Days 257 & 258

Saturday

It's days like today that make me realize that the horses aren't getting out as often as they should be, and I wish the sign hadn't been this extreme. We were walking everyone out to the pasture to run around a little bit, and my mom and brother were in front of me with Brie and Nina while I was walking Harry. We were going to split the girls from the boys, because Samantha was there and she wanted to let Tobacco out with Harry. I turn for a second to get the get to the boys' pasture and hear my brother going "MOM!". I turn and look and see my mom face down in the mud in the entrance to the girls' pasture, I couldn't even tell you where Brie was, but my brother ran over to my mom, realized he had Nina still in hand, dropped Nina's leadline and yelled for her to stop and ran over to my mom. Nina didn't know she was loose until she tried to go into the pasture again and my brother yelled at her again, then she turned around and started to walk away towards my dad and walked back towards me so I caught her. I look and my mom's now standing up and Brie is trotting around the pasture with her leadline still on. Samantha and her parents come out with Tobacco and Samanta runs over by Brie, catches her, and takes her leadline off. Once everyone is in their pastures, I get the story: Brie was so obnoxious and she went back around my mom so that the leadline was stretched across my mom's back and before my mom had the chance to switch hands or spin around to not be in the way of the rope, Brie bolted for the pasture and knocked my mom down on her way in through the gate. We were lucky that she didn't get trampled, but she does have a large bruise on her hip where she fell. I blame this incident on a combination of Brie's worsening gate manners and the feeling that they haven't been getting out. I know this is true because Brie is normally so good being lead out to the pasture, but in the past month she's been worse. I think that it culminated with being locked in for almost two weeks while everyone was away at Nationals, but that's no excuse for her behaving like that!

I rode Brie today and she was fine being ridden, not stiff, not limping. Gary decided to keep his massive trailer in the arena for the winter, so everyone bawked at that for a while. My mom rode Harry and I have to admit, he was much better the way she was riding him, the way I was describing last week that I should revert to. More forward seat and hands higher. At the end of the ride, I told her that maybe Harry isn't performance. Maybe he's pleasure. Because being able to watch him and Nina today, there's such a difference in drive between the two of them. Nina looks like a little train, with such determination in her eyes, as she works. Harry meanwhile is very calm, looking like he's taking a basket of fruit to market to sell for the day. And you know what? I don't care if he's pleasure. So what if people say he's "less of a Paso Fino" for being that, or that "we screwed him up" from when we first bought him. If he is able to be that calm and relaxed in what he's doing, I wouldn't want to wind him up just to force him back into a state of mind where he was clearly upset, back in his early days of riding. If he is calm and happy in his work, then I know I did my job, and I can tell that he is happy from the look in his eyes as he works.

We took a ride out to Dover Saddlery today to get saddle pads, but you know we came back with more than that. It was just me and my mom, and as we were in the car, we were talking about the Paso Fino circuit and realized this is the only breed we know of outside of racing Thoroughbreds where the trainers do the majority of the showing. Where's the fun in that? Being able to say that you can afford to support the trainer and buy a top quality horse and then not even be able to ride? That doesn't sound like much fun to me. And the worst thing is that if you aren't someone who pays for a trainer to ride for you in your classes, you get made fun of! You get told either to your face or behind your back that you aren't good enough. Isn't the point of owning a horse to be able to enjoy it yourself?

Sunday

We did a photo shoot for ourselves today! Here are a couple of my favorite pictures.

After all that, I rode Harry. I rode him for forward and with higher hands and he was completely different! He was so much better. He wasn't leaning into the bit at all and he felt more collected. He was still a little pokey, but after some circle work, he was doing beautifully. I really think that the deeper seat and lower hands works better on Brie than Harry because she is just going beautifully with that. But Harry likes to be ridden forward and light, so that's what I'll give him. Now we need to get back to our previous goal: largo without breaking or pacing!

Days 135 & 136

Saturday

Short day =[ I rode Brie today. Her canter is coming along so nicely! I'm so proud of her, she's really starting to realize she can't just bolt. I'm thinking of putting her in trail class when we take her to shows. There are jumps, you have to close gates, and do various things that you might have to on trail, like stepping over a tarp or something. It sounds really fun and I have a feeling she'd do great. She really seems to trust me except when the sunshine demons are out and we actually go outside haha.

