Day 47

Didn't go to the stables yesterday because I was at the Black Eyed Peas Concert! Whoohoo!

Onto today,
predators trainers never last long.
In short, Ray contradicts himself a whole lot.
Firstly, he caused an uproar when he announced that he wants not only his hotel paid for at the Memphis show (understandable), but he wants his food and drink paid for too ("I go to party with my friends, too"), is charging a "show fee" and wants to be tipped (but will disagree if he is tipped too little). Secondly, after telling us last week that we had the best horses in the barn potential-wise (Nina and Harry), he turns around and says he has no idea why we bought out horses because basically they're crap and he could be doing better things with his time. Seriously. WTF.

Brie was pretty angry today. Maybe it's because tomorrow's her birthday and she's like every other woman who hates birthdays. So I didn't ride her and instead stuck her outside for the first time since it started snowing. I like to think that made her extremely happy.

So after Ray was done getting in an argument with my dad which resulted in him saying that he would train Mon-Fri and we could do whatever we wished on Sat & Sun until April 1st, I got on Harry and rode. Ray rode him first though to explain the problems he was having with Harry, which was basically just excess energy and a lack of flexibility, so I'll be working on that. He was very antsy and I walked him for a good hour so hopefully I'll make some more progress this Saturday.

As for Nina? Well. Ray rode Nina and said that she's been giving him problems with rearing. Hold the phone: Nina. Rearing? I couldn't believe it! It looked more like he was making her rear because when my brother got on she was perfectly calm. Admittedly she is having problems collecting her head when gaiting, but that is a problem we can easily fix.

So it sounds like we're just riding this deal out until April 1st and then finally, we start the real training. And oh, won't I be looking forward to that.

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 42

We bought Harry!
I'm going to start watching Parelli again. I've been totally unproductive at school with my free time, and this is a good thing to start again. I'm going to start working with Harry on this corner that he will not go into because of his past. We're hoping to have him at a good point for showing in April.

Brie. Yeah, she scares me when she gives me her butt in the stall. I can't help it! I appreciate my limbs, even more so since I had knee surgery. Paco thinks it's the horse next to her, who is always kicking, that is making Brie uncomfortable and keeping her awake at night. Hopefully he can switch this horse and Harry. Overall, she did really well. I walked her a lot and cantered for a bit. Maybe I should cut back on the cantering now that shows are approaching. I'm just getting so restless being cooped up inside, and I'm sure that she's feeling it even more than I am.

Nina is still not being trained since Ray is away. Since he was gone basically a whole month, we won't pay him again for March.

I'll only have one day out this weekend, on Saturday. Brie's birthday is coming up! I'm gonna learn how to bake her a cake.

Hopefully I'll take lots of pictures on Saturday of Harry and have them up for you!

Day 41

I think that Brie may be going through some hormonal changes right now. For the past three weeks, although I have failed to mention it, she has been giving me attitude when I want to take her out of the stall. She may just not want to work, but she doesn't get out all week because of the ice, so you could assume that she'd be happy to leave, right?
Well, I'm trying to be patient with her, yet again. Just getting her to walk today with 3 other horses in the arena was a challenge and she worked herself up. I guess I never have a dull moment with her. She ended on a good note though, finally walking, so I walked a couple rounds bareback, which hopefully she enjoyed.

Still no progress with Nina, as we've just found out that Ray's mom died this week. He's been in Puerto Rico with her for close to a month now, and won't be back until the middle of next week. Please keep him in your thoughts.

I rode Harry again today. He reminds me more and more of Andre's horse, Querida, and maybe a little bit of Brie too. He's young though, so I should give him a chance on the Brie aspect of it. He may have a lot of potential on the Querida side of it, because Querida is a Fino horse. Right now, since Harry's young, we might just show him in Pleasure classes if he's really not where he needs to be, otherwise we'd show him in Performance. If it turns out that we've struck gold again, we might have a Fino horse, along with Nina being a possible Fino horse!
Now why do I speak like I own Harry?
Well.
I do. =] Not officially though. We still have to seal the deal tomorrow and, obviously, pay for him. I should've probably waited to tell you guys in case it fell through, but I'm so excited! While I release a small groan at having to calm and desensitize another young horse, I can't say that I'm not looking forward to the challenge. It will all pay off in the end.

