Horse Show: Part Two

Saturday, my friends were excited to delve into the horse show.

Unfortunately, my friend's mare was lame, so this presented a slight issue.  Another friend had been planning on entering some walk/trot classes on Love (the lame mare), so we decided that they could take the SFM for a spin instead.

SFM isn't necessarily a hard mare to ride, but it's much easier to ride her if you ride correctly.  When I ride, I have to constantly remind myself of what I am doing or the Mare will always humble me. 

The same friend also showed the SFF in several halter classes.  The filly is pretty easy to show halter, although, not really enthused about the process.

Mare ended up with a fifth in an Arabian halter class, I believe.  Filly had I am not sure...fifth maybe? in the sporthorse-in-hand class at the show, which was a little entertaining given some of the horses that entered.  But that's an open show for you.  Sometimes you never know what will happen.

This show day also had the world's slowest judge.  Seriously slow.  At four pm, he was still judging halter classes.  How is that even possible?

The gal that's been riding the filly for me had a wedding reception to attend that evening.  Theoretically, not a problem since walk/trot classes are usually held right after halter and halter is usually done in the noon to one pm range.

Egads.

So the friend who had the mare that came up sore volunteered to ride the filly.  One little filly, one person who had approximately ten minutes to figure out how to ride this horse in her first undersaddle class.  That's a lot of guts right there, I think.  It went fine.  No ribbons for either mare or filly that first day undersaddle, but I was not especially impressed with that judge, but that's how it rolls sometimes...

The mare did end up with a third in "most classic head".  As previously mentioned, it's basically an Arabian vanity class.  Cooler goes on horse, so you can just see the horse's head.  Prettiest head wins.  ;)

Part of the crazy part is how long the show was taking.  Some people just packed up and left before the riding classes.  The ring announcer was getting tired and decided to be one of them, leaving my friend (the show manager) to announce.  Unfortunately, she also had horses being shown by farm clients, kids, and so forth. 

So my amazing group of friends and I jumped in.  We had our own horses to prepare and handle, but somehow, we got all the necessary horses saddled, people put onboard, horses in the ring, other horses put in the proper people's hands, and everyone basically ended up where they needed to be.

I'm still not quite sure how all of it worked out, but it did.   To those interested, classes ended at 11 pm on Saturday evening!  A long show day indeed!

Little did I know that it would be the calm before the storm on Sunday...

We Came, We Saw: Horse Show Update Part 1

The past few days have been something short of slightly insane.

Thursday, I went into work early for a meeting, had a couple more meetings throughout the day, and then desperately tried to catch up on my actual job.

I then had class at 4:30, which consisted of taking my phlebotomy final.  I did fine with the classmate I had to draw (as we practiced and drew on each other!) and off I went towards home, where I picked up a friend and went to the barn.

I figured since I had a horse show that weekend, I should probably ride my horse at least once before going to the show....

Friday was spent taking the written phlebotomy final online, packing up random horse related objects in the house & barn, bathing one horse, getting too hot to bathe & clip the other horse, putting horses in the trailer, and heading to the show grounds.

I did manage to get both horses in my very small two horse trailer, which was entertaining.  Plus, I managed to get both horses there (and back ;) ) safely.  I am slowly getting to be a little less of a chicken about driving the truck and trailer, but there is still so much worry about it!!  But for only my second time hauling, I think I did fine.

Pretty much the expression on my face, most of Friday

We arrived safely at the show grounds. 

Both the SFM and SFF were worked undersaddle and the SFM did pretty well.  It took a few minutes to convince her the back gate was not going to eat her.  Thankfully we had a super friend (and another horse) that we could use to wander back and forth past the gate until it was a non-issue.  I think it's usually easier to show the horse by example (another horse, or even someone on the ground) that it's OK to hang out in a scary place, rather than skittering back and forth a dozen times if the horse is upset and cannot focus on its job.  But we conquered the gate, put the horses away, and began to wait for my friend's horses to arrive as she was doing two trips from her farm to the show grounds.
 

Another friend and I ended up noticing one of their horses not looking like her bright, chipper self.  Crap.  Friend had gone back to her farm for the second load of horses and so we stepped up and ended up medicating and hand walking this pretty little mare until she seemed to get over her mild bout of colic. 

One crisis adverted.

Little did I know, chaos would be the motto of the weekend! 

Memory Monday: The Buck Stops Here

Random throwback picture of the SFF as a yearling (two years ago)

This memory monday was quite some time ago and of course, as I get older, the details fade.  I was still in high school and was working at the summer camp.  Traditionally, both the kids and staff were assigned to ride a certain horse for the week.  If a horse was injured or was sore, some horses could be shuffled around to make sure everyone was covered.

This particular morning, my usual steed had been commandeered by someone else.  I looked across to view my remaining selections.

Not much.

Cool.  

I was also running out of time, so I had the hard choice between a very arthritic, ancient Quarter Horse gelding or a tall, 16.2hh Palomino gelding.  I chose the big guy since my group of kids were going to be doing some more trot & canter work and I thought it would be nicer than working the old gelding too hard.

I managed to belly up on the big gelding bareback and caught up with my group that was getting ready to head out.  The palomino felt fine as we meandered out.  He had some time off as he had some off and on soundness issues, so I was a little concerned for his behalf, but he seemed fine.

The lessons in the field went well.  Capture the flag, discussing canter leads, a mini trail ride were all part of the adventure.  I was cantering back when the gelding's head dropped between his knees.

Egads.

Now, I have dealt with a lot of stupid horse behavior, but not so many buckers.  I really didn't have much of a clue how to push one through it.  Rearing, sure.  Bolting, adept.  Spooking, second nature.  Bucking=??

