Fun Derby

Playing a little but of catch-up with blogging. I started vet school last week, so I won't probably be posting much, not that I really was before, anyways.

I had a really fun derby last weekend with Misty.

The weather turned out perfectly for it and it was just a short drive to our favorite eventing facility. I entered Beginner Novice, as per usual.

Misty warmed up really well, though we're still going to be dealing with issues of her avoiding contact and not relaxing over her back.

Dressage went fine. There was really nothing I could complain about. She listened well and was a tad lazy, as is normal when in the dressage ring. She could have been steadier in the bridle and more connected to the bit over her back, and the comments reflected that, but I was happy with our 32.9 putting us in second place. We even got an 8 on our final halt which was awesome! Misty loves to either halt too abruptly (but very obediently!), brace in the bridle and/or not halt straight (she likes to step her hip to the left one step, oddly enough) but apparently there was no issue with that!

Since it was a derby, stadium and cross country were combined. I had been hoping that we'd get to go schooling before the show, but I wasn't about to take her with three shoes, so we never got the chance. But she was pretty good! We had one rail in the combination, but we were otherwise clear. She really sucked back before every jump as if she was going to refuse, which was annoying, but I know it's just going to take a little while before she realizes that I'm not going to grab or hang onto her mouth. I was pretty exaggeratedly throwing her the reins almost over the jump.



There was a photographer there that snapped a couple pics of Misty and I.  I didn't like any of the dressage ones (we look awful in every single one) but the jumping ones kinda turned out nice, so I'm trying to decide which one or two to buy. I kinda like the above one, even though I'm throwing away my reins. And I kinda like the one below, since it's my (least) favorite (scary) jump, but I have a terrible face and it's a little out of focus. Hum.



Overall it was a really fun little show to go to and we placed first in our division. I was so excited that they were giving out awesome prizes - I got an embroidered Kerrits jacket! Not too shabby, I definitely love my little roany paint pony!

Hooves and Hoofprints

In terms of hooves, Misty finally got her poor overgrown hooves done finally almost a week after she got home. They were in dire need of having her 3 shoes pulled and those long toes cut off. It was slightly ridiculous how long they were. AC also discovered that she probably abscessed (maybe the reason for her lameness "stone bruise" a few weeks ago?). She had a two inch pointy piece of wood jammed underneath her shoe against her frog with a nasty pocket of black goop that smelled disgusting, and a little track up the outside of her heel bulb like that was where the abscess came out. Poor girl. Shoes are definitely not for us. She seemed so much more comfortable once they were off. Even with two months of shoes, AC was saying how nice and hard her hooves were. We might have some ugly chipping once her nail holes grow down,  but that girl has some nice hooves!

She got plenty of thrush buster applied and then a white lightning soak . Then an application of some Keratex and I think she'll be good to go! We'll have to keep an eye on that pocket though and make sure nothing else gets stuck in there.

In terms of hoofprints, I finally got my long awaited second tattoo in memory of Grady (if you don't remember him, see my "In Loving Memory" tab above). I had to put him down in 2013 and I still think of him almost every day. I finally decided what I wanted last year but never got around to it. I finally got it on Monday and I love it! I have my favorite horse's hoofprint on my wrist now. I'm thinking I might add his initial to it eventually, but I need to find something pretty that will be able to be made small, since my initial design was turned down by the tattoo artist as too detailed to do in the size I wanted.

And the last bit of news. Jazz, my most amazing mare of all time, is in need of a new home. Her forever home has gone through some financial issues and downsizing and can't keep her as was planned. I of course will take her to retire at my parent's if needed. But she won't have anyone to dote on her like she deserves. I know most bloggers aren't in my region, but if anyone in the Oregon area knows of a little kid who wants an extremely safe horse to ride and groom, she would make the perfect grandkids horse or companion horse. She's 24 now so she's probably not up to being competitive anymore (she was a 4-H horse for the last couple years). I'm bummed that she doesn't have her perfect retirement set up anymore, but I love the Jazzy-girl, so if she ends up coming home, I'm looking forward to seeing her again!

Next post will be about the fun derby we went to on Sunday the weekend before last!

Earth-shattering and the tally

So first, the good news. The earth-shattering news. The, I RODE JETTA DURING FEEDING TIME news. It was seriously one of the most relaxed rides we've had to date. Not to mention, it was the first ride during feeding time that she didn't lose her sh*t the entire time.

Normally, I avoid riding at feeding time. With Jetta, it's a recipe for disaster. Not only do we have normal spooks, but we have bolts, spins, rears, buck and just general shenanigans. With Misty it's not nearly as bad, but she just constantly looks at the food lady as if she's some poor starving feral pony who doesn't get at least two square meals a day.

