Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmassss!!

Merry Christmas!!!

now i'll be the first to admit i am the biggest christmas grinch this year. i am just not overly enthused by the whole idea of not being able to ride for a week because of shopping for other people.
But i'm going to put all that aside, and hope that next year will be even better!! which reminds me i need some new goals for next year :)

But today on Christmas Eve i want to talk about India.
She is like my rock, the one thing that i know will always be there for me.
And she has been there, when my parents separated, when we sold the farm, when my grandfather died, when i was so depressed that i came home from school everyday and cried, I always knew i could go to the barn and see my baby.
It wasn't always easy, and i didn't always love her this much. For the first couple years together i would never admit it but i was scared of her. She liked to bolt and me being only about 50 pounds there was no way i was stopping her. All my lessons focused on keeping her in the arena, let me tell you i developed quite a survival seat!!
Every time we went to a Mary Wanless clinic everyone would always turn out for my lesson, probably because it was so painful to watch.
The change really happened when we put her in a kimberwick, that shiny piece of metal gave me confidence. I remember one judge at a show had to come see me try and ride without the kimberwick to see if i could ride without it at the show, she agreed with us, i needed the kimberwick. 

One day i realized i didn't need it, i could control her on my own. As she got more sensitive i got more confidence. However it took me a while to realize that she wasn't the same horse she had been. as my mom put it "stop riding like a damn Nazis!!!"
Once i figured that out and learned to be soft, Indie really gave me more.
I still haven't discovered all she can do, she's always surprising me, like the other day when i took her over some ground poles, she passaged right through. Don't ask me why but she did and I'm sure we couldn't do it on purpose.
The progress we have made makes me so proud of her, and wonder what the hell i was thinking. The fix for all the problems we've had seem so simple now, why didn't i just do that before?? But hindsight is 20/20.

So to finish off..

India, i love you so much, every time i see you its like my chest fills up to the point of exploding.
I promise to always try my best for you.
I love you Boo.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Who needs Human Boys??

Not Me!!

Actual riding will resume on friday for an hour then back to studying, then on tuesday riding will resume until finals.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Christmas is Coming!!

Which means Christmas break!! can't wait!!
i will get to actually ride more than twice a week. seriously cant wait.
Exams = riding  Death
so in the meantime......

Christmas List     >:)

Patent Leather Double Bridle
no idea how i'd keep that clean...


Wintec jumping saddle
cause their easy to keep clean
Bell Boots
mine are about to bite the dust
White Polo Wraps
so we can look classy :)


And Good Weather


Repeat after me: "ahhhhhh beach.....*sigh*"

Friday, December 3, 2010

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Demo+Red Horse Update

The therapeutic Riding Demo was so much fun!!
I would do it again in a heartbeat. Basically what i did was ride around following instructions while Missy Ransehousen narrated the ride. For those of yall that don't know Missy Ransehousen is the US Para Dressage team coach, who coaches Rebecca Hart. Who is in my opinion the best para-rider the US has. That and i love her horse :)
It was so much fun to meet Missy and one of her able-bodied riders, who rode a big chestnut tb from Australia who was so pretty!!
The only pictures we have of me were so blurry there is no point in putting them up, but i might be able to find some on the internet from their website, so we will see.

India was so good, i'm so proud of her!!
There were lots of kids diabled and abe-bodied in the metal stands that were jumping on the stands and dropping crutches during my ride and indie didn't even blink an eye. We got to show off some of the basic first level moves but mostly did the equivilent of training level, because there were three riders and the second rider was only riding second level and there had to be a distinction between riders.

So needless to say me and indie were kinda bored doing endless 20 meter and 15 meter and ten meter circles. I swear if india could talk this is what the ride would have sounded like
 "mom mom mom mom mom mom moooooooom moooooooooooom!!! i'm boooreed........are we done yeett??"
but she behaved herself and did some nice collected and extended canter, and everyone loved her.
Highlight of the Demo: being asked if i was going to the Olympics next year and being told that india was a perfect angel and the best part of the demo :)
Thanks for the awesome opportunity ms. Shelley!! and thanks for volunteering me ms. lisa!!


So on to the red horse, who is so smart its not even funny. You can teach him something and come back a week later and pick up right where you left off.
So right now we're just working on keeping his noodly self straight and his head down and reaching for the bit, and taking a little more contact on the inside rein.

after only about three weeks we already have before and after pictures for walk and trot and actually being able to take a pictue of canter and concentrate enough to take a picture instead trying to take a picture and all you can think is "oh my lawd...........damn, its like a box of cockroaches, legs everywhere"

Brown shirt= me
Blue shirt= leslie
Black shirt= lindzay

i look like a peanut!!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Long time no see!!

