Days 249 & 250

Saturday

I was all excited to try riding Brie without a bit this morning and then we only realized as we were 10 minutes away (and 50 minutes away from home) that we forgot our saddlepads and girths at home...so we couldn't ride. We let them all out to play, stayed a while, brushed them off, and then headed home, disappointed.


Sunday

We remembered everything today! And I decided that, since John had asked about a picture on Taco previously, I would bring my show clothes today so that we could have a little Taco photo shoot. Here are a couple of my favorites.

After our photo shoot, I got on Harry. I was kind of disappointed today with him, not because he was bad, but because I couldn't get him to focus on me. The construction workers were burning garbage outside the barn from the new round pen, so he was jittery because of the smell of smoke. Then he started that awkward sidepassing away from one of the walls again that he hasn't done in a while. And then I just felt like he wasn't responding well to the bit. We switched back to his second bit, where he had been riding with his first bit for a while. I think I might change back to that, because he was not even stopping when I asked him to, which is definitely not good. I was having to use a heavy hand, and I hate doing that, and I know he doesn't appreciate it, so the other bit would be better for him.

Meanwhile, my mom rode Brie without a bit and Brie was being absolutely crazy. She was sticking her nose out like a racehorse and nothing made her set her head back! So I think that adventure is done. She clearly needs a bit.

We got those Easy Boots for her in the mail this past week, so we put them on her to hope that it would absorb some of the impact from kicking the wall, since she's started that up again. Paco says that she kicks a lot in the middle of the afternoon, between meals. My suggestion was to cut up her daily rations into three and give her a lunch, but that's apparently unheard of, so that's not going to happen. Instead, we moved her to the end stall where she has a big view of outside towards the woods. She had a window in her old stall, but it's tiny and now she can fully stick her head out and see a lot of the outdoors. But now she can't see Nina or Harry because we had to scoot them down one stall each so Harry wouldn't be harassed by the other mares, so I hope that's not stressing her out too much.

Day 217

My mom has to have surgery next week on her spine, so she's trying to take advantage of as much time with the horses as she can. Today she rode all three horses and tomorrow she plans on doing the same thing. I hope that everything goes well for her in the surgery and there aren't any complications.

After looking at some stuff on Parelli Connect this past week, we went in with the intention of playing as many of the Seven Games that we know. I was more focused on getting Harry to play the Friendly Game because he had such a hard time with it last week. My brother and mom were playing the YoYo Game when Samantha's mom pulled in and started talking to my mom. Harry was making wonderful progress, coming in closer to see the carrot stick and letting me pet him with it when my brother called my mom and I over in a panic.

As we came in, he showed us a gash on Nina's nose that we hadn't seen when we came in because of the dirt covering it. It looked pretty gross, but not very bad. He took her out of the arena we were playing in to go into the wash rack and wipe off the dirt. My mom followed. I played with Harry a little more and heard some banging and my mom came in to ask me for help.

Nina was having a fit in the wash rack when you tried to touch her nose. I put Harry on the cross ties and went over to look at it. They were just trying to press a compress onto it to make sure that it would stop bleeding. It looked a lot worse once it was cleaned. The cut is about three inches in length and about half of a fingernail deep, but it's not bleeding. After much calming and talking, I can get the washcloth on her nose for about a minute before she starts thrashing around again. My mom took the hose and just let it run over her nose (which Nina still didn't like) and then I poured some hydrogen peroxide in my hand and pushed it onto Nina's nose. I got it all in one try because the length of her cut started to bubble white like cuts do when you put peroxide on them, so now it's disinfected. We put this blue stuff we have on it (I really need to learn what it's called) and only after then did I remember that I should take a picture.

Not a very good picture of the cut, but still. Maybe I'll get another shot tomorrow.

After inspecting her stall, my brother found that she must have cut her nose on her feed bucket. It was kind of shoddy looking before and I have mentioned it to Paco when Harry was living in that stall, but he never changed it. Well Nina must have cracked it and then went in to eat and sliced her nose on it. I'm just thankful it's not on her eye or her entire face or something worse like that. I am worried though that it won't grow back together and that there will always be a separation. I don't know if she needs stitches or what. Someone suggested butterfly closures, but she'd need to be sedated anyways for us to do that, and if that's the case, stitches might be the better option. We'll see how it is tomorrow.

