first night away and new shoes

Well the mares survived thier first night away from home, in a 1/2 acre pasture, with my 3 geldings! they were actually looooving it this morning when we went to get them. We took them out there last night and rode all around my grandma's 80 acres..too much fun!

We brought them home this morning with Carlton, my big paint horse..(someone is coming to look at him on sunday, and hopefully he will go down the road!)oh by the way...when i turned him out 3 months ago, he was a 15.3 hand scrawny coming 4 year old...he is now a 16 hand monster. what the hell man. is daddy is all of 15 hands and his momma was 15.2 at her biggest! where did this monster come from! lol.

-anyway-
Striker(formerly Gidget) and Ruger got thier very first front shoes, and a back trim today! feet on the stand-y thing and all! :) The shoer, who did thier "front trim" 3 weeks ago was the same one who came out to do thier shoes today, and he told mary and I that when he trimmed them he was thinking "no way they will have those horses ready for shoes by the next time i come out."(I had mentioned that the next time he was out that I would have him put shoes on them)

ha! ha! in yo face! he said he will never underestimate us again. :)

It was a pretty chill day, and we are taking them back to fullerton tomarrow for some more fun trail riding! yay!

oh yeah Kristy Reed is coming to ride with us at ingalls on sunday! yay! :)


more later!

-Jenn

what a friggin day..

Ruger's light bulb really clicked yesterday. I've been riding her in a side pull and she's been poking her nose and generally just avoiding my hands lately. Mary has been using my bosal i bought for my pleasure horses a while back..needless to say it sat in my tackroom and rarely got used before this competition. Striker(formerly Gidget) has been coming along nicely in it, and yesterday I figured it was time for ruger to move out of her side pull and into a bosal.(sorry mary! time to buy your own!!lol)

Wouldn't you know, I rode her in the bosal and it was like riding a totally different horse! being a pleasure based trainer I like my horses with their heads down, neck level, shoulder up, and collected..so naturally that was the first thing I taught her...it took me all of 5 minutes to teach her to jog. let me just say...

THIS HORSE IS BAD ASS!! :)

We loped for the first time in a big pen yesterday, big round circles, with our head level, shoulder up, and somewhat collected. She's still a little fast for my taste, but she's a wild damn mustang with 70 some days on her! I can't be anything but proud of her at this point! She picks up the right lead every time, no questions asked. We are a little drunk on the rail, weaving about and such, but I don't think any of the competition says we have to go on the rail. lol.

I worked her on the trail too, I let my mom go wayyy up ahead out of sight and mary was way behind. She was good and learned we don't get to look at things that scare us, and we just move on. Nor do we get to stop and refuse to go forward without a smack from the popper on the mecate. We also got used to mailboxes and standing IN the lanes of traffic to get to them, that hackamore is a magical thing. love it.

Striker (formerly Gidget) was lame yesterday so mary walked her and I gave her a showmanship lesson. She trots and kind of pivots now, she will get it in the next week or so, they are too damn smart for their own good sometimes. :)

we are going to pick up Carlton at my grandma's today..i have someone coming to look at him this saturday so hopefully they will buy him!! that would make me happy at this point, I would be down a horse and Loooooving it! :)

The girls get thier first set of front shoes tomarrow! I know Ruger will be much happier on the trail with shoes on, no more "ouch...ouch....rocks"

At this point i'm friggin EXCITED about the competition! yay!

-Jenn

Ruger's sick, roxanne's lame, and mary's working..

so we worked on our showmanship and in hand trail today.

Specificly our "pull turns" or the reverse 360 we have to do in a box for the in hand. I also worked on weaving in and out of cones at a trot..i've been watching alot of the in hand trail stuff, and i've noticed some things, you have to a) drag something from one barrel to another or b) take a jacket out, wave it at your horse and carry it to the next barrel. i've done this one other occasions and she's been fine with it.

once you train a horse for you to be on the left side, ever notice how retarded they are when you lead them from the right? lol. I want her to be good both ways just incase they throw something random at us like that.

first i tried the 'pull turn'..didn't work out so grand..it was more like the blind leading the blind with a forehand turn mixed in. so i opted to take the pretty way out and go on her right side and 'push' her into a turn to the right, like you do in showmanship on the left. (by the way..there aint no way she moves her pivot foot anymore..she rocks to the left) we applied the same techniques as in a left turn and we sort of got it, but it took me time to get the left so it will take time to get the right.