So school is made of fail right now, all my teachers decided to schedule their before-break tests at the SAME TIME!! and mid-terms is coming, and I've been lucky to get to the barn twice in a week. Two days out of seven is horrible!! we're making very limited progress and I'm just really put out about the whole thing.

But in other news.......THANKSGIVING!!!!
break starts in t-minus 20 hours and i have all elective classes tomorrow, thank the good lord in heaven!!

So in horse news on Saturday I'm going to be the "official dressage ambassador" for a therapeutic riding center, I'm going to be riding first level test four. Which I'm excited about because i love that test, like i love it :)

And I'm going to force into photography service some unlucky soul that is going to video me riding, cause how many times is one a demo rider in life??



Also we might be able to sneak indie up to Evie's to go visit Roamer and Armani over break, and hopefully start laying the groundwork down for third level and play around with the second level tests. So i can go get ma bronze medal!! ;)



Oh!! i almost forgot!!
Shout out to Ms Stephanie Bedford, CONGRATS on being a working student for Hassler Dressage!! We're all rooting for you, while secretly being really really jealous ;) love you and the big red guy!!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Pictas of da horsey

tiny  kenai  red  wrigley.................He who must not be named



Monday, November 1, 2010

Introducing Kenai!!

Yeah a new pony to ride!!
well "pony" is a relative term seeing as he is 17.1 hands.
and i'm 5'2......i look a peanut.

He is an off the track race horse, whose official jockey club name is Going for Broke.
needless to say he didn't go and his owners went broke. 

Our cowboy friend picked him up for about $100 and called us and said "i have your new dress-edge horse!!, his name is tiny!!"
He is a three year old so he's still growing, heaven help us. He's chesnut and has a white blaze. He needs to gain about 200 pounds, i don't like my dressage horses racing thin. We already renamed him, Kenai which is a national park in alaska.
He is the sweetest thing ever, nothing bothers him at all. His gaits are going to be HUGE once he learns to use himself correctly they are already big.
He's one of the nicest OTTBs i've ever seen, once his shoulders catch up with his butt.

My mom is technically going to be training him since she's started more horses then me, but i think we all know who is going to end up riding him most in the end ;)


Right now we're just working on getting him to round his back and reach for the bit, how to turn not like a western horse, and getting off your leg. He's already got the jist of turning correctly and putting his head down at walk and trot. and this is the third time he's been ridden in dressage, smart buggar.

By the way he will probably be for sale as soon as he is showing training level and training first level, so save your pennies!!

Thursday, October 28, 2010

FAIL

That's right, today was dressage fail.....
India behaved like a squirrel on caffeine......
it was baaaaaaad...........

She kept contact very nicely though...i mean she had some really brilliant moments where everything just fell into place
then there was the "OHSHIT!!!nobrakesdon'trunintotheWAAAALLLL!!!!" moments.

F.A.I.L

Lots of it was my fault, i was rough with my hands, because i had no brakes......i love having brakes. Because i was rough with my hands indie got nervous and flipped out losing more brakes. and so the cycle continued........
then it got dark and she started flipping out at everything, so i moved to the lit arena where she fell to pieces.......... and i finally just cantered around until she got some energy out and we cantered one good circle did a canter-walk (a really good one i might add) and quit right there.

Even though we had some hairy moments she was brilliant the rest of the time, i got some of the best quality trot i've ever gotten

Sooooo not total fail.......

But i am publically saying that
I Need Help!!!
i can't train this horse all by myself anymore, i don't need anyone else to ride her i can do that part. I just don't know where to go from here. I know the feeling i need to get i just don't know how to get it without making my horse have a meltdown......and i feel terrible about it.

Now that i have a job i'm going to start coughing up the 100 dollars every couple weeks and convince the rents to trailer the pony's butt up the expensive trainer, when dorothy's not here.



*Also please enjoy this not fail*

Monday, October 4, 2010

Quick Update!!

Basically i've just been working on stretching out her butt muscles and refining the aids. Exciting i know.....

i've also been actually seriously working on travers more. she can now take about four or five really good steps before it all goes to pot. success!!
also really been focusing on lateral work at canter because its been lacking in the past.

Now on to the refining the aids part, running away is not allowed neither is turning corners like a motorcycle, even though riding motorcycles is really fun. Its not on a horse. the thing i've been focusing the most on has been her relaxing and accepting the contact without pushing the base of her neck back at me. its been slowly getting better, if i don't ask "big" about every couple minutes, i have to start over and just halt and keep asking over and over again. BUT!! (hehe the big butt) she has been getting the hang of it and the amount of time i have to solely work on it has been decreasing each ride.

And on the weather front......it was actually 70 degrees today!!! i almost forgot what 70 felt like, its been the high 90s for so long.
 i. love. cold. weather.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Armani Man, Wonder pony, and The Princess.

















