Day 235

Sunday

First off, let me say that with only one more view, this blog will have hit 11,000 views! Thank you all so much, it's great to know that someone is actually reading my journey.

I got Brie today, which was nice. I didn't go out yesterday because of a school-related function, but my mom said that she is definitely ordering calming supplement for Harry again because he was ballistic yesterday. She wanted to try him again, so I got to ride Brie, which was nice, because I haven't ridden her for a week or so. She was go, go, go today, as no one rode her yesterday. She was pretty stiff and limping a little, but eventually she worked it out. Poor Brie. She's still so young (11 years old) and she already has arthritis. It just breaks my heart. Once we had all the speed out of her system, we worked on our performance walk, because I want to put her in a performance class.  I figure A) Why not? and B) There are less horses in performance classes so she shouldn't get as nervous as she would in a huge pleasure class. I really hope that I can bring her to State Fair. I don't even care about winning with her, I just want to calmly make it through the whole ordeal and show her that it's nothing to be scared of.

After Brie, I got on Harry for a short bit. He was way better today, but his movements were very vertical. I wasn't really used to that, but he was gaiting nicely and behaving like he should. Now he's been having problems keeping his headset, and I don't want to use a martingale, so I have to keep checking him and reminding him to set his head. His largo broke a lot, so now we have to work on that again. I hate feeling like I'm back at square one with him after that period of him working brilliantly, but I just have to go back to basics again.

I got to ride Nina today! So, we're thinking of going down to this international show with her next week in Florida, and we would only show in three classes: one for my mom, one for my brother, and one for me. Since I don't usually show her and this is not the arena to be testing out pleasure classes when she's been in performance her whole life, I'm going to do a costume class with her! I haven't done costume class since Brie stopped showing, because she is the costume horse, but I thought that it might be fun with Nina and she's so well tempered that it shouldn't bother her that I would ride her with a long skirt on. We brought the skirt today to test her with it and sure enough, she was just fine!

We also brought the shipping boots, as it's about a 15 hour drive, to test her with and she was fine with those too, which is surprising because she hates the farrier so much, we figured that would transfer over into a fear of thing secured around her legs, but she was just fine. When we originally got them, we got them for Brie when she was about 4 years old, and she flipped out, so we never used them. Today we tried them back on Brie and aside from taking a couple of minutes to get used to walking a short distance in them, she was fine. Then we tried Harry. I thought for sure he would freak out, but he was good too! I love when horses give you good surprises =]

Lastly, I rode Taco. The only way that I could bring Brie to State Fair is if we bring Taco in Jane's 2 horse trailer, so Taco HAS to go to State Fair. He was surprisingly good as well! My mom says it's because she rode him yesterday, but usually it doesn't matter how many times you ride him, he does what he wants. He tried to pull a few tricks at the start of the ride, but I quickly corrected him and we went along great! I'm working on not breaking into a canter on the corners and figuring out exactly what I need to do to get him to have a wonderful board, along with making it a goal to slow what I'm now calling his largo into a corto, because his default gait speed is very fast and I'm thinking that if he goes any faster, since he's already breaking on the turns, that he will break into a canter. It might be easier to slow him down rather than try to speed him up. But if he shows like he rode today, he'll definitely place in a class! Which is how it should be, as he was a National Champion in the good old days! 

So now this weekend is the last weekend of practice my mom and brother have before the show next week. I'm so excited, I hope everything works out and we actually go, and that we make it safely down there, and that we win! That way we can prove those people who were supposed to be our friends (no names) wrong and we get to show that our best horse can run with the very best international competition.

Day 211

My mom read somewhere earlier this week that celery was a good alternative to carrots for horses with insulin resistance. So we figured we'd try it out. Absolutely no one liked it! Brie thought it was disgusting, Nina wouldn't even look at it, and Harry ate one stalk and then spit out the rest that we tried to feed him. Oh well, guess we just have to cut back on the carrot intake!

Brie is looking kind of skinny, but her eye sockets were filling in last week, so that means her sugar was going up...I feel bad for her. Poor Brie. If she ate enough, she'd probably be happier, but we have to keep her underweight to control her sugar...The vet's supposed to come out this month for shots and teeth, so maybe we'll have her test Brie's blood and then give us some more advice about how to manage her.

We were waiting around for the farrier today. While we were waiting, I decided to longe Harry. I feel like I'm dreaming! He's absolutely wonderful longeing now! I got curious after we stopped and had my brother knock over a couple of poles and lay them on the ground for Harry to walk over them. He didn't want to at first, even though he has tons of times before, but after he saw Nina walking over them he just went for it. Then we decided to try the tarp again. Harry didn't learn by example from that! Nina just thought the tarp was the silliest thing and walked right over it, stomped on it, kicked it around, pushed it with her nose, and even picked it up in her mouth and flung it around! Harry, meanwhile, was fearing for his life (and Nina's). We eventually just settled on him being calm and observing Nina and decided it was a good time to have his break. We put him away and got out Brie, who also thought the whole ordeal was ridiculous. In the end, we laid the tarp over Brie and Nina (separately) and walked them around with it. Brie was used to it because I show costume with her and wear a dress, so she's used to something hanging over her butt, and Nina was really well behaved and unphased by it too! At least now I now that if I ever can't bring Brie to a show, I can do costume with Nina! I feel a new outfit coming on the horizon! I better fire up that sewing machine.

