The New Vocations Charity Horse Show

I took my OTTB Vegas this weekend to do the Beginning Hunter 2' division. He was so good! :) We haven't been to a horse show in 3 years and we hadn't done much advance schooling over fences with the heat lately, so we went in with the 2' goal and were willing to downgrade as necessary. Fortunately for us, he was a complete rockstar (think Mick Jagger level) and jumped everything. We have some basics to work on, obviously, but over the course of 3 days he and I greatly improved.

We arrived Friday night with six other horses and went out to school, he was a tad distracted but worked out of it great. We then went in the show ring to hack around there and I said WTF, I'm just gonna pop over some of these and see how he's doing. He was awesome, went over everything... Slightly crooked over the lines, but hey he went over and he was distracted. :) Proud of him!

Saturday we just did the 2' warm up trip to get him in the ring and focused, he did really well. We had to circle at one point which wasn't in the course but I figured I'd rather get him going properly than rush anything.



We just hung out for the rest of the day after that, it was hoooooooot. Sunday we did the Thoroughbred In Hand first thing (3rd!) and then we had our Beginning Hunter division around midday. Our first trip was a little rough, I don't think I rode him correctly through it and I blame myself, we had a run out in the second portion of the first line :( Recovered well and went onward. Second trip same thing, only you can see clearly that I just stopped riding after we got a bad spot :( Sorry Vegas.



Our last trip was our best, did you know that if you keep your body up and back and a nice supporting leg on that your horse will actually jump nice? Damn, I didn't figure it out until too late! He was so good, we got a little speedy down the far outside line but he came back nicely and we rebalanced for the near line. Sorry about the lack of zoom and strange cut off points, my friend's fiancee wasn't well acquainted with this camera, lol.



Here are some pics... And another tip! Don't ride in your brand new tall boots for the first time at a horse show. #1, ouch. #2, my leg was swinging like a pendulum because they weren't broken in to where I could utilize my leg! Dang! This happens! He looks really awesome though.

Horse show puppy! This is Ella

I'd say our barn cleaned up fairly well! We only had 7 riders :)

That's all for now... Stepp and I are still aiming for South Farm if we can hitch a ride :( If not, I'm not sure what's up.

Stressed out!

Life has been hectic the past couple of months. I've made the decision to apply for and hopefully attend nursing school starting in October. GASP. I've been working my hind end off for the past couple months, the clinic has been so busy I haven't had time to do any of my administrative stuff. I've come to the realization that if I want to keep my horses, I have to find a practical job and unfortunately while I love my job it's not enough. :(

So keep your fingers crossed for me, please, that I get accepted. I take the entrance exam on Thursday.

Now, on to the important part! The horses. I'm frantically trying to find a leasee for Vegas, otherwise I'll have to sell him. :( I've been losing sleep over this entire situation, unfortunately (who'da thunk it?) school is expensive. STUPID FREAKING HORSES why didn't we all take up chess in the beginning???

We have all been riding in the field lately :) The horses have done great. Steppy and I are hoping to go XC schooling sometime soon... Got to wait for everyone's schedules to coincide though. Vegas and I are going to the New Vocations Charity horse show next weekend up at the Delaware Fairgrounds - unfortunately our trainer won't make it but we'll go to at least school and see how he is, then determine if he's going to show.

I will get pictures up soon - Right now I have to run out the door to work. :( Back to payin' those bills.

We're famous! Just kidding..

We were published as USEA Member Story #10! <-- Click the link. :)

Movie Maker.......... UPDATED. WEG XC.

Is very dangerous.

Saddle shopping!

Here we go... This was saddle #1, a 17" Beval  Gladstone. I really liked it sitting in the store, I liked it on my horse but when push came to shove it just wasn't a good fit for either of us, or both of us together.

Sent that one back... Test rode in a 17" Richard Spooner this morning in my lesson, I liked that one much better!! Some pics and videos...

And videos...









So... Now.... The question is, do I go ahead and buy the Spooner? Or do I wait until Rolex and sit in 500000000 saddles? The problem is, our first XC school of the season is the week before Rolex, and I wanted a saddle to ride that in. Our first event is hopefully going to be 3 weeks AFTER Rolex and I don't want to be breaking in a saddle..........

Pros, cons. BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What to do?!?!?!?!?!

Killing time... Early spring, anyone??

So. Phil saw his shadow, and Columbus is under at least an inch of straight ice... Woohoo!

We had a photo shoot about a month ago at the barn... On a rare sunny day. Here are some pics, thank you to my friend Sara Bluntschly at Treasured Image Photography for taking the pics! She's fabulous :)

Yes, no helmet... I know... It was an impromptu decision to jump on. Every horse, every ride, but I'm as safe as I can possibly be with Stepp.

I know.. STUPIDITY. Okay done.

And then last week Stepp and I enjoyed the snow...

Happy Early Spring, everyone! The end of months of straight dressage is near...

Here we go! 2011!

Time to prepare for 2011... THANK GOD. Right now we are entirely focusing on dressage... Because, well, we suck. Stepp wil be 17 this April... I can't believe it. We're going to start him on Adequan come March, right now our schedule is:

1 day a week lesson, once a month a training ride instead of a lesson
2 days a week longing in side reins
2 days a week hacking
2 days a week convalescing

We've regressed horribly with our dressage... About 3 months back. So we'll get on track and aim for an event in May, hopefully either May Daze or the Winona H.T. at Stone Gate. I will try to get some videos and pictures soon so we can have visual aides on our (expected!) progress. I think my end goal is to try to get to AECs.... We'll see!

In the meantime... From December 19th...