what I really wanted and I didn't want to spend money on something I didn't completely love. Along comes ebay... I've been searching forever for the "right pair" to come up cheap enough. I found a pair of Tropical Rider breeches with the deerskin full seat, that I really liked. Higher waisted than I would have preferred... but for $40 I was sold! And then they came and the zipper was missing... Uh, yeah. Not in the description. But a quick trip to get it altered to have a new zipper put in, voila! New-ish. The seat is slightly stained from the saddle making it look gray, which is totally fine for me since I like white breeches with gray seats.

Then, the even cooler purchase... While perusing ebay I found a pair of Dove gray FITS for sale. Oooh, gorgeous! I liked them so much better than the white. Instant love. But they were the wrong size so I decided that I'd save up and buy them for myself when I had the money. But still casually perusing ebay I found a pair. Dove gray. In my size. Brand new! And in my price range :) And I won! I got myself some brand new FITS for $90.

Can you tell I'm in love with ebay? Two pairs of awesome breeches for under my original budget for one pair of breeches. Score!

In other pony news, I've talked to both Jazz and Tux's new owners and they're both doing well! I love so much to hear about them. I miss them both so much.

Tux's owner (older lady) was retiring in the spring and with all of that preparation didn't have time to ride so he got the whole spring off and just hung out in the pasture. Which I'm totally sure was completely fine with him. I can only imagine how rotund he became ;) Then she fell and broke her wrist at the beginning of the summer. So obviously no riding. But once she was almost healed she sent him off to "school" with her sister, a dressage trainer, and he's now getting ridden 5 times a week, 3 of those being trainer rides and he's doing really well it sounds like! She was telling me all about how he's now going in a KK Sprenger snaffle (vs the Myler) and seems to like it better and it really starting to reach down and out for the bit. What a good pony. I really hope she gets him going well and maybe shows him. Or she offered to let me come stay with her in Washington for a long weekend and visit with him/take some lessons with her sister. Um, yes please!

Then with Jazz I talked to the mom of her little girl and it sounds like things are going perfectly and that they love her. I was stalking pictures and someone commented on a pic of Jazz that they wanted to come learn to ride and Jazz's owner was telling the person how amazing their daughter's horse is and that she's "trained to the nine's" and would be perfect for them to ride. Cue proud mom moment! Then the lady that won the trail competition that I commented about above? She went riding at Elijah Bristow park where Jazz lives close to and was talking to this random lady riding a black mare... And the lady was saying how her horse has done everything - trail competitions, etc. And my friend looked at the horse and said "Hm, is your horse's name Jazz??" And it was! So I have from a second source that Jazz is looking good :)

So happy. I always worry when I sell a horse.

And the most exciting of all exciting updates? ENDURANCE RIDE THIS SATURDAY. Gosh, I'm so excited! Everything just fell together absolutely perfectly. I wasn't going to do this ride even though at the beginning of the year I was definitely planning on it just because they're were other events this weekend so I decided to do those instead. But as it got closer, I decided screw it, I haven't gotten in my goal of doing an endurance ride this year and this is the second to last ride and it's PERFECT so let's do it! Of course I decided this about a week and a half ago... Queen of procrastination I tell you.

This meant that I needed to find some way to contain Jetta overnight at the ride since I don't have anything. I talked to JF whose hubby sells portable corrals to see if I could borrow a set. Score! I went and picked them up last night. Her hubby was helping me load them and asked what the event was. I told him I was going to try out endurance. He used to do endurance a long time ago. His comment "Well if I had known that these panels were for such a worthy cause!" He does just cow stuff now and I honestly can't imagine him doing endurance but it sounds like he really loved it. He still has one of his endurance Arabs, an old grumpy guy named Lone Star. He gave me a few tips and wished me luck!

Then about a week ago I was perusing the local endurance FB page and found a thread about trail conditions at the ride. The general consensus was that it was so rocky that you needed to either boot all around or shoe with pads all around. Geez. And guess what? I only have front boots. Crap. Frantic search for boots led to the discovery that no where local stocks easyboots in my size and my farrier only had boots that were too big or too small. Last minute I finally found a place that could order boots in and have them in by Friday for me to pick up. Win! I went and picked them up this afternoon. Let us pray that they fit well...

Now just to go to my last class of the day then gather up all the last minute randomness needed for this weekend! I CANNOT WAIT. I am just too excited right now!

Shopping spree!

So excited. So after selling Tux I got a portion of his sale price for his training and what-not so I get to go shopping!

Well, not really a spree per-say since I only bought two things but they were big purchases!

First of all - new boots. I've had my tall boots for seven years at least and while they're still in pretty near perfect condition they don't really fit anymore. Actually, they never did fit. The lady at the tack store who measured me told me to get extra slim, extra tall. Aaand they've always been too slim. I've had them stretched multiple times but I still can't zip them up all the way if I want to maintain my circulation. At the time I thought they'd stretch and I needed them to show so...