So, it was easily determined in the 2.3 seconds I had to think about it that my steed was bucking.  No saddle though.  This was a big horse in a hilly field.  It was probably going to hurt.

Another friend was nearby on her horse and I remember my desperate plea:  "What should I do?"

I'm not sure what my exact logic was in asking someone else, since I obviously had more immediate goals at the moment.  I remember pushing myself off of his mane and back onto his back for a few follow up bucks and then he settled down without a further peep.

At the end of our ride, I dismounted and ended up laughing as I picked the long white hairs off of my pants.  I literally had stayed on by the seat of my pants.

How about you guys?  Do you remember some of your first encounters with misbehavior in your horses?  How did you handle the situation? 

Sweating Bullets

Counting down to the show soon...

I decided to take a leap of faith and I am taking both the SFM and the SFF.  It will be the filly's first show under saddle and well...the first time I have taken the mare in a while.  Both are going to be shown as hunters under saddle, which should be entertaining, as they are both dressage type, but hey, it's an open type show, so I figure should be fun regardless.

I am planning on having both shown in halter, dressage in hand, and in hunter under saddle.  I think the SFM will be shown in the liberty class and most classic head, which should be cool.

Most Classic Head is an Arabian invention.  Basically you take the horse, cover it up to the high neck with a cooler and judge the horse just on its head.  Talk about absolute vanity.  ;)

I had a good ride on both girls today.  The SFF was adorable as usual and conquered the hula hoop today.  Another person had it in the area and I took the chance to play with it.  The filly didn't mind stepping on it at all, just rather doesn't see the point of stepping in it most of the time I think.  :)

We also worked on weaving some obstacles that were set up, using mostly just seat and leg pressure.  She is really doing quite well with that, but is still a little noodly at times.  It's like she discovered she can go sideways so spends most of her time trying to figure out if she can go straight again or not.

The SFM started out irritating me, which sounds bad to say (and it is!).  I was frustrated, which isn't really her fault, but it's been a few long weeks with class, work, and so forth, so I realized that I needed to change my frame of mind.

I tried to work on softly walking around the arena for a bit and then picked up a long trot.  For a long time.
 

It may have been a short eternity.

Just kidding, it wasn't really that long, but it was enough trotting to begin establishing that look corners exists, yes, those jump poles were moved, no the cat cannot eat you as well as the ever popular hi-I'm-your friend-but your head doesn't need to be in my lap. 

It has been a while since I have adjusted myself to try and ride her more fairly.  She has had the youth rider riding her which is fine, but of course, not asking herself to collect up and carry herself efficiently and here I am demanding my horse to "just add water".  Not fair to the horse and wasn't fair to me either.

After we were a little more settled into the routine, I asked for the canter and it was truly a nice canter.  The mare has a good canter, which is just enjoyable to sit and is a smooth, full strided one and it felt good tonight.  It wasn't rushed, we didn't spend a lot of time falling through the corners, so a win in my book.

While asking her to come back down and walk, I then realized that I had an instant western pony.  She was so relaxed (and probably tired ;) ) that her head was down by her knees following the reins down and she seemed to enjoy meandering along.

I took the opportunity to focus on just guiding her off my seat and practiced picking a "spot" in the arena and visualizing stopping at that spot.  The goal was of course, to only use my seat to achieve the halt.  It went pretty well I think, but of course, helps that my horse wasn't objecting to stopping either.  ;)

Poor horse actually got sweaty today.

I did too.  Not just from riding, but from all the last minute things I need to do!  Last minute tack issues, my clothes, boot issues (another story), and so forth.  Enough stress to give me a few grey hairs, but I hope it will all be worth it.  :) 

For in life, aren't the good rides supposed to be worth all of the effort we put forth?

Silly Sunday

I am trying out some Pony Sunscreen for a while for my little pink faced critters.  However, I just love the look that the SFM has here.  Maybe next time I need to blend it in a little better...

PS I was schooling halter and then decided to sunscreen her.  It would be a little weird to just randomly stand around in that halter.

Then again, I find myself doing a lot of weird things.  

Oh dear.

Finally!

I have spoken briefly in this blog about Alex, a horse I originally purchased with a friend from auction.  He has been living the life as a camp horse for almost a decade now.  

Well, a while back I heard that the camp was possibly looking for a new home for Alex.  Alex has been a harder keeper the past few winters and the camp isn't very well set up for special needs as the horses are all rough boarded and fed free choice hay in the winter.

So, long story short, is that my friend runs a therapeutic riding facility and she has a soft spot for Arabians as most of her horses are part-Arabian....

So I think Alex won the jackpot today.

New cozy stall.  Dental work coming soon.  Chiropractic work and some more saddle fitting adventures.  He is twenty-five now and his prominent withers and little sway doesn't make it the easiest thing to saddle fit.

But in the end, my heart is happy.  It was worth the road trip today and I am glad when all organizations (camp and the therapy place) worked together to make sure a special horse landed in a new home where he will continue to make children happy and delighted. 

Older Alex posts.

The Auction
The Compromise
The Jump

Birthday Surprise

Yesterday was my birthday and I worked, which is pretty typical.  However, I did have a fun birthday surprise when I came home today.

Two birthday cards from my grandmothers.  How did they know these are my favorite kind of horses?  ;)

My husband also made me a horse shoe pot rack holder.  Hopefully we will be able to install it above the sink shortly and I can take photos once it's up and running.

However, the basic gist is that I collected a bunch of horse shoes from my cool farrier, which he painted, welded and assembled into a pot rack shaped formation.  He's certainly more creative than I am.  :)

Anyone else has creative or crafty people in their families?