Michigan Medallion Show '10

Let me start with the best news.

Nina won 1st place!!

She won with my brother in the Performance Junior Exhibitor class. I'm so proud of her! Everyone was talking up a storm about her, saying how she has so much potential, how she'll just clean up next year at all of the shows once she's settled in. It was fantastic. My mom also won 2nd place in the Performance schooling class and got 4th Championship against older horses, even stallions! She was tired by the end of the day, Saturday, when her showing was over.

Now Brie. I was so excited when I won 4th place on her in the Pleasure Mares class! Right before that class all I did was lunge her and do a couple of figure 8's in the tiny warm up arena. She crowhopped into the arena, but once I passed the horse in front of us I got a huge space all to myself and she calmed down and did really well. I think that one of the big reasons I got 4th place is because of the crowhopping. The steward kept eyeballing us and I just knew he was thinking she was lame. She's not lame! She's just anxious and that's her weird way of showing it. I was super excited because my goal for this show was to not get excused and to not come in last place and so far I was achieving it!

On comes the afternoon classes. I'm going into Pleasure Amateur Owners. I'm excited about it because she got 4th. We go into the class last so I can get spacing. The moment we walked in, it ended. She crowhopped a good majority of the class and I'm surprised I didn't get asked to leave because of it. Thinking back on it...all she did was crowhop. She had a few calm moments but she wanted to corto after the walk-reverses. I didn't place and was "excused" at the end when we lined up.

I was so frustrated. I spent the entire period from that class until my next and final class, Pleasure Youth, in the warm up trying to make her walk and reversing and just trying to get her to listen to me and calm down and ignore the huge Saddlebreds around her (because she was watching them nervously). Near the end of that session she tried to bolt for the barns and that was enough. I was done playing nice. Before she wanted to bolt for the barn I was going to drop my class because I figured she worked enough outside after she got excused, but she was not getting away with that! I went into that class with only one other rider and got second place. It makes a good picture if you don't know I was the only other rider. But the point was that she got through the class without any acting up, barely any crowhopping and I was proud of her (although it was overshadowed by my disappointment with the prior class). Before we left, I was suppost to meet Jenny over at The Joy of Horses, but we couldn't manage it. =[ Maybe next year...

I don't understand Brie.  I've worked with her for the past 9 months, she's on calming supplement, she performs wonderfully at home...does she just not like showing? I can't tell. She does fantastically when she's in her own space like in the Pleasure Mares class or when we do Costume class and I'm the only one there. Is she not comfortable around horses she doesn't know? 

I won't stop showing her. I'm just going to take her out of the PFHA show circuit for a while and focus on Harry's career. I'll take her to some fun shows where there are bound to be more horses and try to get her used to the idea of walking in front of and behind stranger-horses. If she does well enough then maybe I'll put her back into the PFHA circuit.

After all, I never said she had to win a blue ribbon in a class of 10 or more in a PFHA class. =]

 

Day 70

Last practice before the Michigan show this weekend and I have such a good feeling about this! I rode Brie probably for the longest amount of time since we got Harry. It was oddly strange but fantastic at the same time. I never really realized just exactly how sharply she can reverse when you emphasize your leg rather than your hands. It's beautiful. I just hope she sticks to that little trick when I'm showing her this weekend! I also got to enjoy her love of largo (it's verrry close to a fast canter) which I haven't done in a while. We bought the local farm/show/overall event magazine today while we were getting thrush medicine for Nina and I saw all of these shows I'd love to go to. They're all non-pointed (sad) but it'd be so fun to do them with Brie. Like the Water In a Cup Class, Egg and Spoon race, you know, all that jazz...
One thing I'm really interested in is barrel racing. Not like the super competitive kind, just the kind for these little local shows. It sounds like a blast and Brie is a racehorse in spirit. Annie does barrel racing with her horses, so maybe next time she comes out I'll have her show me the ropes.

I worked with Nina today. I do not understand that horse. She's so easily bored, she was looking at everything else except me and I had to keep grabbing her attention. She was completely relaxed for the Friendly Game, as I suspected she would be. She's getting the hang of the Porcupine Game. She gets it more with the back end than the front end.
So I tried something new. I went and grabbed a bucket, which makes the same plastic noise as the hoof stand, and wiggled it around her legs. She was shaking like a leaf again, but she calmed down. I just kept shaking it and petting her, assuring her that it won't jump up and eat her. I looped a string through the handle and then started swinging it around her legs. She was pretty good with the front legs but very nervous with the back and kept trying to run out on me. After about a half hour of doing that, though, I was able to kind of knock it against her legs like the stand did yesterday without her really moving. I also was able to flip it over and pull her legs out to rest her hooves on it. I think it was a success.

