Even more sunshine!



sunshiney pony



I felt sooo much better today. After sleeping most of yesterday and drinking about half a gallon of orange juice, I no longer feel like I've been run over by a car :) So I was determined to make the most of today's gorgeous weather. Jetta was munching on a pile of hay in her turnout, sans a blanket, that's how nice it was. I brought her in and we went over some jumps. I set two up at 2'3" two strides apart. Jetta did pretty good, but for the most part it was dependent on how I rode (duh) so when I sat up between the jumps and said "whoa", we were able to put in the two strides perfectly verses doing a flying leap or chipping in. Once we did well at the trot and canter both ways we cooled off by walking down the road. It was funny since all the garbage cans were out today and Jetta gave them a very hard look, but then it was no big deal. Overall, a great day! I love ♥ spring so much. Temperatures in the 60s to 70s, no flies yet, sunny but not too hot. Perfect.



Naked ponies munching on their hay.



 







Feels like Spring!

Wow, it's actually nice and sunny out! Of course the one day it is nice and I don't have a bunch of classes or homework, I feel awful. I have definitely come down with something and it's not a cold. Yuck. I don't feel good enough to ride (I think my head might explode) but I had a great ride yesterday, so it's not so bad. It was nice out yesterday too so after quickly warming up inside, where we had a great walk, trot and canter. I think Jetta's nice canter is finally making a comeback! We headed outside to the road. I wasn't sure how Jetta's hooves would hold up with the gravel since I thought they would be pretty soft due to all the mud in her pasture, but she didn't take a single misstep. It was nice to get outside and do some long trotting down the road. It's pretty quiet and we only had one car pass us. Jetta was very good and only flicked an ear back when the car approached. Yay for quiet TB's!

Tomorrow looks like it's supposed to be pretty nice too, but then it's supposed to rain all next week :(

Nice Words

It's always nice to get a sincere compliment isn't it?

Patch and me in 2008

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my first training project (on my own) was a little paint that I named Patch. She was an awesome little horse and I loved her to death and she just taught me so much. I ended up selling her to a family that lived pretty close, whose 8 year old daughter was interested in doing 4-H. Eventually they moved and I lost touch with them, since I only had their old home phone. A couple years later I was wondering what had happened to my girl, so I posted an ad on craigslist with her registered name. Lo and behold I got a response!

I woman had rescued Patch (now renamed Scribbles) from a boarding barn where she was abandoned. Turns out she had been sold to a horse trader who is infamous in my state, she mistreated Scribbles and then abandoned all her horses and left the state. Her new owner got Scribbles about one to two hundred pounds underweight, with rain rot and sunburn. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not finding her a better home with someone I knew and trusted.

But I couldn't be more happy with where she has currently ended up. The woman loves Scribbles to death and has worked through her issues that she accumulated since the time that I sold her. She recently facebooked me to see what bit I used, since she's been having trouble with Scribbles wanting to spit out the bit. After telling her what I remembered, I went back through my training journal that I kept and sent her another message with other bits of info that I found. What a trip down memory lane it was re-reading that book!

Anyways, this is the message that she sent back to me: "Thanks for the extra effort of getting out your old training journal to help. I really appreciate it and it is just more evidence that you were a great part of Scribbles life, and I'm betting you are the reason she has such a great personality and is willing to trust again even after all the crap she's been through. Underneath all her PTSD issues it is obvious that she has a good foundation, good training, and memories of good people; I attribute all of that to you. Thanks, for the best horse I've owned in many years, probably the best horse ever."

I made me want to cry. I am just so happy that she has found the perfect forever home, where she will never be mistreated again.

Rough

Today was a bit rough. It started way too early for me at 7am (I like my sleep!) but I keep myself going because this is week 9 of the term, meaning that we have one more week and then finals and then spring break!!! So ready. The weather was majorly bipolar today - at first walking to class I got snowed on, then later hailed on. There was a little bit of rain thrown in and then sunshine! I thought spring was supposed to be nicer?

I lost my debit card and didn't know it until I showed up at the grocery store to buy food. Since I didn't have any cash = no food :( Luckily someone turned it into the lost and found and I got an email so I can get it back tomorrow.

The icing on the cake was my computer croaking on me. Ugh. That hunk of metal and plastic has just been such a pain this year! The back light in the screen just decided that it didn't want to work - something about the sensor malfunctioning because it would turn on then go dark. Really hard to work on your 15 page paper that is due in two days when you can only faintly make out what you're writing. The university computer help desk isn't equipped to fix it so I would have to take it to a shop and pay for it to be fixed. Ummm, how about I just buy a new computer and throw this one out the window???

For now I have stolen my mom's computer (which meant that I took 2 hours out of today just to go drive and get the stupid thing) until I can get a new computer! One that doesn't hate me hopefully :)

I squeezed Jetta in for a quick ride. She was pretty good - stretching down into a steady contact, doing great leg yields and shoulder-ins both directions. It was really good. Only a couple moments when she wouldn't listen to my leg or decided to do her best drama llama impression. We didn't canter just because I didn't have time, so that'll be our project for tomorrow. Oh, and one thing that has been working out amazingly, is our halts. We were having a really hard time going down the center line straight and halting quickly and squarely when I asked, but after one ride of working on a bunch of halts, they are now beautiful! Now if we could only fix that canter...

Event Schedule

I'm so excited to have show plans!