Once we found out the bucket was the cause, my dad took down all three of the horse's feed buckets (their waterers are steel automatic) and put in new ones. Much better.

We all rode after that. I rode Brie first and she was kind of limping. I guess it must be time for her to have another arthritis shot. I was trying to get her to walk because of the limp, but she didn't want to. So after a while of struggling with getting her to walk, but a little bit of calming down, I let her corto the rest of the ride and she seemed content. Then my mom switched with me and I got Harry.

This largo is the kind that we've been looking for. He is so ready for show in a couple of weeks, I can't wait! He was absolutely flying in his largo without breaking gait (only a couple of times in the counterclockwise) and had a very nice, high-stepping, collected largo. Hopefully I can get some pictures and a couple videos tomorrow!

In the end, I ended up riding Taco a bit for Jane, because it was muddy out and she didn't get to let him out in the round pen to longe, so he was being a bit naughty for her. It took a couple of laps to settle into his tweaks, but he worked nicely for me after that. He likes to break into a canter though. If I were training him, I'd definitely have to work on that, even though his canter is gloriously smooth, it's unacceptable in show. At the end of my ride, John asked if I would show Taco. I sure hope that he was serious! I would love to! And it would give me an excuse to get a different show jacket =]

I really hope that Nina is okay. Please keep both Nina and my mom in your thoughts!

Day 179

Happy Halloween everyone! Well, almost Halloween anyways. Harry was sure in the mood today.

We rode for such a long time today. I started off on Brie. I need to work on her flexibility because yesterday when Paco rode her he said that she was very stiff on her turns. This could be something that I had just gotten used to, but I need to work on it. I don't want her to be sore after riding just because she's not flexible. So we did lots of circles, spirals, serpentines and reverses and she was compliant. She had a bit of a fast streak, but she never broke into a canter on the corners, so I was proud of her for that. Apparently she was worse off for my mom later on when we switched, but I think it might've been just that she was angry because she was getting tired.

Before my mom rode her though, my brother and I switched. I just got to walk Nina around, which is all I ever want to do when I ride Nina. She's so laid back and relaxed. I would just bring her out on trails all the time, she's perfect for it. But after a short time on Nina, I switched with my mom who had been working Harry for a good chunk of time.

She's been trying to work on Harry's largo since he paces when he goes too fast because his legs can't keep up with his brain, so he was flying around the arena today. I wanted to get him a little bit more collected so we did our corto and crossed the sounding board and then walked to cool.

While all this is going on, Samantha, this little girl who comes for lessons, was riding Tobacco and Jane was riding Taco, while Kimmy was riding Sadie. Jane insisted that I ride Taco because John was popping in and out through out the day to see how Taco was doing. So I hop on. First thing Taco does is speed away with me and start cantering down the long wall! I try my hardest to remember to not pull on his mouth because he manages to get a hold of the bit between his teeth and pull away with the rider, so I'm quickly pulling and releasing to try to get him to slow down the first lap around the arena and then pull up to Paco, who directs me to pull his head to the wall to get him to slow down until he realizes I mean business.

So after a couple of laps around, I finally settle into Taco and we understand each other. He performs beautifully! This was probably the best ride I've had on him to date. He takes the board perfectly and I'm so glad that John was there to see it. He sent me this picture he took of me and Taco.

I would love to show him for John and Jane. He's so much fun once you know how to handle him. There's a fun show coming up in December and I fully intend on dragging Brie down there to get back in the hang of showing again since we need to beat our nemesis this year!

Illinois State Fair!!

Just a heads up, this is gonna be a long one. Hope you make it through it!
I usually like to do posts in present tense like it was the day, but I'm gonna reflect on this one.

Harry did amazingly getting in the trailer both coming and going, which is something we were all kind of worried about. Seems like he's getting the hang of going places! The show was Friday and Saturday, and I decided to enter him in both performance and pleasure classes. I normally wouldn't have done pleasure classes with Harry, but I figured it would be good experience for him to get used to more time in the show ring. Plus the classes were cheap, so even if I didn't do all that well, he'd be getting exposure.

Friday were the performance classes. My brother had two and my mom had one and I had three. I rode against each of them at some point. My mom got 4th on Harry in the class she rode him in and I got honorable mentions and a 7th. My brother got 5th on Nina and my mom got 2nd in the trainer's class.