She has a cool "halter horse trot" now.. I don't even have to trot with her, just cluck and walk faster and she will trot right next to me. I assume i'm going to have to trot myself during the in hand so i might as well start..even tough my pants fall off my butt..ugh.

has anyone done in hand stuff as part of their finals? or is it a riding only thing?

-jenn

trail...trail...and more trail

We have been trailering EVERYWHERE the last couple of days, and it's been awesome! The Girls load like it's no biggie and they don't care where they are anymore. Wednesday we took them to Fullerton, they have a really cool HUGE public arena with grandstands, scary white fences..the works..they didn't bat an eye. Fullerton is known for it's awesome trails and the lake..we rode on the trails with mountain bikers, joggers, and walkers with no problem at all! we even loped down a section of trail..too much fun! :)

Yesterday we took them to Orange Park Acres(it's like laguna hills with horses and property)and they didn't even mind at all. We had a friggin HERD with us, Bree and her 2 year old, Mary's sister on this Giant warmblood thing, my mom on Roxanne, and mary and i with the girls. We rode in the very cool public arena to warm up, them off to Irvine park we went! Down busy streets and across bridges..they were so friggin good, I was so proud of them. There is one stretch of road where there is no trail and you have to pretty much share the road with cars..it's clearly marked and people know there are horses, but it's still a little hairy. We had an incident with a douchebag in a BMW who thought he could run horses over with his riced out poop wagon..mary and i had stern words with him and i offered to chase him..grrr. Anyway the mares were awesome with water crossings and whatnot, hill climbing...haha..we run up them.

Today my mom and I are taking Roxanne and Ruger to Ingalls park and ride around in the foot hills where the competition is going to be. Ruger likes to go first, but gets weireded out sometimes when it comes to mailboxes..great since we are prolly going to have to pull a tarp out of one..ugh. Maybe we will make it to the river bottom which is SUPER fun for all of you who haven't ridden in the Norco River bottom!! :)

More tonight or tomarrow morning. :)

-Jenn

showmanship and getting sick

so ruger started hacking today and snorting green boogers on me...any suggestions on how to stomp this "cold" out before it gets bad? I'll feed her anything..

oh yeah, we rock at showmanship and in hand trail..my mom even did it with her today and she was perfect! :)

It's hot

Today was hot. 101 at tre highest. I worked ruger for a while then she started acting like she was going into some sort of heat stroke so I hosed her off and gave her her goodies with some electrolites in them. I called it a day and I'm going to to later in the day tomarrow. Let's hope it gets cooler this weekend.

damn my butt hurts!

So today was an awesome day to say the least! It wasn't windy THANK GOD! so i set out to get my confidence back, and instill somemore in Ruger.

I don't think I wrote about it but a few weeks back ruger spooked at something and started hopping, which turned into crazyness and I ended up with my newest edition of buises and my reinstatement into Club Dirt. It was a decent fall and I wansn't too banged up, I just lost some of my ballsy confidence. I thought it was because it was windy and it annoyed me that she got spooky when it was windy.

I got on her today and same thing.."bahhhh!! something, i don't know what...but something is going to get me!" so I patted her and tried to figure out what was bothering her. I moved my left leg and she shot sideways...ahhh...she's scared of my legs moving around or touching her. Good to know...good to know. Now this is mostly my fault..in an effort not to scare her, I haven't been using my legs-at all- in her training. odd since i'm a spur stop kinda girl. So i proceeded to kick, flail, and and bang my legs all over her sides until she was pretty much dead sided standing there. So we did it while we were walking, then trotting..since i was feeling pretty good about my Nancy Drew problem solving I decided it was time to lope again. I've only loped her once and it it was at marys nagging "oh come on grow some balls and lope already!" I think that was the commentary.. so I kissed put my outside leg on and she only trotted about 5 feet before she loped off..good girl!! We loped a few circles and then went the other way and she was just as decent that way. So i quit, untacked her and went to lunch with my mom. We came back and went on a 3 hour trail ride though the busiest streets in norco. people honking, men walking dogs, children playing in yards, dogs, the works..she did AWESOME! i'm so proud of her. she was really tired and kept wanting to stop and not go forward towards the end. but all in all she was really good and i couldn't of asked for a better horse today.

Mary is at the river and won't be back till Tuesday, but we are planning a day trip to Irvine park next thursday so if you want to come..your more than welcome!

-Jenn

in an attempt to not be boring...

I know i haven't been the best at blogging lately..but things get hectic when you have 30 something days left in a competition. I've made a solid goal for Ruger and for myself.

