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!!

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*

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.

CHAMPS PICTURES!!!!

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 :)

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.

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