That day, we had a cake for the judge. While we were eating, I took the opportunity to ask her what she was looking for. She basically just told me consistency in the gait, which I found out later both by other people's conversations with her and how she was placing horses that it meant ONLY consistency in the gait, nothing to do with headset or even overall manners, which I think is COMPLETE bull. But whatever.

Harry was having a difficult time getting warmed up on Friday. He kept skipping around anxiously and not wanting to work. I found out that Paco had "rode the crap out of him" on Wednesday and it was supposed to be a surprise to help us win, but I don't know what kind of bit he used or anything and that had me really upset. I like Paco and all, and I really don't have a problem with him riding Harry whenever, I'd just like to have known, you know? I'm not sure what I could've done, but I still would've like to have known.

Every time Harry came into the show ring, he skipped right in front of the judge. I was trying to be loose on the reins, but he would then try to take off with me instead of doing his usual lovely corto and when I'd try to pull him back to speed he'd skip again. This went on for every class I had both Friday and Saturday until the last class, but I'll get to that.

Friday comes and goes, Jane visits with John and we find out that Paco will be hitching a ride with someone to visit on Saturday. We have a great time with one of the trainers, Paul, who is stalled next to us. Once upon a time, I ranted about a certain Randy, who seems to win every class. But after being stalled next to him as well, he and his family seemed to have gone complete 180 from ignoring us to being super friendly. After having the time to watch him and his horses in the some classes I wasn't in, I hate to admit that he's actually really good. I have to give him credit -- his family does everything. The other barns bring people to clean the stalls and help tack up, but he owns, trains, and did all of the cleaning while counseling his clients.

I have a certain nemesis who I won't even name, but she always beats me in every class I'm in (except for that one time Brie won 3rd place), and she's a client of Randy's. It just annoys the heck out of me that she just pulls up in the middle of the day, not sweating, in her show clothes, hops on her horse that Randy's prepared, and wins.

Saturday comes the pleasure classes. I have on in the afternoon and get honorable mention again. Harry skips a whole ton in the largo because I'm pushing him for speed which is what the pleasure class wants. It's very hard because I can't hold him back enough without him skipping in the corto for there to be a noticeable difference in speed between the two gaits. Then on top of it, there's a little gait on one wall of the arena that you KNOW you're not supposed to go through while horses are in there. Well we're going into the lineup and I'm doing my final lap around and some lady comes waltzing through it into the arena, spooking Harry halfway across the arena in one swoop (I don't know if the judge saw), so I turn my head and yell at the woman. The indecency of some people!

After that class, Paul comes up to me and my parents and makes a super generous offer -- he wants to take Harry with him when he leaves Springfield down to St. Louis to train him for a month for free. Then we would meet up at Nationals in Memphis, I would show him and then take him home. After much conversation, we decide not to. I'm still very torn about it. On one hand, it would give us a huge help because Harry would be ridden every day by a real trainer (not counting Ray who doesn't really work, or Andre who just broke him), Paul could figure out his problems, and address them. Then on the other hand, I don't want to be like my nemesis. I take pride in saying that I've gotten him this far. It's only his first year of showing and if he's qualified for Nationals that's certainly an achievement! Then there's the problem of his shoeing. Our farrier (who is currently MIA) was doing a particular job. But then any farrier could maybe see it and pick up where he left off. I feel like I'll be battling with this up until Springfield, but I can't go back and change what happened now.

Onto the night classes. These are the Stakes classes where I could win money. My mom was in one with Nina and I was in two with Harry. I rode against the horse in the neighboring stall, Entrenador and my friend Allison. Entrenador is a 3 year old stallion and I was kind of miffed when he beat me both times! But then I have to remember that Colin trained him for Allison before he left the state.

Both classes were huge. I made the cut in the first one and got honorable mention while Allison got 7th. The second class was the one I really thought I'd do well in. I had Harry collected, he wasn't skipping and his largo speed was perfect. But I didn't make the cut in that one. Later someone told me that the judge didn't even look at me the whole class, which is like what the heck, how could you already have passed judgment on me from the class before?! There was a huge difference in his gait and everything between the two and to not even be looked at is very upsetting.

But such is life. This is why I want to be a judge.