I've got a few extra pounds hanging around(who doesn't..shut up you salad eating skinny girls) so I've vowed to lose them in the next 30 days.

Ruger, my dear ruger..I have 3 things i want her to accomplish before we go out and see lots of scary things at this competition. Be level headed and collected at the walk, trot, and canter. Three things, three gaits. We have walk and trot, its our poor dropped shoulder, half run of a lope i have to work on.

Since the wind has decided to keep on it's insistent blowing and pissing me off I took a day and went a few steps back with her training. It sucks, but, sometimes in this thing I feel like I have to skip steps in order for her to have everything they want done..I hate that. I'm the kind of trainer who won't take a green horse to a show until I know I can get through the class and look decent or better. Being "green" is no excuse for placing 7th out of 8.

Anyway I bridled her up and longed her with her head down, this is the second or third time for her and she was great, she doesn't fight it and just puts her head down. I've ridden her after and she friggin gets it! yay! -anyway- I decided she needed to learn to pick up that shoulder she loves to drop so much, so I tied one side of her head the the saddle horn, not so much that she had her head all the way around, just enough to have that "arc" in her face. Then I tied the other side to the cinch ring tight enough so she can't fallow her nose, but loose enough so she is willing to go forward..She was so funny I couldn't help but laugh a little when she went around the pen, shoulder up at a trot. She couldn't figure out why her body was moving that way and her face was just classic. :)

If you have never tied a horse like this and they have a shoulder dropping problem..I highly suggest it, it teaches them balance on their own, and your not the "bad guy" for picking a "pick up your damn shoulder" fight. You will see them correct themselves instantly and their movement is much nicer and floaty. English horses benefit from this the most, but it helps those joggers too. :)

Back to Ruger, she was very good and tried very hard to keep that shoulder up at the trot and lope. I'll post videos later today so hopefully you can see the difference between not bridled and bridled and not think i'm a quack. haha.

I also worked more on our showmanship and in hand trail..she is getting so damn good. I was watching some of the in hand stuff from EEM's past and i must say...i'm appalled. who leads their horses that way? dragging them around the course like a sack of potatoes. I know that the horse following behind while leading is fine for the barn, but in a class? ouy vey! I'm super surprised that more people don't have their horses mind better on the ground. I guess pat parelli doesn't teach these things. hahahahaha...whew.. sorry i know that was a cheap shot.. :)

Anyway, the wind isn't too bad today so maybe i'll go out on a trail ride with the mama.. after all we do have to do 2 hours of riding on the "urban trails" during this competition.

more later!

haha neglect

i've been neglecting my posting duties lately..only because mary and i have been so damn busy with the stangs. They load so guess what...they trailer! lol.

We have been taking them everywhere and riding them. it's been fun.

I'll post more later.

i've decided on a finals routine...

This is a "parody" and should be taken as such.

the lights dim. fog rolls in. The first chords of Toby Kieth's "I shoulda been a cowboy" play.

Ruger and I come busting through the fog, cap guns blairing. A giant green foam cowboy hat on my head, yellow Cinch shirt, pink lambskin chinks, and a "fu-man-chu" mustache on my upper lip. Lets not forget my Levi 501's are tucked into my bran-spankin new polo style boots with crazy embroidery adorning the tops.

I run around and crack a dressage whip like crazy, jump over an oxer while a fan blows red and orange streamers in an upward fashion.(get the flames? I thought you did)

I bust out my cap gun and shoot imaginary balloons while running at mach 10 around th e pen.

I end my performance by running and performing a half ass reiner slide that looks more painful than pretty, backing up and asking Ruger to lay down while I stand on her and shout "I SHOULDA BEEN A COWBOY!!"

My dog Harley comes running in and jumps into my arms and howls.

lights dim.

ahhh...it's going to be EXCELLENT. maybe i'll win..maybe they will get the point..doubt it though. :)

enjoy my friends, enjoy.

-Jenn

let showmanship prevail

ok, not to toot my own horn, but i am pretty kick ass at showmanship. granted i HATED the thought of leading my horse around a pattern when I first started as a youth, but it grew on me. I wish i had video of my showmanship patterns with my paint mare Belle..she was BAD ASS. I always got dirty looks when I showed up early for showmanship. don't hate. lol.

anyway, i am always forgetting how smart mustangs are. I give a "normal horse" about a solid month and a half to have showmanship down pat and start winning blues..i don't like going out with a half broke horse..embarrassing! It was too windy to ride again today, so i decided to work on our "in hand" since it is a portion of the show. I put my show halter on her along with a stud chain(just in case) and a normal lead rope attatched to the bottom. We walked over poles, the tarp, trotted out and stopped. she started to tune in and follow my body more than my voice commands.