But anyways. I hopped on Jetta without first lunging. Of course I was worried about this, since I think the last day I rode her was on Friday. But it was a non-issue. The barn was busy. Several people were collecting their horses out of the pasture. Someone was lunging a hyper horse in the roundpen, another was lunging the horse and using excessive cues in the arena we were in. Plus the barn manager was feeding the horses from the loft, so there was a lot of feed throwing and whinnying going on. But Jetta was calm. Almost verging on lazy actually. Slow lazy, which is unusual for her. Jetta is a lazy horse in general, but her laziness is by being speedy. That way she can rush and rush without actually using her body correctly. She is a thoroughbred after all, so fast is her method of travel.

But today was so nice. Lots of figure-8's to change her bend and keep her focused on the task at hand.  A little shoulder-in to get her using that hind end since she was lazy and I didn't have a whip and didn't want to make her too reactive.

It was a nice change of pace though, and I really enjoyed my ride on her. I didn't want to get off.

Misty was another story. She is finally home! Sorry I'm lacking on the photographic evidence. She arrived on Sunday. I hopped on her for a short bareback/halter ride because of course I couldn't resist. She was wonderful. A tad sassy (I think her back is sore from an ill-fitting saddle) but she listened perfectly to all of my cues. Neck reined amazingly since I was only riding with one "rein". I had a blast and was so happy my little roany paint pony was home.

The bad stuff though, the tallying up the bad stuff so to say. As soon as I got her home, I saw her neck muscling. We had some pretty good muscling going on when she left that she looked kinda sport horse-y. All gone. She has some mega-under neck muscling going on. As soon as I saw that I knew she was being brace-y from someone riding with unforgiving hands. Which I had kinda anticipated, given that she was ridden by a green rider, but it was still disappointing to get on and feel all of our hard work unraveled. I rode her yesterday in an actual saddle and bridle and she braced, wanted to be a drama llama and wouldn't flex right. Her transitions were braced and abrupt, she wasn't steady in the bridle and she didn't want to hold contact.

I'm sure we'll work through it quickly, and I knew it was bound to happen, but still disappointing. She didn't want to ground tie while unsaddling but she stood well in the wash rack. She is shedding like mad right now, of course. That horse sheds more than any horse I've ever met before. But she tacked up perfectly without any sign of the girthiness her lessor mentioned. The real kicker is that she came back with very overgrown hooves and only three shoes. Great. And my farrier can't make it until Friday. Lovely. So she's pretty uneven while riding, but definitely not lame. So that's sort of good.

But I had a short and sweet jump school today. She was awesome. I was worried that she'd been "taught" to refuse after seeing her school, but she didn't even think about. She took some reallllly long spots, but otherwise was fantastic. I can't wait for the show on Sunday!

So it's a good and bad. Not really bad, just not great? Regardless, I'm happy my Misty-moo is home and excited for how great a ride I had with the Jetta-monster.

Too Busy

It's been much too busy around here lately so I am quite overdue for an update. The new stuff:

I recently moved houses. I love the new place where I'm living. It's farther away from campus but closer to the barn. I'm living with my vet friend KP and another horse friend AC.

School starts on the 21st! I'm very excited as well as nervous. I've dreamed of vet school for a long time, so I can hardly believe that that dream is becoming a reality. So there have been lots of preparations for that.

Misty should be home soon. Well, hopefully Sunday is the plan. She never competed at the second HT. Which I wasn't notified about until AFTER the show, because she had a stone bruise on her hoof. Which I was not pleased about. Then she didn't compete at the third HT because the lessor found a new horse for her daughter so she didn't need Misty anymore. So... She at least got to go to one HT and is hopefully a little more fit because of it? Hopefully she didn't pick up too many bad habits while there. I'm pretty excited for her to be back though. I missed my roany paint pony!

Jetta's been good. I've been riding her about 3 days a week. She still is not close to where we were when I stopped riding her, but I'm pleased that she hasn't forgotten everything. I had a lovely ride the other day where I asked her for a canter-walk-canter transition and she did it very willingly with very few to no trot steps in between.

Basically we're just trying to build up strength so that she can correctly carry herself, as she's still pretty inconsistent in the bridle and heavy on the forehand. But she's trying. We did some trot poles yesterday and she was foot perfect. I missed riding her!




That Mohawk though



Topline, where are thou?!