One thing that we all thought was hilarious was when Paco rode Tormenta, a horse that Ray considers to be garbage, against Ray on a horse he considers to be amazing, in a Stakes class, on a whim, and BEAT HIM. Paco's not even a trainer, he's the help around the barn, and he beat Ray on a horse that is supposed to be insane. What a kick =]

At the end of the day, I'm happy with Harry's final performance. Even though it was the last class and he wasn't looked at, the improvement from the first class on Friday made me extremely proud. I left with some final advice from Paul -- stop cortoing and LARGO LARGO LARGO until he gets it down pat. I have 8 rides between now and Nationals, so I'll leave the collection until the last 4, maybe 3 rides. Something else I want to work on and perfect -- longeing! It shames me to not have longed him because I was scared he'd embarrass me by running out. So we're going to work on listening to me on the longe line, not stopping when he feels like it, and largoing our butts off.

A final note: after seeing the gaits, performances, and placing of the horses in performance classes, I've decided I'm going to put Brie in performance next year. She's had her arthritis shot, which may have been part of the problem later in her show career and seems to have really calmed down with her age, even going out on trail rides. I hope there will be a couple of fun shows around the area that I can haul her too in the fall for some practice. But after watching my nemesis's horse win class after class, that horse is really no different in performance and appearance from Brie. I would love to kick her butt. All I'd have to worry about is actually making it through the class without her refusing to move and trying to run over the judge. It's a chance I'm willing to take.

Days 162 & 163

Saturday

Back from vacation! I've missed Brie, Nina, and Harry so much. I haven't ridden in two weeks!

Before we went to the barn, we went to John and Jane's barbeque at the yacht club and grabbed some lunch because by the time we all woke up and got out there it was already 1pm! I met up with Annie and her new boyfriend and cousins and we all just hung around for a couple of hours until we left and went to the barn.

I was expecting quite a handful today, especially when mom said that I should ride Harry first so she could tinker around with a new bit that we're trying on Nina. I gathered up Harry after giving everyone much love and brought him out into the round pen. As soon as I let him off the line, he ran around like a maniac! I was happy he was getting it out of his system here instead of while I would be on him. After he started slowing down, I hooked him back onto the line and lunged him some more and he was responding super well to just my voice commands and didn't really try to give me any crap, so I brought him back in, cleaned and tacked him up, and into the arena we went!

I was also anticipating that he'd be a little berserk when I would flex him because he has been lately before we left, but with just a little kick and throwing my weight backwards, he gave in very quickly and stopped trying to start spinning around to throw me off. 

I was super super super surprised on how amazingly he worked today! He responded so well to everything I asked him and had a perfect board and wonderfully slow walk and cute little largo. I can only hope that he'll stay that way until Nationals are over and he'll get a nice break going into winter.  We went to go walk around outside a little bit by ourselves, but he seems like he doesn't have a lot of confidence to go very far from the barn by himself, as whenever he reached a certain distance from it (about 30 feet), he'd spin around and start heading back, not even in a hurried way, just kind of saying "Nope, not going any further". We'll have to work on that.

The bit my mom tried to use on Nina didn't work out too well, so we're going to try a different one tomorrow. We're trying to get her head to come down more, and with our last show before Nationals coming up in two weeks, we don't have that much time to work with!

After all of this, we were all sweaty and icky and still had to go back by John for dinner and the fireworks show he puts on every year, so we took Paco (who was also going back), and ran to Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what happened, but I do know that I went in with breeches and tall boots and came out with a pair of shorts and child sized flip flops and headed to a lovely fireworks show and dinner of cake (the real food was all eaten by the time we got there...830pm!). In all, it was a nice first day back =]


Sunday

So since Harry was so wonderful yesterday, especially after a two week break, I REALLY expected him to be horrible today. Wrong! I think that a break was really all he needed, he might've been starting to get burned out, because he worked beautifully today too! I even got him to go all around the property (except for by the pond. It might suck him in, you know) by himself! To say that I'm proud is a huge understatement. I hope he keeps it up for Nationals! I might even put him in Pleasure classes for fun at the State Fair just to see if we'll get some blue ribbons if he keeps up this wonderful attitude!

Nina's bit adventures didn't go so well today either, but we've seemed to have settled on a simple Mylar snaffle and a tie-down. With only another weekend's practice until the State Fair, I would start focusing more on working on dropping her head for Nationals instead of short fixes. We've done everything we could think of, it's just been an ongoing problem since she's been broke to ride. If you have any head-setting/dropping suggestions, please tell me!

