Shoulder-ins and Leg-yields

you know those days when you just know something is going to happen?? yea i just knew today i was going to have a good ride, i just knew it!! so today india felt wonderful and reminded me why i ride dressage :) when i asked her to do anything she just said "how much ma'am? and would you like a massage with that?" she kept her head in the right spot and when i asked her to move it it happened immediatly.

we also did a shoulder- in!! the elusive shoulder-in has finally been conquered!! and might i mention that it was done all the way down the long side. i figured out (finally) what the angle for the shoulder-in is, and that i was really over doing it *smacks head* and that i was trying to keep her on the rail with the wrong hand *headdesk* i needed to let her move toward the rail with my outside hand and i was trying to do that with my inside hand *headdoor* and now that i have my hands right i don't have to use so much leg. go figure *headfishtank*

i also did some canter leg-yields which aren't as elusive as shoulder-in, but still pretty elusive, india just cantered right on over to the rail

now that my self-confidense has returned, we focus on more important things like paige is starving, paige needs to eat, india is starving too, paige needs to feed her :)

Mary Wanless Clinic

(yea!! i'm back!! iv'e been really busy lately)

ok so Mary Wanless was a lot of fun and i learned so much. like how i have to anchor my knee and lighten my bum on the saddle so i don't crush indies long back mucles (sorry indie) and i even have a video of me running my mom over with my horse :) and guess what else happened..............sorry just for suspence........................Mary Wanless told me that when i graduate high school i should come and be one of her working students!!!! is that amazing or what!!!

We Miss you Badger

This is Badger

i just found out that Badger was put down a couple of days ago. He was 28 and had problems keeping weight on (lack of teeth). His owner was thinking of putting him down anyway but had trouble actually making the call, but a couple days ago he fell and fractured his leg. Badger was a showjumper and routinely jumped over 4 feet (before he was retired) and got his name because he was as stubborn as a Badger. All he could eat for the past few months was mushed up senior feed and we had to give him an entire bucket full of it. Badger stayed in the mare pasture and had his girlfriends (indie, Vacara, and prissy) to keep him company. He was the horse that little kids when they came with their parents would pet. He was a really good boy and will be sorely missed. Love you Badger.

Bath Time!!

OK so normally indie doesn't get a bath unless we are going somewhere like a show or the Mary Wanless Clinic :D (gonna be there in 4 days!!) but good Lord in heaven she was FILTHY!!!! i didn't take a picture but i seriously i thought someone had stolen indie and replaced her with a bay (a hairy bay) so after i rode she got a bath (the ride was pretty uneventful) and the whole time was thinking " there had better be carrots after this, normally i don't let people take pictures of me in the shower but my carrot senses are tingling i can SMELL you carrots, i KNOW they are there, they CANNOT be hidden" so after indie got clean i had to give her some of the giant carrots! modeled by annie to give you a picture of how big these things were, indie, i'm pretty sure would have sold her soul for that bag. she also told me that parelli would get results faster if he used these carrot sticks :P

dang i love this horse <3

Oh the noodleiocy continues

yep i own a racehorse............... :)

ok so today i walk out into the pasture and take out the halter which the horses failed to report was the starting signal and OFF THEY GO!!!!! around and around and.....around and the whole time trying to take out the photographer. so after about 5 minutes of playing seabiscut and war admiral (india was seabiscut seeing as she is the 14.2 paint and viki is the 15.2 danish warmblood) tom smith (me) finally tames the crazy racehorses and leads them into their stalls where tom smith suddenly has an identity crisis and switches to the mean evil rider over stepping her bounds and actually trying to do Dressage after the Belmont!!!! what an awful owner i am.......XP

so today aunt annie (she's not really my aunt but what eva) got on india and gave india her new nickname Noodle!! by in the middle of the ride yelling at me "how do you keep her straight she's like riding a wet noodle!!!" haha!!! i must be a better rider than i thought!!!!

so i have once again i have that whole deal you know "two steps foreward.......backward so many steps you fall on your bum" yeah it happened again Back to trying to do a correct leg yeild......again. lets see if i survive long enough to get to mardi gras break (yep whole week off for mardi gras!! be jealous be very jealous)

Dorothy's here everybody make sure your circles are perfect!!

don't i just have the loverlyest horse ever!!

ok so dorothy came today and everytime dorothy comes everybody pulls out all the dressage books that tell you how to make perfect circles cause if you don't your gonna get your behind whipped!! the reason for this dorothy is a hilda gurney student.....nuff said. if you don't respond immediatly she makes the most horrible noise kinda like NANANAAAA!!!!! and trust me after that your halts improve A LOT. now i know a lot of people who won't take a lesson from her because she does yell but what can i say i'm a fifteen year old gutten for punishment i can't get enough!! i just feel like with the nicer trainers my brain congeals into soft moldy cheese and then ADD kicks in and i start fantasizing about how one day i'm going to own a 17 hand oldenburg stallion named Cataclismoes (just to annoy show annoucers hehe..) and we shall dominant dressage beat the germans (no offence) and be champion cross-countryers (cross-countryettes???) AND race against the best racehorses and run the pants off their jockeys and........well you get it. (yea ADD is that bad)

so anyway india was a very tolerent girl and our trot work improved a lot but one thing i did not forsee was india trying to be a rolkur horse i even let the reins out all the way and she would just scrunch in tighter idk very strange. well dorothy fixed that everytime indie does that she gets some bigass spurs scraped up her gut (well maybe not THAT bigass more like, you have spurs on??? *leans in closer* ohhh now i see them!!) although we did have some issues with canter so TEN METER CIRCLES HERE WE COME!!!! and did i mention that you have to canter before the circles done?? otherwise a very good lesson!!!

Long-Reining

(top left: mmaaaammmmmaaaaa i wanna quit!!!) (top right: maybe if i put my head down she won't make me canter....(unfortunatly that one worked)

so today mrs. annie and me decided to long rein indie and as you can see she was a very good girl although she did try and convince me that long reining wasn't nessecary and i should just go feed her. my job was to run behind her and tap her with the whip when she got lazy and i can tell you right now running behind lazy horse with a whip and trying to take pictures is REALLY hard, heres how you do it #1 have camera in one hand and whip in the other #2 run really fast while tapping horse on butt #3 stop and take a couple pictures #4 run really fast again to catch up

i swear i saw indie roll her eyes at me!!

(dorothys coming tomarrow)