So we went back to visit Armani and Rumor, whose name i found out is actually spelled Roamer. But pronounced Rumor. If your confused please join the club.
Armani this summer was busy building muscles and teaching a hunter/jumper rider how to have contact with the bit. And i just have to throw this in, she did a very good job.

The first two days were spent perfecting canter-halt, halt-canter, halt-counter canter then do a simple change, and basically working on geometry. Ms E drug the arena and we got to make fun patterns in the sand. I made a ten meter circle four leaf flower thing. Working on geometry like that really helps one be aware of where they are in the arena. So once we could successfully navigate the arena she had us pick up counter canter from a halt then go across the diagonal and before we got to the other side do a .........drumroll please........flying change!!!

i can't even tell you how excited i was!! the first day we tried them poor Armani was so stiff he just barely got a couple clean ones, he needs his hocks injected again. But on the third day every single one we tried was clean and spot on when i asked. It was so cute he got so excited every time he did a change. This time was just so much better, i knew how to get him soft and  waiting for me, and he just floated everywhere. I. Love. This. Horse.

Ms E cant ride herself because of a degenerative balance issue. Armani is her horsey-soulmate. The last day we were there after doing over 7 clean changes both directions she almost started crying, which made me almost cry. Overall it was just so much fun!!

We went out to dinner one night and i asked if she wanted a working student over the summer, she was a little hesitant until she found i can drive. We need to talk more to work some kinks out but i should be spending summer 2011 in mississippi, riding a schoolmaster in the morning and indie in the evening.

That Weekend there was a games clinic that my best friend was teaching, so i decided to ride too and got offered the ride on her own games pony Chino.
Anyone that has ever competed in advanced games east probably knows Chino. Because he's pretty much the best games pony ever. He knows the games better than his rider.

This is me riding Chino, the wonder pony. Yes i know my worst nightmare came true i am in fact...neckreining and his neck looks like a llama *gasp!!*
My inner dressage queen just died a little.
But apparently according to the best friend i'm really good at games, who knew!!
Did you know i can touch the ground from Chinos back?? its a little harder than it looks. And i'm really really good at the mug race, there are four poles every other pole has a mug on it and you have to pick up the mug from one pole and put it on the next pole, i like that race. The race i didn't like was the one where you have to put a tennis ball on a cone and then pick another ball off of another cone, every time i got close to the dang cone i'd knock it over.
My favorite race by far was the flag race. you run to the other side of the arena and put a flag into a cone and then go pick up a flag from another cone. I cantered that entire race and got the flag every time, except once but that one wasn't my fault!

Never fear dear readers i'm not switching to games. Dressage is still my first love. Friends dad was laughing at me the whole time because in the middle of a game i would be completely turned around in the saddle watching someone ride dressage on Winglet, the cute little mare that sometimes tries to throw you over her head because she has really really good brakes.


Alright so in India news, because we all know i can't have a blog without talking about the princess!!
The Chiropractor came back and worked on her butt, and there is good news not as much good news as i would have liked but still good news. Her poll, knees, shoulders, and ribs were pain-free yeah!! Her hips were still hurting all over, but not as much as last time yeah!! So we still can't do any collected work which is really making me crazy because everything else is just so damn good!!

All her lateral work is better and more expressive. Her gaits overall have improved ten times, she doesn't have those choppy short strides most ponies her size have, she is actually over-tracking which has never happened before ever. Her canter is bouncy and expressive. Her top-line is finally developing like it should and her neck has a slight arch to it now. The muscle that connects the shoulders to the neck is finally getting bigger and stronger. She is softer in the bridle and  more flexible around her rib cage.
And i can't work on anything that takes collection!!! AHHH!!!
Driving me nuts. Oh well i guess we will just have to go visit Armani again.....damn. ;)

I've really been thinking hard about me and India because this year i become ineligible to ride in the FEI Pony and indie can't compete at FEI junior or Young Rider, which i would really like to compete in. So i've decided that i'm going to train indie up to FEI pony level and then find her a rider that is young enough to take her and i'll just have to work on FEI junior and Young rider on her and a bigger horse. Don't worry i'm NOT selling her. The only way someone will get indie from me is if they pry her out of my cold dead hands. But in a couple years make sure to look for Indies name at FEI pony!!

By the way i love indie so much she's my baby :)

Monday, August 30, 2010

Thou must be kidding thyself



I found Indie's baby pictures!!! and aren't they just so adorable!! but of coarse i'm biased ;)
their are a couple more but i chose the cutest ones. I'm really lucky to have this many pictures of my horse as a foal not many people have this many. 