There is something I'm more nervous about this weekend than showing Brie though. My brother is backing out of showing Nina, so I have to show her.
Literally, I can count on both of my hands the number of times I've ridden her. I don't understand the logistics of her training (I actually think they're kind of stupid, the ridiculous things you have to do with your hands and reins to keep her going) and I know I won't be able to get her out of a trot. I know we won't place. My brother, on the other hand, totally loves the logistics of her training and is just being a chicken about it. Maybe we'll just have to make him suck it up and ride.

Day 69

We had a visit from the farrier today.
We used this farrier, Sam, back in September and really liked her, but then we got caught up with farriers the rest of the barn was bringing up from Florida. We called her out because the latest Florida farrier wasn't answering our calls and we needed their hooves trimmed ASAP before the show this weekend.

I think it's the funniest thing that Brie is anxious in the arena but she absolutely LOVES getting her hooves done. She was pretty much sleeping while Sam was filing them down! This is the first farrier visit I've been present for with Harry, so I was a bit anxious. He reared twice, tiny rears mind you, because Sam was just holding his foot up while talking to us and not really paying attention to him. I guess he's just impatient because after she stopped answering our questions about hooves he was just fine.

Nina.
What a beast. I never realized how feisty she is until today.
Now, the reason why I thought Brie's scenario was funny is because Nina is the exact opposite. She's the lazy little horse in the arena that you have to keep on her to keep moving, but she goes BALLISTIC when you try to trim her hooves.
Don't get me wrong, this is NOT GOOD.

She was absolutely terrible. Today was pretty much the worst nightmare of all farriers.
Since the last time a farrier was out, my brother has been working with her to keep her front feet out for longer. We used to think it was just a balance issue. Today proved that theory wrong, but I'll get to that. Normally, for the longest time now, I stretch Brie's front legs out before I go to lunge her. I do this both simply for the purpose of stretching and to free any pinched skin under the girth. My brother never did this with Nina, so I figured that it would help in those two ways and helping her get used to having her legs stretched in front of her mid-air.

Well, that did help. She was still nervous as all heck, shaking like a leaf. At that point, while Sam was doing the front hooves, I still believed it was a balance issue because of how much her muscles were twitching. The point is that she managed to get her front hooves done. Okay, part one accomplished. Sam now moved on the the back legs.

Horrible. She kicked Sam against the stall a handful of times. Finally, when Sam got a hold of Nina's leg, she tried to stretch it out in front to put it on the hoof stand. She had it there no more than a minute before Nina pulled away and pulled the stand with her. Understandably, she freaked. She jumped to try to get away from it but it only got caught under and between her back legs. TOTAL freak out, she reared, flipped around in the cross-ties and whipped the stand into the stall across from Brie.

So that was unacceptable, but we gave her a moment to calm down. Not happening. After that point, Nina was done. After kicking Sam away a couple more times and getting the stand stuck between her back legs again, after a stint with both of her ears and her nose being twitched, she was still trying to kick Sam away. It's now obvious that either A) She's being a brat or B) something happened that's completely busted down her trust.
Now, it's actually pretty hard for me to reach a conclusion here. When Nina was a baby, she had a trimming incident with Andre and he had to put her on the ground to trim her and her leg swelled up. That could be the cause for lack of trust. But then almost a hundred trimmings later and this having never happened again, no other bad incident, she's still going at it. This could be her being a brat.

What I've come to is that we need to rebuild this relationship with her with discipline. Up until now, we've all looked on her being the baby, the cute little baby Nina that we bought 3 years ago, the little baby Nina who could do nothing wrong. We never really disciplined her and just hung on her and let her hang on us. This has resulted in a lack of respect on her end. She needs to be able to trust that we won't let anything harm her and we need to stop treating her like an oversize dog (because chances are you won't even let your dog get away with bossing you around).

Now I just need to get this through to the rest of my family. Showing isn't everything. You can go in and lose a few shows and it's not devastatingly horrid. Manners and respect for humans is everything. You can't go into a farrier or vet session with no respect and no discipline because you can lose a life.

Day 68

Yay for progress!
I may have told you a while back that I started working with Harry on some Parelli games. Well, actually, game in the singular. I started working on the Friendly Game with him and he was okay with the string for the carrot stick and the carrot stick separately, but not together, probably because it looks like a giant whip (but it's really not). We made huge progress today when I was able to connect the two and rub them over him and he didn't flinch! It was fantastic. Step 1 of the trust-building achieved!