I finally found a league show that was on a date that I could make and was close. So April 14th we are heading to our second (ever) dressage show. Whoo! And to make sure I don't wimp out, I have already sent in our entry form so its paid for. Can't back out now! Other than that, here are our plans:

May 12th &13th - Recognized Dressage Show
May 26th & 27th - Eventing clinic and derby
June 2nd & 3rd - (Two) One-day horse trials
June 22nd - 24th - Inavale HT!! 

I think that this will set Jetta up nicely for Inavale and there will be other lessons thrown into this schedule, I'm planning some more with TS, some with KO and hopefully a few others. A couple barns are doing some other little shows but don't have the dates set quite yet. Can't wait to be doing more of this:

 And this:

The Family Tree

So when I bought Jetta, I was offered both her dam and her full brother as well, for cheap. But I was only wanting one horse, even though her dam was absolutely stunning - she looked like a purebred warmblood. Now looking back though, I wish I had bought them.

I love Jetta - she's talented with great conformation and she has her sweet moments when I love her to death. I'd love to get another TB to train up as well. It makes me wonder what happened to her brother. As far as I can tell, he's still unnamed (Jetta was too when I got her) and has not been raced, so... I wonder if he's still just hanging out at the breeding farm or if he ever found a new home? And what happened to their dam?

The dam's name is Step Away, she's a 1995 mare that raced four times. She's had multiple foals - two by Private Gold which are Jetta and her brother. Neither was named or raced. I'm curious as to why Step Away was bred to Private Gold (and why twice) if there was no intention of doing anything with her babies. Jetta does have a half brother by the same dam that seems to have been quite successful in racing, I think he had about 29 starts.

What to do? I'd love to find out what happened to Step Away and Jetta's brother, but there is absolutely no contact info for her breeder, and I doubt he would know unless the horses were still on the property. But even then... He had almost absolutely nothing to do with Jetta when I bought her, the barn manager was the one that posted her on craigslist, showed me her, I communicated only with her, though the sales documents were signed by the breeder. I just recently realized that I do still have her phone number, but I'm tentative about calling her. First of all, I absolutely hate talking to people on the phone, especially those that I don't know. Yes, I realize that's a very lame excuse! Second, I don't think she'd remember Jetta or I, it's been almost four years (wow!) since I bought Jetta and I don't know if she would keep any info about Jetta's brother if he had been sold. Afterall, she didn't own him.

Jetta the day I went to look at her as a two and a half year old!

I would just love to hear about him - if he found a new home, what he has been trained in, etc. Or if he's up for sale possibly give him a new home.

If you were in my position, what would you do? Suck it up and call the barn manager and hope she remembers? Since he's unnamed, never raced and doesn't have any info floating around the internet, how else would I find him? Or should I just forget about it, since it's probably likely that he ended up at an auction, then he is probably owned by someone with no knowledge of his bloodlines. If anyone knows of a 2006 bay TB gelding by Private Gold out of Step Away, let me know...

Making Friends

I had another good ride on Miss Jetta today. I figured out finally that she's not that in love with the treats I've been giving her (I switched because the feed store was out of Berry Goods) which is why she hasn't been coming to my call from the pasture and I've been having to trek all the way out to the far corner of the pasture through the mud. Today, I got smart and pulled out one of the special occasion treats, Squeezy buns, and give the wrapper a crackle. Aha! That got her attention and she walked all the way over to me without me having to get my feet muddy :) That was a success!

We used dressage tack today and after lunging I got on. She was much better than yesterday, but was trying to be a bit of a freight train in the trot, but a lot of half halts got some really nice work out of her. We just stuck with doing an easy ride. Our canter was even good today - no rushing or almost-four-beating. And then, the icing on the cake, we got not one, but three square, straight halts down the centerline! This has been a major struggle recently. You can just see the wheels turning in Jetta's brain as you try to go straight: "Should I leg yeild right? Or maybe left? Oh how about a circle? No? A halt? Um, I guess..." And we do a very sloppy halt three feet off the centerline. But today she was focused and we managed to make a straight line and halt neatly. No falling on the forehand, save for once and after quickly backing her up, she didn't make that mistake again. Yay!

In other news, a new boarder, R, arrived at the barn. She actually boarded at the same barn that I just moved from, and though I had never talked to her before really, though I did recognize her, we sat and chatted for a few minutes and have decided to be trail buddies. Yay :) This is the first person I've really talked to at this barn because usually I either don't see anyone else, or there is one girl that I see occasionally but she just kind of stares at me and doesn't respond to my smiles or hellos. Awkward...

Apparently R has already surveyed the forest trails that I've heard about and GoogleMapped them so she knows where to go. Her horse is barefoot as well and she said that the gravel is pretty large (the nasty kind that even shod horses have trouble with) so she was planning on getting boots before venturing out. I'm excited to have someone to ride with! She seems super nice, she has a sweet little paint named Bella that reminds me (coloring wise) of my horse Patch that was a training project of mine. I think Bella and Jetta are going to get along well, they were making happy, curious faces at each other trying to say hi without getting in trouble throughout our conversation, lol.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to another riding lesson with TS on the 10th. I have to remember to actually ride my horse during the lesson, because I have the issue of just freezing up and after today, I know I need to remember to put some half halts in there and make her listen to my leg! Hopefully, TS will see some improvement because I really have been working on our "homework".