So miss sassy pants got pampered by the chiropractor again, and didn't try to bite him!! so excited about that. Well she was not much better than the last time, bummer. However a 19 hour trailer ride right before a show really wasn't helpful. So until his next visit Sept 9. all we're doing is stretching and lateral work and oh yeah more stretching. But thats okay with me because it takes a lot of pressure off. Most of the time i feel like if i'm not doing real dressage work all the time i'm not making any progress (which is totally not true!!) and by "real dressage work" i mean stuff we have yet to master such as working on collection or half-pass. Stretching not included, even though it should be. 
So i decided since we're not working on real dressage it would be a good idea to go to the now-dry cross country field and go stretch. There is a raised track around the field that stays mostly dry (most of the time) that goes through trees and borders a swamp-like pit hole, but still a nice place to ride. So we went around the track at a stretching trot  once and then went around at a canter a couple times around. We did have to have a little "discussion" about cantering politely, and not running into trees. Other than that Indie enjoyed herself so much that as the ride went on  her canter got boucier and bouncier and more wonderful and more wonderful. When i went back to the field next to the barn my mom was there and i started cantering and asked indie to canter slower and i hear from across the field "STOP ASKING HER TO COLLECT!!!" apparently her canter was so bouncy that she collected her canter enough to be seen across a giant field, which doesn't sound impressive but it definatly is!! well.........i was excited.




Monday, August 9, 2010

USPC Championships East

USPC Champs was the most fun i've ever had in my life!! My scramble team was absolutly amazing, i loved them!! We were in the first level and up division so we were competeing against two people doing second level and one doing third. I was really surprised that their weren't more people doing "upper level" (thats what my region called first level and up, their such nerds!! but i love 'em!!) There were only about 20 people, there were way more people doing training however. I mean come on people!! whenever someone moves to second level they quit pony club, its happened in my region about four times and my region is tiny, really really tiny. Something is just not right about that, its like they move to second level and suddenly their too good to be on a team and have to fool with horse management. Okay enough with that, i'm over it.
So please enjoy this beautiful camera-phone picture my friend took, there was a Professional photographer but he hasn't posted any photos yet so the phone picture will have to do for now
That is a picture of my freestyle, and i'm about to do a ten meter circle and then lengthen to B

This year Champs was in Virginia, which is in the eastern time zone, i live in the central time zone. So every morning getting up at 5:00 to get to the barn by 6:00 was actually me getting up at 4:00 and getting to the barn by 5:00, for seven days because the drive took two days each way, the first two days i was fine. Even excited if that word can be applied to 4am. But by the third day i was so nauseated and this continued for four more days, so i daresay my rides really suffered because by the time i actually got on taken three ginger pills drunk two cans of ginger ale thrown half of that up, i really could have cared less about my test. Add to the mix that india was being as my friend put it "a little turd"
Examples: almost launching her self over a cliff twice, bucking, no steering, bolting, and she wouldn't walk in the warm-up.
Mix that all together and we got 61% on all of our tests and a 64% on the freestyle. But the part i was most excited about was that indie got a 7 on her canter lengthening!!! last time the highest lengthening score we got was a five, this time we got sixes for the trot lengthening and sevens for the canter.
Just those two scores made the whole time a success.
Another thing that i'm really proud of is that from the first test to the last india really improved, instead of slowly losing her mind she slowly found her mind.
My trainer watched all of my tests and she disagreed with a couple of the scores, she thought the first test should have scored much lower (and i have to agree with that one) and that the last test should have scored a little higher. But i'm happy everything was atleast in the 60s so that makes me feel better.

So placings we got fourth in horse management, because i was pretty much the only one that had ever been to a rally that went more than two days, so besides having a couple little mini heart attacks it all went pretty good.
and drumroll please........First overall!!! not only were we a scramble team but half of us had never been to championships at all and the other half had never gone in first level, thats pretty darn impressive!!
and i got fifth out of twenty people in the individual freestyles
Yeah!! so much fun was had :D