It was thunder-storming today. Last time I rode Harry in a thunder-storm he got kind of freaked out. He was okay today, probably because the thunder was far away and it was just raining hard. I lunged him for quite a while and then started working. We changed his bosal and barbada (noseband and chin piece) and his entire jaquima because of Paco's recommendation yesterday. After working for a while, trying (unsuccessfully) to get him to walk on the rail, Paco adjusted the jaquima and told me that sometimes I have to give a little to get something in return from the horse, otherwise he'll just be mad at me. Makes sense. So he told me to just work on going straight down the line, not necessarily on the rail, and that each time to push Harry over a little bit and soon he'll be on the rail. Hopefully that works.

I also have exciting news. Exciting for me at least. Ray was watching us today while he was training and he told me as I passed by on Harry that I was doing a good job and to keep it up, I'll get there eventually. That may have just been a crock, but it gave me a smug feeling to know that he complimented me.

Didn't ride Nina. Again.

Rode Brie. This is our second to last practice before our Michigan show next weekend. I'm excited for it. She was a little uppity today, hopefully she's more calm on Wednesday for our last practice. I really hope she does well, I have to admit, I'll be really disappointed if she doesn't. All I'm asking for is to NOT get excused and to NOT come in last place. Second to last place is completely acceptable at this point. I gotta work my way up.

Day 67

It takes a young horse to remind me that we all have our bad days.
With that said, Harry was a bit of a psycho today. I worked for the longest time with him to the point where I was as hot and sticky as the horse. He doesn't want to walk on the rail, doesn't want to go straight when he walks on the inside, doesn't want to WALK period. Everyone tells me to just let him get his energy out of his system but wouldn't that defeat the point I'm trying to make? Do I need to stop trying to make a point and try to bond with him? Is he doing this to test me or because he doesn't trust me? I was going to do some Parelli games with him, but was so exhausted that I completely forgot about that intention.

One reader last week answered the question I asked: should I bring Harry or Brie to Michigan next week? I thank you for your advice, saying that if I never bring him to the show then he'll remain the horse that's never been shown. After today, though, it's clear to me that something isn't clicking between us and I don't think we'll get anywhere until we work on this unsolved issue between us. Tomorrow I'm going to work some Parelli before I ride, that way I won't be tired out. That means I'll have to reassemble the round pen. Fantastic.

I've finally accepted that everyone, no matter who you are or what you're doing, will look at you and laugh because you're not doing things to their expectations. It takes a strong person to ignore all of that and proceed to prove them wrong. I'll have to be that strong person if I want to fix this trust between Harry and I.

I didn't get to ride Nina like I wanted to today. I was still working Harry when my brother put her back in the stall.

Speaking of trust, Harry now has this problem going into the wash rack. Popped out of nowhere a couple of weeks ago and you have to do this ridiculous back and forth trickery nonsense to get him in and even that didn't work today. Paco had to get him into the wash stall for me and you know I'm not too pleased about having to have other people help me out. So that's another goal to add onto Harry's list: get into the wash stall.

Brie was apparently psycho for my mom outside, but we all know that's because she was outside. Have you ever had a horse who hated trail rides? How did you fix that?
She was great for me indoors though. I'm confidant about next weekend. Michigan, you better watch out!

Doesn't it seem that in the past couple of months this has turned from Brie-centered to Harry-centered?

So now the goal of this blog is to not end when Brie gets a blue ribbon in a class of ten or more; it has turned into a blog with the goal of living happily with my three horses and eliminating all of their problems, whether they're trust issues, showing issues, or trail issues.

Looks like I'll be here for a while.

Days 65 and 66

Sorry I'm late with this one--I've just finished my first year of college! I was bogged down by studying and moving out worries over the weekend but I'm here now! I'm gonna write them in pseudo-past tense because it's easier for me to remember things that way.

Saturday

I worked a lot with Harry today. He's surprisingly calm lunging without the pole. I'm thrilled about that because I find having to walk around the pole and not trip all while trying to not get dizzy and focus on the horse in front of you a very difficult task, especially the not tripping part. It's so nice that I can lunge him like normal now. He is kind of uppity in the clockwise direction, not sure why, but we'll work on it.

It's the strangest thing too. He's perfectly fine staying on the rail while he's gaiting but he won't keep his butt on the rail when we walk. Any ideas why this is? He doesn't really understand leg yields yet and I do get a little nervous trying to do them with him because I don't want him to freak out, but I just keep reminding myself that I have control and that I will NOT be thrown off or injured in any sort of way. Of course this is not ignorance. It's confidence. I'm confident I can get off before then!

I rode Nina today. She's a tricky one. I guess part of the reason that I'm not good at riding her is because I never get to! My brother is always the one who gets to ride her. For me, she seems very all over the place (because I don't know what to do with her), but hopefully my brother has better luck in shows. I want to start riding her more often because, after all, she is the horse in my name!

Brie didn't really work that hard today. I mostly sat on her while listening to my parents talk to Gary, the stable owner, about Spectrum two weeks ago. It sounds amazing, I wish I could've gone. So Brie didn't really do anything. She got it easy today.