Day 33

Happy New Year!
I didn't get to the stables last week. I painted my room for the first time since I was 9. I figured I was due for a new color.

Now I saw the consequences of not going out last week. Brie was fiesty and I had some difficulty getting her out of her stall. I walked her for a long time and we wrote words in the sand with her feet. Just a little trick to get her mind thinking about things other than going in circles.
I also cantered her today. She's better cantering to the right than to the left, so we'll have to work on that.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I have the feeling she might be a little sore in the morning so I'll have to rub some linement on her before I ride just to be safe.
Hope you're having a good start to your new year!

Day 26

(originally started at 1130pm last night)

Today was a not so good day.
And thinking back about it, it's been my first not so good day in a while.
It started with trying to get Brie out of the stall. With the Parelli knowledge, I tried the same thing I did yesterday but she kept giving me her butt. Discouraged and thinking my horse hated me, I cried (which was bound to happen when you try something new) and was upset that my mom had to help me get her out. She came out, I brushed her. When I tried to get on, she kept moving. I wasn't even anywhere near the mounting block! She kept fidgeting around and moving, so I made her turn on her front legs, which she was doing when she was moving. Finally she stopped (only because my mom started looking at her ughhh) and I got on. Slightly disheartened, I figured I'd jump because she loved that so much.
Wrong.
She kept refusing the jump, and finally I got her to accept it, only after she reared up before it while deciding whether to spin around and run away or go over it and stood like that for a whole 5 seconds, without moving, which is actually pretty long to be balanced on her back legs. She hop-skipped over the jump and after that she had a better attitude.

I can't really be mad at her. This is the first time that's happened for a while now. And I can't be mad at myself for the whole stall sour issue, because so far, Parelli hasn't addressed that. I guess he assumes you can at least get your horse out of the stall without killing you.

I plan to watch more of his DVDs this week if college doesn't kill me first.

Day 25

So, based on the method I learned in the first Parelli DVD, which I finally got around to watching yesterday, it took me an hour to get Brie out of her stall. But I felt good, because I did it! And without getting kicked or angry at her.
Basically I sat in her stall for a while, she came up to me, smelled me, touched her nose against my hands and I pet her. I never made eye contact with her, because this is what predators do and we don't want to come off as predators to a prey animal. I went and got her halter and she immediately ran into the corner of her stall. So first I stood outside with her halter, then I stepped inside and stood there, then I started walking around her stall with the halter. She got curious and came up to me, and I rubbed the halter on one side before she shoved herself in the corner again and I couldn't get her. I kept walking back and forth, then started swinging the halter back and forth as I walked. She looked at the halter as it swung and kind of reached her nose out to it. So I took the lead rope and started swinging it at her. I swung it around her legs, on her back, her butt, her tail, her neck, until I got close enough to pet her with the other hand. I held the rope around her neck and then rubbed the halter on her. She finally put her head down and I put her halter on.
I was so proud of myself!
The other thing I worked on was mounting while she stood still. I took her away from the mounting block today to do this and she stayed pretty still.
I rode her in the outdoor arena. Ray finally moved in today, so he watched. He worked with Nina more, because he'll be training her for the next month.
I went over the super long sound board outside and Brie didn't get scared she'd fall off of it because now they leveled the sand with the board.
Then we practiced cantering! I was so happy with Brie, she got it at the first signal in both directions! She didn't mess around halfway gaiting/halfway cantering. I can't wait to try again tomorrow to make sure it wasn't a fluke.
New goal:
Be able to mount on the mounting block by the end of November.

Day 18

I failed in getting to the stall first. I need to start racing my mom to the stall.

Paco is officially moved in. It's so nice. And Ken is supposed to be making all the paddocks this week. I can't wait for Brie and Nina to get time outside every day, since Ken's been a slacker in turning them out all this time, which probably has a lot to do with Brie's anxiety.
Jane came by today! Taco is coming back very soon, he was at her son's farm just being a horse for this month. I'm so eager to ride him again.