Friday, July 23, 2010

Chiropractor

Good and Bad news....
Bad news first, the chiropractor came and worked on india, he found that both her hips, one knee, one shoulder, and two ribs were out, like out of the socket and/or joint. Which was causing her a lot of pain. I feel really stupid now, "oh that would be why my horse doesn't want to collect, her hips hurt so bad she popped her knee out" she was trying to stay off her hips and in the process threw her knee out.
Super
But she was a very good girl and only tried to bite him when he put one of her ribs back in. Personally i don't blame her!!
Watching the chiropractor was really cool though. He used this...thing that looked like a giant syringe but had like a ball at the end and when he pushed it it put pressure on whatever he had it on (like ribs) i'm not exactly sure what it did but it was interesting.
Then he would put his hands on the point of the hip and push really hard while pulsing his hands, which i'm pretty sure put the hips back in the socket.
We also got some stretches that they need to do everyday in order to make the good feelings last longer because the first visit only lasts about two weeks but if your really good about the stretches it can go about three.
I also learned that what throws horses bones and joints out faster than anything is stalls. Horses are meant to move all  day long, however if one has the same problem as me you can't turn them out all the time because there is simply no place to turn them out. I literally live in a swamp sometimes, the mud and water in the pastures has been known to claim footwear, horseshoes, a couple knees....and a few children, still haven't found them buggers.
So tunout is not an option sometimes, riding helps but there is nothing like walking around for hours.
The stretches we got are as follows, pull their head around and make them walk in a circle the trick is to get their inside hind leg to cross over the other hind leg. That is for their hips to keep them loose and pain-free. Another is make them briskly walk backwards about twenty steps, i think thats for the hips too. The other is to stand at their shoulder and take the hand closest to their hip and using the allure of a treat stretch their neck around you as far as they can go. I would like to report that india has a very flexible neck, she can touch her hip.
So now for the good news.......the chiropractor is a miracle worker.
the first time i rode her afterwards she felt amazing, awesome, super super awesomely amazing!!
She was soft, relaxed, but she had that electric feel, she felt so good!!
She was even excited about being ridden, she just fluffed up, rounded her back and lengthened her stride and just floated around the arena!! Her canter is even bouncier!! i really regret that i haven't taught her flying changes yet because her canter for the past two rides would have been perfect for them, i settled on simple changes :)

Off topic here but i really feel like life is looking up right now, like everything is just going to start falling into place, something good is going to happen. i mean just look at this blog, my first post was about just starting leg yields, now i'm talking about half-pass, simple changes, and about moving up to second level!!

*did anyone catch the MGMT reference??*

Thursday, July 8, 2010

M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

First off i'm realllyyy hyper, too much caffeine!!
So me and the madre went to Mississippi to train on some Grand Prix horses!! Two of the horses we rode were 25 and one that my mom rode looked like he was 10 max, his name was Rumor Has it and was trained by Carol Lavell. Apparently i am inept because i couldn't ride him at all!! Couldn't get him to go couldn't turn nothin. Ms E, the trainer we were taking lessons from eventually told me the secret, first you have to beat him to get him to take you seriously and then just have to figure him out. Thats my challenge next time we go. However i'm bringing my own saddle there was one saddle she put me in and it gave me bruises, big old black ones.
 I think its so interesting how different saddles can be, they all have the same basic design but they are used for such different body types, for example if my mom can ride in a saddle you can know without a shadow of a doubt that i can't ride in it. Her thigh bones are long and mine are short, but we are about the same height, figure that one out.
Alright so back to the horses, the one i rode most of the time was a 16.3 hand warmblood named Armani. And now that i think about it he was almost an older carbon copy of Val (Grand Prix Someday's horse). He was also 25 and his gaits were HUGE!! It felt like jumping on a horse trampoline. He was so wiggily like a giant chesnut noodle, but i loved him. Then there was Winglet, she was about 7, and she was like butter. All you had to do was think what you wanted and it happened. She was wonderful!!
Most of what we worked on was fixing basic holes in my riding, stuff that india lets me get away with. Like getting the perfect angle for lateral work. We worked on shoulder-in, travers, half-pass, and leg yield.
Yes i really am that bored right now
We also worked on transitions, mostly canter transitions, and keeping mr. noodle butt straight. Once you create a corridor of aids (reins, legs, feet, those aids) then he was really easy to keep straight.
I also did some passage and piaffe on accident, Oops. but it was fun to be able to sit.
It was really fun, schoolmasters are so nice to ride after riding lower level horses my whole life. Can't wait to go back!

Oh and Hey Hannah!! Stevie and Sparky are amazinggg!! XD

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

When Life says Go

WARNING This post  has toxic levels of mushy lovey dovey stuff  WARNING

Sometimes God holds you back, like collected trot and keeps saying "more energy, okay a little less now, sit on your haunches, more energy" He keeps you in one spot gearing you up towards the future. And then at one point in your life, or multiple times in your life depending on who you are, He says Go.
He lets you loose to wreck havoc on dressage shows, BMX tracks, football stadiums, whatever you love.
Like collected trot and extended trot. "sit on your haunches, more energy, sit more......now show them what you got" I feel like God has started to let me loose, and India has started to show everyone what she's got. Just the other day my non-horsey dad told me that he never thought me and indie would ever show first level, he didn't think indie was capable of it. He used to call her the little pony, now he calls her the horse. Our first time at first level we dominated, no one, not even the training level freestyles came close to our freestyle score. Our first time at first level we did test two and four, factor in the points i lost for talking in test two and we would have made a 61%  in test four we made a 62%.  The freestyle made a 69%.