Anyways, new boots! Introducing the De Niro Leuca's:

I really wanted a side zip because my boots rub the back of my ankle even with thick socks so I'm excited for these. I really wanted to get La Mundial boots but since they won't be in my state until September and they take three months minimum I decided I couldn't wait. But if I don't like the De Niro's I'm going to get the Mundial's for sure.

They should be here by Friday :)

And I almost got some new schooling boots that would fit me so I could get rid of my old Ariat's. I found these used brown Mundial's on ebay (LOVE brown boots!) but I got outbid :( They would have been perfect too - they even had the right measurements! I keep hoping they might turn up again on ebay...

Aren't they gorgeous?! I envy the person who won them...

Second purchase - a navy Pikeur skarlett jacket with a black velvet collar. I love the washable fabric trend since I'm too lazy to take my coats to the dry cleaner plus they're a lot cooler for summer shows. And I like the shorter length just because. So excited! Now all my show jumping tack will match - blue jacket, blue pad and blue elastic breastplate. This will probably take a while to get since I ordered from the UK through Amira Equi because they're less than half the cost of the US retailers. And they're manafactured at 8 to 10 week intervals so I'm hoping to at least have it for the Inavale HT.

 Tack (well, show clothing) whoring for the win!

Four on the Floor

Update on Tux: He made it to his new home safely. M called me to tell me that he had arrived and today I saw some FB photos of him in his new, all-body coat. I think she has the right idea, but I have to say it's a losing battle in keeping him clean!

Shamelessly stolen from FB. Isn't he cute! Miss him already.

Anyways, today was fun. I headed out to the barn to see Jetta - I haven't seen her since Friday morning because I went and hung out at the beach this weekend. It was beautiful! Almost felt like it was spring or summer it was so nice, which of course made me wish that I had brought Jetta to go galloping!



I decided to ride bareback since I was being so lazy and after lunging her breifly hopped on and walk/trotted around. I think it was a combination of someone hauling in to ride with an unfamiliar horse and the fact that I was making Jetta jog instead of letting her trot out, but she leaped up into the air TWICE, rearing straight up almost to full height.

I was pretty sure I was going to come off, but somehow managed to cling on and once I got her to have all four hooves on the floor (always a good thing...) I slid off and lunged her again.

She was so hyper! She was definitely showing off for the other horse and was prancing around spooking at everything. I just let her run, and run, and run until she decided she was done. She was super sweaty so I let her have a good roll then walked her around to cool out.

Probably not the best idea to ride bareback after having a couple days off...

In other exciting news, my dad finally finished my Christmas  present - a slow hay feeder box! It still needs a few tweaks, but so far so good. Usually Jetta finishes her hay in about an hour or two, but now it lasts about 5 hours. Much better! I think this will make her a lot happier and hopefully prevent any ulcer issues, plus she's getting an extra snack flake of hay in the afternoon.

New Home

Tux left for his new home today. He is on the trailer as we speak and probably won't get there until around 7 tonight. I'm going to miss him so much! I know he'll have a good home, but still. I have been stressing all morning since I wasn't able to be there to get him on the trailer for the hauler, especially because it's an unfamiliar trailer and they had two minis they were hauling as well. 

Luckily I got a good report from my mom that he loaded up perfectly despite eyeballing the scary minis. What a good boy.

The vet check went well yesterday. Tux was a good boy for the vet and didn't have any problems. He said that Tux was one of the soundest horses he had seen in weeks. He liked is conformation and movement too. Tux was so funny, we used my neighbor's arena to lunge in and Tux was hyper! He was showing off for everyone - the vet, the vet tech and my neighbor. His tail was up, neck arched and prancing around. What a show off :)

I'm hoping his new owner (ahhh, it's sad to say that) will keep in touch and keep me updated on how he's doing!

Here are some pictures from yesterday, my last day with him.

Big News

Well, I had some big news to share over the weekend and uh, I guess I kind of forgot to share it!

Don't ask me how I forgot to blog about it since I've been thinking of it all week, but here it is.


Drumroll please...


...


...


I sold Tux!

Finally had someone (actually two someones) interested in him and so the first person came down to look at him, made an offer and I accepted!

I think this will be a good home, it's the lady, we'll call her M, I mentioned a while back that wanted to ship him to her, but she ended up being able to come down.

I got Tux all cleaned up the night before then the next day just washed his legs so he was sparkling clean. I even blow dryed his feathers so they wouldn't turn into instant mud in the arena (of course Tux could care less about the hair dryer - he stood there with his head down enjoying it without anyone holding him).

Hauled Tux to the indoor arena a few minutes away since it was raining. He loaded up perfectly in the trailer, unloaded, tacked up and rode around. We hadn't been to this arena since I first started him undersaddle and boy was he looky! I was slightly frustrated with him because he was blowing off my left leg and snorting at everything - the posters on the wall, the new flag for the cow horses, the hay around the end of the arena, etc. etc.