Brie! She made me very happy today. We showed off her gaiting and jumping to Ray and everyone else, they were impressed, even though the jump was pretty much a foot off of the ground. She was more anxious outside though, and we had a fright when my mom was riding her and Brie kept backing up, almost into a barbed wire fence. I had to maneuver Nina over to her and pull her forward. Not very safe. Oh and another fright. I lost my stirrup while jumping this tiny fence and Brie tripped and while she got her footing I almost flew off the side of her because she turned so sharply. But I stayed on! And maybe we won't raise the jump for a couple more weeks.

Andre brought back a bit for Nina. She seems a little iffy about it after being bitless since July. She seemed very depressed while Andre was working her and a lot more happy running around outside with Brie. On one hand I feel guilty, because I want to let her just be a horse, but then on the other hand she really does need to be trained! She is just a baby after all.

I'm so eager to see how the stables look this weekend with Paco in charge =]

Day 17

Well I didn't take Brie out of the stall today, my mom did, and apparently she walked right out.
I won't believe it until I try it myself.

She seems like such a different horse now, even though we've been jumping for only what, two weeks? Four days, really. She seems a lot calmer, even walking around outside. The only problem I have is keeping her away from the jump! I think she's happy that I'm stimulating her mind and just not going in circles all day. Which I, surprisingly, never though about before because that's what Andre and the other trainers do. But I mean, if I went in a circle all day and didn't do anything fun, I guess I'd be angry and anxious for it to be over too.

Today was a very good day. Paco finally is here! He was abandoned with Andre in Georgia until Thursday when Ray, another trainer, drove them and the horses back up here. The truck is still in Georgia being fixed.

The stalls were so nice and SPOTLESS for once! It was great, I was very happy. Now Ken is working outside making more paddocks before the winter really sets in over here. It'll be nice, I hope that he makes them bigger than they are now, because Brie and Nina can really only stretch their legs, not run around and have fun.

We ordered this calming supplement for Brie from Smartpak. Yeah, yeah, I'm usually against supplements, but this one is supposed to work in two months and we'll never need it again because it'll rebalance her hormones. I'll just have to wait and see about that.

Mega excited for Dominic to come up in two weeks! I can't wait to show him how Brie can perfectly gait, go on the soundboard, jump, and go right back to gaiting. As soon as she's calmed down, I have a feeling we'll be cleaning up at the shows in the spring with her.

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.

Days 13 & 14

Day 13

Yay! I got to go home and see Brie and Nina!
I figured why stay at school if nothing's going on? So I went home.

Well. For the past couple weeks it's been really hard to get Brie out of the stall. I go by the door with the halter and she runs into the corner. Now I know that you're not supposed to barge on in there and get the horse, but I already stood/sat there for over an hour once and I'm not about to do that again. She didn't even come out when I did that! So I need to find a way that doesn't involve bribing her with food, to get her to come by the door and put the halter on.

Other than that, today was the best day I've had with her so far! She's learning how to canter on command. She's still a little mixed up between gaiting and cantering, but she'll get it. She goes so fast! It's indescribable! The only thing I can think of to explain it is it's like I'm flying, it's incredible.

And that's not even galloping!

After that adrenaline rush, I switched with my mom and rode outside with Nina. Very relaxing. Brie got too far ahead and Nina broke into her tiny canter to catch up. It was adorable! My mom and I had a race. Nina had no chance! Her canter is so short while Brie's is so extended. It was very amusing though =]

This was such a good day. I didn't realize how being around them makes me so calm. It was the perfect remedy to an overly stressful week.

Now to do it again tomorrow!


Day 14

So I was too exhausted to remember to post yesterday so I combined it with today.
First off I want to talk about Nina. She too has been having trouble with putting the halter on. While I was watching Cesar Milan on Friday night, he did this trick where you massage the animal to make it calm and then pet it once it's calmed down. Easiest thing ever and I never thought of it! So I walked in Nina's stall and did this to her and she was better putting the halter on. Today she only tossed her head once before she lowered it to put the halter on. Progress!

Also Brie is getting better at cantering. It's more me getting scared of falling off. But we walked outside and Brie was pretty calm. I was so proud of her! She too is making progress. And with all this progress made it makes me even more satisfied that I went home this weekend.

Now next weekend I'm going to the Nationals as a spectator. Now THAT should be an interesting weekend. I'm sure I'll have much to say about it. Until then, keep riding!