A couple weeks before my trainer told me we couldn't break 60%.

On the way back from that show my mom looked at me and said "you proved yourself, you proved that i can teach, and you proved india is cut out for this"

A couple days ago India took two steps of half-pass, we've never worked on half-pass.
two days ago she took two more.
Yesterday she gave me collected trot...and canter.
The best i've ever felt, on any horse.

He's been gearing us up

Now its time to go.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Post-Show Epilogue

I gave Indie (unintentionally) five days off, spoiled princess!! because we have had torrental rainstorms every single #$^&*%&!!!! day since dressage rally, the outdoors once again have sea creatures swimming in them, i love sharks as much as the next person but they are not conductive to dressage training.
i did however get to ride yesterday and it was kind of a disaster of major proportions. the sky was perfectly clear when we got there not five minutes later the sky is so dark we had to turn the lights on just to see, at this barn however we have an indoor that can be completely sealed, so off to the indoor we went.
The ride could be summed up as such
Me: "hey indie you remember that stuff we did at dressage rally?? yeah that didn't just magically go away, i know we proved ourselves at first level and showed everyone that yes we are competitive,  but your still a dressage horse"
india: " ?!?!?!?"

Most of the ride was spent spooking at lightning (although i don't blame her for that we had some bigass lightning bolts) and convincing her not to run through my aids.
From a training dressage standpoint
ride = fail
BUT... i kept my temper in check, normally i would have been so mad at her that the other horses in the arena would have been running for cover, which was good when i was riding Austa but not so much for India. Austa was so bad about running through aids to convince her you were serious, one had to be mad enough to spit nails, India however gets mad back, thats her daddy coming out. And when she is mad she has all the other horses running for cover.....sometimes quite literally.
Take for instance one day when we were all practicing freestyles, those of us waiting our turn were just sitting on our horses under a tree and indie was mad because we had had a little come to jesus meeting about the speakers, another horse pepper (also known as the asshole) moved closer to her and she lunged for his jugular!!
scroll up to the picture
read my last sentence
now scroll up again
now read the sentence again
Whaaat?!?
i know she looks all sweet and innocent, but she is not to be trusted!! shes malicious its a wonder i've survived this long.
and then the other incident with a lesson horse where the lesson horse got too close and she tried to double barrel him, and on trail rides she tries to get as close as she can to horses she doesn't like just to bite them!!
So you see why me having a temper is not good. Last ride however i didn't get mad and just kept evaluating her the whole time and i eventually got her mostly sorted out and was happy with my ride. For me this is a big deal, and i'm proud of me and indie. :)

And i also found a treasure trove that those of us with cobs or ponies will apprieciate
http://www.justforponies.com/
its a website just for pony and cob sized equids!!

they even have a dressage section, with a reasonably priced double bridle and children sized dressage saddles, and pony sized martingales (do you know how hard it is to find a martingale for a 12 hand pony that fits correctly) With the emphasis on the cob sized double bridle i've been looking for one forever (not that we need one right now, just for the near future) and the only one i found that was actually cob sized was a really fancy one from a custom bridle shop that was about 2,000 dollars, this one is about 132 dollars, Yeah cheap stuff!!
So definatly go take a look if your horse is vertically challenged ;)


So cute!!

Monday, May 31, 2010

Dressage Rally!!

Was so much fun!!
So everything goes well at jog outs and then i go to my formal and the person says "oh your a B so do your formal" my heart stops because i have no idea what she's talking about, do my formal?? I then tell her that i am in fact not a B but a D3 (for those of you not in pony club, a B is the second highest rating one can achieve a D is the lowest. the ratings go like this D1, D2, D3, C1, C2, C3, B1, B2, A, i think thats how it goes if i need correcting please dont hesitate)
then they kept insisting that i was a B and i couldn't possibly be a D3, i then show them my nametag and armband where it clearly states that i am in fact a D3. Disaster averted they then got the right sheet and i didn't fail my formal :)
The first ride was first level test two and i was really nervous and i guess indie picked up on it and spooked at M, i forgot that one is not to speak during a dressage test, i might have called my horse an ass in front of the judge.

My Bad.

the rest of the test was very nice though and i pulled a 57% out of a hat.
The second test  was first level test four and this one went much much better. I rode my guts out pretty much nailed everything except for one simple change, i didn't shift her ribcage over enough and she picked up the wrong lead we got the correct lead back though in only about two or three strides, yeah!!
And my first halt in that test got a 10. a 10!!! OMG!! i was pretty excited :)
that test i got a 62% pretty good for our first show at first level, if i say so myself!!