They kept saying they didn't mind though - especially if this was his "worst". The sister hopped on, she's a dressage trainer, and Tux was quite good for her, though a bit lazy in the canter. M got on and walked and trotted around. I guess she's getting back into riding after breeding horses for a few years - she'd breed them and her sister would sell and train them. Anyways, she's very knowledgeable but a bit out of practice. Tux was very good with her and she loved how easy his trot was to sit.

The plan is for Tux to have his pre-purchase exam done tomorrow then the hauler is coming on Friday to pick him up! Of course it's not finalized until after the vet check, so it could fall through, but I don't anticipate any problems so hopefully this doesn't jinx it!

I'm actually quite sad that he's leaving. In the past I haven't had a problem selling horses, but I think it's because he's going so far away (well, 6 hours so it wouldn't be impossible for me to come visit) and the fact that I clicked so well with him and if I didn't want to jump, I would probably be up for keeping him (well, besides the fact that I have Jetta and I don't want to sell her either). On the ride back to school I teared up when it finally hit me that my boy was going. Hopefully I don't start bawling when the trailer arrives for him...

All time favorite picture of him

At the beach

First indication that maybe he'd make a nice dressage horse!

Recently started under saddle

Not quite started undersaddle

My non-horsey roommate riding him

The cuteness

Bringing home the ribbons

Fat horse muzzle hatred

Dork

Western saddle = postage stamp

In the dreaded pony torture chamber

Playing the brave trail pony

First day at my place in Fall 2011

Sale Question

Ok, I have a question for all of you out there that have sold a horse in the past. I finally have someone who is seriously interested in Tux, but she lives out of state. I am completely fine with selling him out of state, but she doesn't think she can come down to try him out, plus she wants her vet to do the pre-purchase exam so instead she wants to ship him up to her and do a lease-to-buy sort of thing. She says she could probably decide in two weeks whether or not she wants to keep him.

She seems like a nice lady, her sister with whom she rides is an accomplished dressage trainer and she likes Tux because he reminds her of one of her first horses, a black pinto who she bought at 12 and trained to dressage, retiring him at Grand Prix at 26, then he lived to be 37!

Anyways, thoughts? She would basically just find a trailer that's going her way to hitch a ride, not a commercial shipper, it's only a roughly 6 hour drive. We would of course have a contract drawn up, etc. I'd probably ask for a couple references to talk to as well, then he would also need a Coggins pulled and a health certificate. I've just never had experience selling a horse across state lines, so is this something you would do or say no?

In addition, I had a comment the other day about his sale listing, so if anyone is interested, here's the link to the dreamhorse ad. And of course you have this whole blog to see all the pictures and videos of him :)

http://www.dreamhorse.com/show_horse.php?form_horse_id=1841327

Time is Short

Had a good session with Tux today. I didn't ride but instead did some liberty work. I couldn't find my halter (turns out it was right in front of my face) and since all the barn doors were closed I let him out of the stall, he ground tied while I took his blanket off then followed me into the arena. He followed me back and forth as I set up a little jump for him. I love that he's starting to trust me more and more!

I free lunged him for a bit and it took a little while for him to realize that jumping was ok. The barrels are not for kicking or stepping on. As I was putting the jumps away I kicked out the bouncy ball for him to play with. I can't get over how cute it is! He kicked it around a bit then got to work demolishing the jumps. He was so proud of himself. He walked up to a jump block, delicately stepped over with one leg and then the other. He looked back at me then finished walking over it with his hind legs without knocking it over. That's what I was supposed to do right mom? So cute. Then he turned around and nudged it over with his nose.

Afterwards I finally found his halter and we worked on entering the dreaded pony torture chamber wash rack. It took a few minutes of convincing but I finally got him to go in. I let him relax in there, then practiced leading in and out a handful of times, then ended by sending him in by himself and making him stand there for a minute. It apparently wasn't that bad, since he did survive. He might have to actually get a bath next time...

Tux got lucky and scored a move into the big stall. It's about 12x16 or 20 so it fits him perfectly :) I've decided to board him for another month or at least until he sells, especially as it's started raining in earnest now (it was pouring today!) and that won't stop until about the 4th of July. In order to afford this whole, boarding two horses thing, I am going to start cleaning stalls 5 days a week. Oh the joy - full time in school, plus riding two horses, plus cleaning 10 stalls a day. But it's worth it.

I can't put into words how much I don't want to sell this horse. But I can't afford to actively ride, board, compete, etc. with two horses. It's just not financially possible while I'm in school which sucks. I've really become attached to him - of course I've liked all the other horses I've trained, but I love his personality, I love how hard he tries and I really do think he has the potential to do well in dressage. But I want to event. I do love dressage, but I couldn't give up my jumping goals. So as soon as school is out for the term, I will list him on dreamhorse and hope he doesn't sell too quickly....

In the meantime though, we are going to a dressage schooling show on December 1st and then going to school the Mountain Trail Course on the 7th. Hopefully somewhere in there I'd like to have a lesson with TS and see what she thinks of the monster pony and maybe she can help in placing him in a good home with one of her clients. We shall see!