Sunday

I won't go into full detail, but today SUCKED and not because of the horses. Harry was absolutely PHENOMENAL. His gait was perfect, the kind of gait that will sweep a performance class. I like to think that I can feel the fino in him, but I don't want to push him. He's having a little trouble keeping his back legs going the same speed as the front and I saw it on the board when my brother rode. Sometimes he gets unsure of what to do with those feet so he hesitates and it makes the gait sound off. He also has a problem of rushing the board and going into it at a canter so I'm trying to break him of that habit by stopping him and making him back up before we take the board.

The Michigan show is in two weeks! (fingers crossed) Hopefully we will actually go through with this show! It will be the first show we've done this year so far and I'm wondering who we will take. Since I know nothing about Nina's abilities, I'll leave that to my brother. But now it's down to Harry and Brie, since we only have a two horse trailer. Harry did fantastically yesterday but he's kind of nervous passing and being passed. Brie has been doing wonderfully consistently but, well...she has past history with freakouts in the show ring. This is going to be a tough decision to make. Should I bring Brie, the horse I've been working on for the past 8 months to get to this point, or should I bring Harry, the horse who shows lots of potential but I've never shown him before?

Equestrian Team Day 13 - Last Lesson of the 09-10 School Year

What an interesting day.
Best news: Our directions from last week work perfectly!! We even found an alternate this week (a happy mistake) by getting off the highway at the wrong point. Excellent! Definitely emailing those to the team next year. I don't know what route they take, but we know for a fact that this one works and is TomTom GPS approved!
Really though, I don't understand why they didn't have directions for a route that worked on the website.

I got to ride my favorite horse today, Cameo. *love* All I could think of while I was riding her was one word:

GLORIOUS!

A fantastic ride. I love the smoothness of her trot and the quickstep in her canter. I'm in love with that horse. I'm also happy to announce that my jumping courses are getting more complex! Ha, and complex meaning I get to jump two jumps instead of one. Last week I jumped two in a row; this week she had me do a little pattern.
Oh Cameo. Wonderful flat horse, but she loves to test what she can get away with on the course. No problem for me. I've lived through Brie, there was no way I was letting this horse get away with anything.
Yeah okay. She refused the first time I wanted to trot over the tiny X jump. So I already had it in my brain to make her go back and do it again multiple times before Nell told me to do that. She was perfect after that. I, on the other hand, didn't get comfortable jumping over with her until the last one, which felt amazing. Note to self: Don't look at the floor! It throws off your balance as you jump!

So as a "present" to us before we left, Nell let us ride an extra horse. Yay! Until I found out I had to ride Jimmy. Oh Jimmy. Remember when I was learning how to use a crop? I used it with Jimmy because he's so damn slow! I tried to go into this being confidant, talked to him as I tacked up telling him that he was not allowed to pull any crap on me while I was riding my final ride there fore the summer. In response he tried to bite me. No worries. I was determined to make this horse trot without kicking him and by simply pressing my heels into his side.

Well I accomplished that! It kind of went downhill from there. It was drizzling and while Jimmy and Kara's horse were fine, the filly in the pasture was extremely happy and started galloping and bucking around. This excited Jimmy. As we trotted past, he jumped up in the air. In my brain, it looked something like this:
I'm sure it was actually a buck. I wouldn't know: I've never been bucked before. Point is, I didn't fall off and wanted to walk back around to try to tell him that bucking in that corner was not acceptable.

Didn't happen. Instead:
I didn't fall off thought! Yessss.
Yeah. I figured at that point that training this old coot to stop bucking at the sight of a filly bucking was not my problem: I wasn't being hired to train, wasn't concerned with training this horse, and wasn't about to risk paralysis for a 20 minute "treat ride". After all, it was such a longer fall than from a Paso Fino. So I just walked the upper, non-pasture half of the arena while Kara rode her horse around quite pleasantly.

I hope I never have to ride Jimmy again. We don't mesh well and I don't think it's worth it for me to deal with a "difficult horse" when in the long run, if I end up doing anything with horses, it'll be as a Paso trainer who will never have to kick my horse unless I'm asking for a death wish. I know how to handle difficult horses. I just wish that Nell would understand that I'm not a complete horse idiot and when I say I train Pasos, I don't mean I sit on them and listen to a trainer telling me what to do. I train them. Straight up.

Summer's so close, I can taste it. Maybe this summer when I get a job, it will go towards a special "Lexa's future Nissan Altima/Ford F-150" fund. If I save from this summer and next summer, I should be able to buy it by junior year when I live off campus. That way I can drive out and visit Brie, Nina, and Harry whenever I want to!