Looking pretty cute though

We're planning on competing at the local eventing derby on the 21st. It should be a lot of fun since I haven't done any eventing shows this year. I'm planning on just riding Misty, but if Jetta is good, maybe I'll add her entry too. We shall see!

Misty's First Recognized HT

Misty completed her first recognized horse trial last weekend with her young rider aboard. I was super nervous for them which was funny, since I wasn't riding. I was obsessively checking the online scores all weekend. They had a large field of 21 riders in the junior beginner novice division.

I was a little bummed that they ended up solidly in the middle of the pack, but in reality that was pretty good for a young rider on a new horse.

They ended up dead last in dressage which was really surprising. I was thinking that they'd end up with maybe a 37-39 since she consistently scores low 30's with me. I was pretty blown away to see that they got a 46. I know dressage is not her rider's strong point, but I really hope they're able to improve in this area!

They had one rail in stadium, then I was very excited to see that they got a double clear cross country run! This moved them up to finish in 12th place. Not too bad!

They had a dressage lesson this weekend so I hope that helped because they are competing this weekend at Caber Farms HT. I would love to see them with a ribbon! Then they are finishing out the competition season the first weekend of September at Aspen Farms HT.

I am splitting the cost of a CD of pictures with SH, but in the meantime, here's an awesome proof!

XC Schooling and more horse selling nonsense

Last Sunday, Misty's lessor was planning on schooling cross country near me at Inavale. I scheduled an interested buyer to come and see her. I have to say, I'm about ready to give up on selling this horse and just keep her already. I absolutely adore her and she's fantastic and trying to sell her sucks. I don't have time for two horses... But still.

The person that came to see her was so rude. The lessor is notoriously late and slow to get ready. I warned the group that came of this. They said nothing about time constraints. SH joked with them about how she was slow as mud getting ready, and asked the girl some questions. She never came over to say hi to Misty or asked any of her own questions. Misty's rider was having trouble with the studs but was just about ready to hop on when the group said they were done waiting, they had other horses to see and up and left. 

Later they sent me an email saying that SH was "rude" to them (she wasn't, she might be brusque sometimes, but she was being nice to them) and that they couldn't spend that much time waiting. I resisted sending a snarky email back that it is considered courteous to let all parties involved know that you are on a tight schedule so they can make an effort to hurry things along, especially since they had wasted a lot of my time in coordinating this event and by taking time out of my day to be there for it. I was very annoyed by this. 

But anyways, it was still a pretty good day. I got to watch Misty's lessor school her cross country. Misty's looking a lot more fit, though I didn't like how girthy she was acting while tacking up. She always holds her leg up since she knows she can't paw, but she never bites the air. They're using a nylon girth, which I think is the main problem, plus tightening it up too much, too quickly. 

Misty was having a lot of refusals because her lessor didn't have her leg on. She's used to riding hotter horses that you have to hold back instead. She needs to put her leg on and kiss a couple strides away versus kicking right at the base of the jump - this will fix their crooked approach, refusals and bunny hops. 

At least Misty is tolerant. She gamely cantered through the water and tried hard. She just needs a confident push over the jumps. They are showing at the Young Riders HT this weekend, which I'm excited for them about. Her lessor's goals: not get eliminated, not fall off and have a good dressage score. She's not used to having a horse that's good at dressage and I told her that we once scored a 28 so she better get in the mid-30's at least! 

Im very excited to hear how she does, though I hope the refusals don't end up hurting them. I've done two shows with her and combined, we had one refusal on cross country, no time penalties, show jumping was double clear, and she placed high. So she better behave herself! I advised that she wear spurs and I am going to purchase some pro pictures possibly. I thought it was amusing though... They registered her with USEA as Unmistaken Diva. This poor horse is going to have more names an she can handle! Her USDF name is Mistaken and her registered APHA name is Henny Penny.

In the meantime, enjoy some tiny clips of schooling. I can't embed them on my iPad (or at least can't figure out how to). 

http://youtu.be/XfPA83rMgKQ

http://youtu.be/on-ZjRCiQ4s

http://youtu.be/wvt99oS1gAY

Past-Due Pictures

Finally got some photos of Misty from our show at the end of May. Long overdue, but hard to get because I have no computer, only an iPad which means no USB port and no disc drive... Impossible to do anything productive with. 

Anyways, the pictures:

I can obviously see that I have quite a bit of work to do in the equitation area... Sit up, look up and heels down for goodness sake! Also Misty tends to get tense in the neck and back and she really needs to be pushed forward to get her to unlock. Though I love seeing her stretchy trot and how nicely she was bending in the corners and bending lines. I miss my little roany paint pony!