Mom rode Harry today and got kind of annoyed with him. It looked like he was just a lot to handle. Tomorrow it's trailer time!

Sunday

TRAILER TIME!
We brushed them all off and took Harry outside to face the trailer. My mom had the first go and after a couple minutes of little rears, Harry finally realized that he had a chain lead on his nose and that he better behave! She got him in, but he kind of hopped backwards out. Paco led him in and out again, of course Harry was beautiful for Paco. So then my mom gave it a few more times and then I did and the even my dad did! He's getting better at it. With a couple more weekends of practice, he'll be going in and out like a pro. We also put Brie in there just for kicks to show Paco how we blindfold her and lead her in. Poor baby hit her nose on the inside because she walked too far. I'll have to take a video of us leading her in blindfolded sometime for all of you =]

I started off riding Brie. I was so thrilled when Annie and Jane showed up with Annie's new horse, Brenner! Annie went to tacking up Brenner and we were cruising around the arena, my mom working with Harry again. Brenner was kind of spooked at the noise of us going over the soundboard, so we stopped until Annie got on. Annie only took a couple of steps before someone when on the soundboard again and Brenner got spooked.

He bucked, and it looked like she had him under control, until he bucked again and lept over the soundboard, when Annie landed on the horn, he bucked again and it looked like she was going over his head when she half jumped/half fell off of him as he bucked again and I rounded him into the corner with Brie when he started to take off. Annie was okay, thank God, but she'll be feeling a pain in her butt, literally, tomorrow morning from that saddle horn. After that, she went in the outdoor arena to work him.

After seeing that, it really made me stop and think. Holy crap! He was a huge horse! He had to be at least 16 hands, which may or may not be normal to other people, since our little Pasos are around 14/15 hands. It really made me wonder if I could handle bigger horses. And Annie is a tough girl, her motto is "If I'm going down, he's going down with me"! For her to get half thrown off really shocked me.

After the whole accident, I switched Brie for Harry. Oh. My. Gosh. Was he AMAZING today! I got a really good video on my dad's phone, but unfortunately it was too big of a file to send to email =[ Now I have to figure out how to get it off of there. He was relaxed and worked beautifully and his gait sounded phenomenal! If he shows like that, we'll surely be cleaning up!

I switched Harry for Nina and just plopped along on her, cooling her off after my brother rode, and then we hosed them all off. Sadly now I'm back to classes. It'll be hard to get used to again. And this Saturday I won't be going out to ride because I'm going to a competition for an X Factor "front of the audition line" spot! I still have to figure out which songs I want to sing! Wish me luck!

Day 43

The beginning of this post was meant for Saturday, February 20th, 2010.
Yay! Today was the first day out with Harry! I didn't get any pictures of him though, we were all so busy admiring him to remember to take pictures of him! I did get lucky enough to get a couple pictures of Brie yawning, which I found hilarious.
Harry is stalled right across from Nina, so he can see Brie on an angle. I hope they get to be friends since Brie is a bit snippy with other horses. I was very proud of myself as well today! I went right in the stall and after a few tries, I got Brie right in the halter. It only took me a minute! So proud of myself. She was very happy today as well! It didn't take long for her to settle into her walk and gait beautifully. She was good for my mom too.
Ray finally is back. He rode Nina. She was a little pistol after not being ridden for a month; Ray didn't want us to ride her while she was away for both our sakes and her sake. I can understand that.
Pancho worked with my brother riding Harry since I was riding Brie first. I'm not too much worried about getting Harry to gait perfectly right now; I'm more concerned with getting him to trust me, and even though I said it last week, this week I really plan on getting a lot done at school Parelli-wise. I'm all caught up on my Skins (British show) episodes and Vampire Diaries episodes, so I'm all set for Parelli time. This Parelli takes a lot of work, but I know that in the end it will ultimately pay off with the bond I have with my horses. I have to start working on giving up Brie a bit to bond with Nina and now Harry.