We didn't know whether we should ride them or not, but my brother and mom ended up tacking up Nina and Harry to ride. I only put a bareback pad and bit hanger on Brie because I figured with my luck the farrier would show up right as I started to ride. And just as I thought, I was right! I only got a couple of laps around the arena, as Brie wanted to fly, before the farrier showed up. He did Sadie first, but I dismounted anyways to help him out cleaning up and handling Sadie and the rest of the horses.

My mom switched Harry's bosal to a softer one in order to tuck his head in without using a martingale. We changed this because Pasos resist pressure rather than giving in to it, so after this change, his barbada was stronger than his bosal, which would theoretically lower his head. I got the chance to watch him in action today, rather than being on his back, and he looked pretty good! Only time will tell if this method worked.

Last night, I found this video of Harry's father on Youtube. I was so surprised about how similarly they gait, which I guess would make sense, but having never seen his father in action, it makes me realize that Harry's not actually doing anything wrong with his gait --- he only has those little spouts of nervous tapdancing. After watching this, it really made me proud that he's on the right track to follow in his father's footsteps!

Day 60

Bobcats and tractors and dump trucks, oh my!
That's what was at the barn today. The owner is digging a very large pond in the back of his house/barn. I'm sure it'll be beautiful when it's finished, but it was a bit of a pain in the butt today.

Nina. Is. A. BRAT.
I don't know whether something happened to her that she doesn't want to give her head to us or if she's just playing games, but she was acting completely unacceptably today. It took me, my mom, and Paco to hold her down to put the bit hanger over her ears and I felt horrible because Paco had to twitch her ear. I'm completely against twitching and sorts of related techniques, I think they're mean and will only harbor mistrust from the horse towards you. While it may help in the short run, I believe the horse will then never want to give you her head because she anticipates being twitched, which will result in more problems.

I've decided not to bring Harry to this show. I don't trust him enough. I feel like that's a valid reason. I don't trust that I'll be able to get through the class with him. I've only had a couple of experiences with him so far riding him with other horses and the majority of those are with Brie and Nina. Today I had an experience with another horse and he wasn't too keen on it. While I would've liked to work with him longer today but I didn't feel completely comfortable with the new horse in the arena and the machinery outside so I only went once around the arena after multiple circles on the far end of the arena.

Brie is ready for show =] Finally! We have to take her off the calming supplement though because apparently it's USEF illegal for shows. I hope she still does well. I have a strategy in my mind: Last year when I won the third place, I didn't have any time to warm her up because I thought I had more time than I really did so we just had to go straight into the class. I'm going to lunge her for a while before my first class, which is Costume, and since I'm usually the only one in that class, it'll be a good way for her to calm down around her surroundings. Hopefully it works! We can only wait and see.

I'm a little worried about Nina at the show. I don't want my brother to get hurt if she gives him a hard time. He needs to gain more confidence and pay attention to everything we tell him about handling a rough horse. Even though she's not "rough", she's still playing games similar to Brie when she was 4 years old. Hopefully we don't make idiots of ourselves trying to get the bit hanger over her head.

Wish me luck!

Day 15 & Nationals Comments

I didn't make it down to Nationals. =[ The flights coming home weren't looking so good, so we decided not to risk being stranded in Georgia. We did watch the ending of Nationals on Galopando TV though, which is the stream-network for all things Paso Fino. I feel like I'll get my commentary on Nationals out of the way right now.

I was amused by the largo race, but disappointed at the same time that there were only three entries. Come on people, lighten up and have some fun with your horses! Don't just work them all the time! Secondly, I was SO MAD when I saw the costume class! Backstory, I qualified on Brie to go to Nationals this year and last year for costume class but we figured it was too long of a ride to bring here there for just one class. This is what my costume looks like.
Well, I don't have a screenshot of it, but there was a girl in the costume class who had pretty much the EXACT same dress, the same black horse, the same roses, same ribbons, same veil, but this is the killer part: She had the same speech as me. How low can you get? Thankfully she was punished (by karma) for the copycat-ism and received 5th place out of 5.
Lastly, I'd like to congratulate the Fino Stallion Champion, Halago! He is truly amazing. If the clip isn't on Galopando TV, then I'm sure if you're really curious and search it on YouTube you'll find it. Maybe I'll even link these two classes tomorrow or something for you to watch.

Went to the stables today. Instead of doing the same old routine, I decided today would be a great day to teach Brie a little bit about jumping (and learn myself, with help from mi madre). At first she was kind of freaking out that the jump was made up of a 2x4 and plastic traffic cones, but then she got used to it and then she loved it! She kept going around and jump jump jumping! We both enjoyed it, and I love that she's getting used to doing all sorts of different things now.

I switched Brie for Nina with my mom and we rode outside. Nina is too funny, she has a shorter stride than Brie, so Brie covers ground faster and gets farther ahead. When Brie gets too far ahead of Nina, you just tell Nina, "Come on Nina, go get Brie!" without any other signal and she takes off at a cute little carousel pony gallop to catch up to Brie. It's adorable! I'm teaching Nina, too, how to jump outside, over little ditches, and she's kind of hesitant. Knowing this, I didn't think that she'd want to jump up and over a fairly steep little hill, but she did! I wasn't prepared for this and almost flew out of the saddle but caught it before I fell backwards over her butt. It was scary and fun at the same time. I'm also proud of Brie, she's getting more calmed down outside.

I still have my problem of trying to get Brie to come out of the stall by me. I haven't gotten around to watching Parelli to see if he has any suggestions for this, so in the meantime, if anyone has suggestions other than bribing her with carrots, please tell me!

P.S., I don't think I mentioned it before, but the two horses in the header are Brie and Nina! Brie's the black one, Nina's the brown one.