Then on sunday the freestyle. I did a latin themed freestlye that had Mambo #5, Hips don't lie, and Cafe by the Sea, all instrumental. For this i got a 69%. The judges loved it!! the lowest score we got for it was a 6.5. I found out that i love doing freestyles if you ever get the chance to do one go for it!! and i would show everyone a video but four people tried to film it and all of their cameras died almost at the same time, i guess it was not meant to be. Poop. oh well i get to do it again in virginia..
BECAUSE WE QUALIFIED FOR CHAMPS!!!!!
even though i was the only one trying to qualify at first level, that doesn't matter because i still qualified and got the highest freestyle score out of everyone.

now i'm off to sleep for the next two weeks, Goodnight!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Exams + dressage rally+ job interview + new school + getting yelled at a lot = Super Excited

Exams:
so exams start on tuesday and i haven't finished my math final assignment because my teacher won't e-mail the late codes, because apparently that whole "you guys can e-mail me anytime and i will answer" thing is not working out. I hate school. a lot. but its almost over an then i will be a junior!! :)

Dressage Rally:
starts the day after exams end, which is making me super stressed out. however watching August Rush really calmed me down, i love that movie :)  i'm doing first level test two and four and a latin themed freestyle to try and quailfy for nationals!! :D where we will then kick some buttocks. however i will only be going if i first survive exams, crap.

Job Interview:
unfortuantly its not a horse job but it pays better so i think i can deal with that. Its at a party place where they have a giant inflatable room that the kids play in, and it provides cake and drinks and that great stuff. So giant inflatable room, cake, drinks, money, cake, friends, cake. with emphasis on the cakee :) i think this will be a good deal. Whoohooo minimum wage!!!

New School:
Next year i'm starting a different school and i'm really excited because i really don't like the school im at now. So the new school is a public magnet school where i won't have to wear uniforms!! and it will just be much more amazing than the private bubble school.

Getting yelled at a lot:
first Dorothy yelled at me because apparently after almost 17 years of knowing my left from my right i have inexplicably forgotten which is which. Damn. Then my mom yelled at me for "not being responsible" because i don't really know tests two and four, my response was "have you noticed that i have four grade determining exams in two days?!?! just wondering" that resulted in the "your being disrespectful!!" whatever. i'm over that now. i love the woman, but if she's stressed, being far away is the safest option.

So how does this Equal Excited??
because SUMMER IS HERE!!!! and i am determined to be training a teeny tiny wee bit of third level by the start of school, i want my bronze medal!!!
did everyone like how i already claim it as mine?? i liked it.
so yesss thats whats up right now. wish me luck!!

Friday, April 30, 2010

Thats Lame!!






Yup honey bunches of oats has a sore hoof (insert collective booing)
i don't know what caused it but she was just off, no swelling, no heat, no pulse.......well obviously she has a pulse.....just not in her leg....ok??
So me being the good horse mommy i am banged her tail, cut her feathers located on her fetlock (i'm studying for pony club can anyone tell??) and cut her mane. Just look how beautiful it is!!
That my friends was done with scissors, not pulled, not clipped, scissors. I haz skillz.

And i love this picture, i took it, just sayin. it looks like shes on a hill. which is actually an illusion because the land here is as flat as a pancake.

i also got some cool videos of her grazing, well as cool as grazing can be i tried to make them artistic, i think i failed but everyone else thinks they are good, but that's beside the point
I also just sat on her bareback while she grazed and laid down on her rump. Only afterwards did i realize that the vet school had sent a group of future vets techs to look at some horses, right outside where i was laying on my horse sticking my butt in the air.       Awesome.
But all in all good relaxing day, if nothing else i am positive :)

Monday, April 26, 2010

Where did April go?!?!?

i must be OCD because apparently i can't post without a picture, whatever inner OCD!! i'm breakin out!!
So not much has been going on lately except some crap that i'm not going to discuss here yet, jury's still out.
But on the India front she has been stellar these past few rides!!
I've really been focusing on collection because i wanna go to Second Level!! and thats the only piece we are missing. Its really not that she can't do it, she can, she is just not strong enough to hold the level of suspension needed for the actual test. Any ideas on strengthening collecting muscles?? Shoulder-in has been soft and forward, and her leg-yield has gotten so much more precise, i really feel like i own every single step, not every other step. Walk pirouettes are still coming along, they are getting better and slightly smaller now instead of being the size of russia we've moved to a  more brazil sized one. But thats okay with me because i really did teach her walk pirouettes way too early, so big they are. Simple changes are now down to three steps of walk, its hard to actually convince her that yes i really do want her to go from the canter to walk, not a walkish trotty thing....ish. (i guess that would technically be considered the second missing piece of second level.....oh well)