News I was informed of today
I went back to school yesterday night for a dance formal thing and didn't bother going back home this morning since I had already made plans. I swear, it's like the minute that I'm not there, the world ends!
So apparently everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was at the stable today. My dad, the "John Wayne" that he is, decided that he should go ahead and ride Harry. Mind you, Harry is 5 years old, has about one month of training, and my dad never, I mean NEVER, rides. Everyone is telling him to get off because he doesn't know what he's doing and he won't listen. My mom sees Harry getting upset and freaked out, ready to rear, and she's pleading with my dad to get off. My dad can't get off in time and Harry rears full up twice and has my dad hanging by the saddle. Now there's been this large hay cart in the middle of the arena since it started snowing since there's no other storage for it and the hay that's in it. Harry bolts and jumps on top of the empty half of the hay cart, breaks and falls through the wooden floor of it with my dad still on. Harry, of course, freaks out and jumps out, runs to the sound board (basically a stretch of wood used for hearing the rhythm of the horse's gait), skids across the board and falls over, landing on top of my dad.
My dad's okay, but Harry's legs are all cut up. They're not cut up real bad and Ray and Pancho said they would take care of Harry. Hopefully he gets well soon.

Day 23

Happy Halloween! =]

I would put up pictures, but my camera ran out of battery and my charger's at school.

Today I gave apples to Brie and Nina as a Halloween treat. Brie ate it in about two bites. We're still working with the mounting block. It took me at least a half hour, I didn't keep track of time, for her to stand still next to the mounting block and let me get on. We did that twice! Not in a row, though, because that would be way too amazing. So I felt very accomplished. I try not to get discouraged when people tell me that I should just give Brie one good smack and then she'll understand what I want her to do. That wouldn't help solve anything, that'd only make her upset and even more confused. While people say that she doesn't care how I feel. I don't think that. I think she cares how I feel. Horses have to be in tune to how their riders feel, that's what makes them nervous and gives them confidence, it affects their whole mood. So I'm just going to go on the way I have been, even though it might seem soft, because I want to teach Brie by showing her primarily what I want her to do, not what I don't want her to do.

My mom fell off of Nina today. It's like a curse of bad luck at the stable. She didn't full blown fall off of her like the owner's wife did. Nina was gaiting across the sound board and turned around to go on the sound board next to it and the saddle slipped and went sideways with my mom in it. My mom sort of gracefully fell onto her butt from there. Nina wasn't moving, like the good horse she is, until she saw my brother running towards her to help my mom. She ran down the sound board and I cut her off with Brie. My mom's okay, so that's really good.

Did I mention that Dominic isn't coming? Yeah, he was supposed to come two weeks ago, but the owner cancelled it because the clinic would've only been us at the stable. We couldn't get anymore people that were interested to attend, so we just have to wait until the spring to try again.

Aside from all of that, today was a good day. I'm bringing a whole load of books with me to school this week to read about horse manners, dressage for Paso Finos, thinking like horses. I'm even bringing the entire Parelli Level 1 DVD set. Yes, I'm that bored at school. I don't have any homework ever. So this should be very productive.

Day 21

(originally started Sunday night at 11pm)

I wasn't able to make it out yesterday.
But yesterday Andre got fired.
I feel really bad for him. I mean, he was a great guy. I genuinely liked his training. But he changed, and we all know who did that do him. He's not the same as he was when we met him, and I'm truly sorry to see him leave.

Apparently Brie was horrible with mom yesterday. When I rode her today she was sweet as a pea! Maybe she missed me.

I didn't do much riding though because we had an accident.
The owner's wife and daughter were galloping and playing on their horse Carmentea. Well his wife was falling off and she almost took her daughter with her. His wife fell off onto her hip then back and couldn't get up, and her daughter just sort of jumped/fell off. After a few seconds of realizing that there wasn't anyone on her, Carmentea bolted out of the arena. The new trainer, Ray, my mom, and I all ran after her. She jumped over a pretty huge mound, and I have to say that while I was breathless trying to catch her she was pretty beautiful! My mom finally caught her and we called an ambulance for his wife. She was able to go home yesterday, they said that she was lucky and just got some nasty bruises, but they'll still keep an eye on her. I hope that she's okay. It really kind of sucks because she was wary of horses before and now she might never want to get on one again. I really hope that's not the case. And I hope that his daughter doesn't blame herself for the accident for riding Carmentea because it wasn't her fault. It was an accident.

I ask you, whoever reads this, to keep their family in your prayers.