Brie's leg was a little swollen today, but my brother warmed her up while I rode Harry and she was walking fine by the time I got to her. We all went for a nice walk around the property and she seemed to enjoy it a lot. We even ventured out onto the little side street next to the property, much to my dismay. I was freaking out getting there, but had to pull it together and act like I wasn't scared that way Brie wouldn't flip over on the asphalt and run away. There's nothing to really be scared of, not very many cars drive there, but all I could see was that one scene from The Horse Whisperer.

Thursday we're going out to meet the farrier again for shoeing. Hopefully the tranquilizer will work on Nina this time!

Day 61

What was the hardest working day in a while turned out to be the most fun I've had with horses since we moved to the new stable.
I already told you that we decided not to go to the Springfield show this weekend, which means that we had to truck back everything we brought home for the show.
Before arrival, we realized we forgot one important thing: all of the head gear. We can ride at least Brie bareback, but with just a halter on? I don't think so. My mom was thoroughly upset while I took it as a good sign: now we'd be able to work with Nina without the pressure of wanting to ride!

That all ended once we walked in the stable. The stalls were FILTHY, like they haven't been cleaned for days, and there wasn't a scrap of hay in any of the holders. Not again, we thought. This kind of incident has happened too often in our horse-owning history. It's been really good at the stable now because of Paco. Paco is amazing at staying on top of the cleaning and handiwork around the stable; but he is at the show this weekend as well, cleaning and being on top of handiwork over there. I don't even know who was hired to clean and feed, but to say it was disappointing is to say the least. So we broke open a bale of hay, flaked it up, and fed it to the horses on our side. Later on, the electrician said he saw the temporary help feeding at 6 AM. Oh. Well that would make sense why there's no food in the holders. At least it was only hay. Lunch won't hurt them (horses are actually supposed to be fed three times day, but at most places are only fed twice).

We put the horses outside and my parents, my brother, and I got to cleaning stalls. We had to strip down Nina and Harry's stall because they're messy when they go to the bathroom. Brie's stall we only had to sift through the enormous mound of poo and move more shavings over the stripped wet spots. That's one thing I love about Brie: she's very neat. My brother was excited because he got to drive the Gator back and forth between the stalls and the manure mound. My brother and I ended up doing the colt's stall on our side (we love him to death, his nickname is Ken) and Taco's stall as well. I think that is probably the cleanest their stalls have ever been. John came by, Jane's boyfriend, he actually owns Taco, and thanked us for cleaning the stall and asked that we put Taco outside in the grass pasture, so I did.

After seeing the mudcakes that Harry, Nina, and Brie had become after playing in the mud pastures, my mom wanted to give them all baths. She did Brie first while my brother and I stayed outside with Harry and Nina. We took this opportunity to go after Nina's ears and head. Harry went next while I let Brie get her 10 minutes of grass, which undoubtedly made her life the happiest it's been since the last stable. She rarely gets grass because of her insulin resistance problem. After bringing her and Taco back inside, I held Harry outside while watching my brother chase Nina around the pasture and try to go after her ears. Let me tell you, Nina was not a happy camper. My mom took her inside, I brought Harry inside, and before we gave Nina a bath, we decided to do some Parelli with her.

The most basic Parelli game, the Friendly Game, involves using your hand, carrot stick, or string (or all three if you can multitask) to just rub the horse all over. If they're skittish, the point of the game is to get them to stop wincing or dancing around when you touch them. All the games have one goal: trust between the horse and rider(or non rider owner). Since the moment we got Nina, she was pretty much bomb-proof. She was the quickest learning and most eager to play the games.

Not today. She HATED the game and kept wiggling around and trying to hop away, but that wasn't happening. She was in the shower stall anyways. So after working herself up for about 10 minutes while I wiggled a piece of string around her legs and neck, she started calming down and let me throw it over her ears. I switched with my brother and he did the same. Then I got to the front of her head, facing her, and started wiggling it on her face. After initially freaking out, she started to calm down (along with the help of some peppermints and carrots). By the end of the session, which was about 45 minutes, I was about to get the bit hanger sans bit over her ears and off again without her flinching. With this, we stopped and bathed her, feeling the most accomplished and proud we've felt in a while. I felt especially proud because I haven't bonded with Nina that much, as my brother took a liking to her right away and I was focusing on rehabbing Brie.

All in all, it was a fantastically accomplished laid back day with a minor downfall of filthy stalls. Thankfully Paco will be back tomorrow afternoon.