Did i mention Counter-canter??
oh yes counter canter is pretty legit right now, we can now go into corners and not die or zoom around them at Lightspeed, Sucess!!
My show clothes for dressage rally came in yesterday and let me tell you they are pretty spiffy. Black coat, White breeches, stock tie, indie's show bridle (which is really her everday bridle but cleaner), white spotless saddlepad
we are going to look like i actually know what i'm doing!!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Hokan :)
















Hokan :)


So the last ride he had on Roxi (that we saw) was fabulous, she was relaxed and happy and he was even able to do some flying changes and extended trot!!
and afterward when he was taking off his helmet, which he put on after these pictures were taken i guess he is still not used to wearing one. She walked up behind him and put her head on his chest. It was seriously the sweetest thing i've ever seen

And i passed my D-2 rating!!! and fell in a huge sinkhole all in two hours
i haz skillz

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Just Kidding.....

Short short post today

soooo about that show its not gonna happen because i can't wear a helmet for another about four days, because on tuesday i feinted and fell and busted my head open on a door jam so that morning we spent an amazing two hours in the emergency room getting my head stitched back together.....joy.

The best part is though, i don't have black stitches, i have green stitches. be jealous. be very jealous.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Blog Award

Wow i got the beautiful blogger award from confessions of a struggling dressage rider, can i just say thank you so much!!

So seven things about me
1: my theme song is All the single ladies, for a reason, i'm single and proud

2: i got india for christmas, big red bow and everything (thanks mom and dad)

3: I used to own a dressage farm, it wasn't fancy but i loved it.

4: i love music, and i listen to a bunch of random songs, i don't have a genre

5: i have a wintec isabel and i love it, me and my mom fight over which one of our saddles is better, don't tell her, but mine wins hands down

6: My favorite drink is dr. pepper

7: one of my nicknames is pinto bean, and my best friend's is soy bean, because we're cool like that :)



ok now i'm gonna give this award to some pretty amazing people 
Foxypants (because this chick is hilarious) 
Saving Faith
Spidersweb
A day in the Life
Grand Prix Someday 

Dorothy!!

So there is a reason that i waited so long to post about this lesson which was about a week ago and the reason is this
                                                             

ok so i know i look like a turtle, but i was concentrating, and dumb-moment of the day award goes to me. Lesson learned?? never turn your horse out anywhere with tack on it gets really muddy.....really fast. My bestfriend wants to be a professinal photographer and wants to take  show photos for some extra money and was practising on me and india and i'm telling you right now india is a lot more photogenic than i am :)

So first lesson (outside) we worked on getting her to take longer, calmer steps and walked most of the time...oh well. However we did work on trot lengthenings and finally got one!!
the exercise that we did was in every corner and at E and B do a ten meter collected trot circle then inbetween circles ask for a lengthening. It works so well!! but when she explained it i was like "oh this will be easy" i stand corrected it was hard. after a while she started to anticipate the lengthening, if she started to anticipate it we just did another slower circle then she was alright. She was high as a kite that day, getting her to listen to my aids was really difficult.

Ok second lesson, she was very good this time and we worked on collecting and legthening again and lateral work. We worked on shoulder-in and leg yield, and indie gave me the best shoulder-in i've ever gotten. Also we had to share the arena with a bunch of western people that saw the part of the lesson where i was mostly walking, a couple of them decided to i guess show me up by cantering around with tie-downs. Dorothy looked over at them and started muttering about "ooh look i can canter with a tie-down i'm so fabulous"
Does anyone know the look people give you when they are thinking evil thoughts??
i do.
She told me to canter (without a tie-down) and had me lengthen the canter right under their noses and to do it big. Then to do some leg-yield and shallow loops. I swear the looks i got  were priceless they ranged from disbelief to humbled.
If any western people are reading this i would like to point out that we have tons of western people at my barn and i love most of them, but there are two groups that come that i really strongly dislike, the first group is the one that beats the shit out of their horses, the second one is really mean to anyone who rides english dressage or jumping. They have kicked us out of the arena even though they never rented it (which you have to do to kick people out) They almost run us over pretty routinely. However i will give them some credit this time they where polite most of the time (i think dorothy scared them)

In other news we are going to a show this weekend, i'm showing first one and two. And i'm so nervous, i'm really not sure why i can do the tests with no problem, indie's been to these showgrounds before and we won everything we could have won. I think it has something to do with sleep deprivation, its making me very emotional. For example i was reading over my tests and was about to the point of tears, and i really don't know why. Note to self sleep is very important, the earliest i have gone to bed the past like four days was one in the morning and i woke up at six every morning, its really killing me, i stayed home today (because i'm a wuss) and slept until 12, can i tell you how much better i feel.
Note to all concerned sleep, its good for you.