I now some people like to "kiss" to their horse to make them trot in showmanship..i think this is dumb..do you kiss to make them jog while riding? no, you cluck, kissing is for loping..so why confuse them. I also don't understand the "shhh shhh" some trainers use to back them up..ugh. just say "back" damn it! judges don't give a rats ass how much noise you make..as long as you are crisp, clean and on time you WILL get a ribbon.

Back to my showmanship lesson.. I normally don't ask for pivots when first introducing showmanship unless the horse already has trotting and stopping down. Since Ruger is so damn smart I felt that asking her for one was appropriate. I raised my hand stepped into her and clucked...wouldn't you know she crossed her front feet, planted her right rear and stepped over! I walked her on, stopped, backed, then asked her for a whole turn...she gave it to me. I quit with that.

I also set up some jumps in the round pen and line drove her over them..she will clear a 2' jump from a walk. shit balls! good to know tho..lol.

It was a good day even though i had an angry post earlier...i like to vent to all of you! :)

haha doncha love it!

-Jenn

rage against the system

I'm a little ticked off today, so don't mind my angry shouting antics.

My mom's mare, Gidget, is WAY more than my mom can handle, and to be frank she wants nothing to do with the wretched bitch. Mary seems to be the only one who is willing to work with her. Now my complaint is, mom emailed Randi at the MHF and asked nicely if Mary could send in an app and trade with her since she doesn't want to give up on the mare and doesn't want to return her.

-now- if i were in Randi's position i would say, you know what...this lady loves horses and doesn't want to give up on them, so she is finding a suitable trainer to take it off her hands and show it at the NEMM. Does that happen? NO! They would rather risk my mom getting hurt than switching trainers. I'm so pissed off.

Another thing that makes me angry about this EMM thing is the people that keep on winning the damn things. It seems like you have to show up in a damn strawberry picker hat, chinks, bad tack, and a handle bar mustache all while running around and cracking a bull whip to win.
-EXAMPLE-
I was following these two Tallahassee trainers from the Gatorland EMM, they are English trainers that know their shit..the assistant is an AWESOME rider and had a bad ass performance in the finals jumping and whatnot...guess who won?? a mustached, badly tacked, bull whip cracking, standing on the saddle idiot.

can we say stereotype?

I'm letting Ruger sit in her stall and rot till the NEMM. Then I'll show up in full rodeo garb and drag her around the in hand course, cop out and not show her in the riding class, and maybe I'll get a prize.

I'm so tired of show politics.

We all fall sometime

It was windy today, i was ballsy, i fell. it happens, she was a good girl besides the falling. mary was working so i was alone, my mom came for moral support.

Tomarrow will be better as long as it's not windy. :)

we lope!

Ruger and i loped today! yay! she is like a big ol' comfy couch!

Gidget has been loping for a week or so, but she is still a little speed demon...barrel horse? lol. They both are excelling REALLY well and I think we are sitting pretty high for 38 days or so. They are really smart, and as long as we dont hit any major glitches we should be golden.

I still need to work on my "showmanship" with ruger so we will have the in hand ok. I love seeing how they are progressing in different areas, they are so different and excell at things the other one most likely wont.

Ruger let me shave her front legs today, minor mishaps with the "ah! it makes noise AND tickles!" I was going to finish her back legs, just the white socks, but mary was playing with the tarp in the round pen and she was just too distracted and pissy...i don't want to get kicked..not that she will..but still.

mary and i were too tired and sore to go out on a trail ride today, so we worked on ground manners and trail obsticles.

More riding tomarrow... :)

-Jenn

my butt hurts

ok, so yesterday was not my day, nor was it mary's day. It started out simply..we went to lowe's and bought a tarp, 8 poles, and 2 flags to desesitize our horses further. -anyway- roxanne, the old pro of 14 years used to carry flags and stand next to helicopters taking off...decides she wants to be scared of the flag that i'm carrying and instead of running from it, she runs at me and knocks me down..drags me and stomps -somehow- on my right butt cheek. lol...keep laughing...it gets better! :) We mounted up and rode to the public arena, no mishaps..Ruger decides she wants to be stubbon and pig headed..and i'm not feeling very ballsy because of my roxy adventure...so i get off and tell mary to get on and trot her for a second. -bad idea- she's a one person horse...mary gets on and trots, attempts to walk her over a pole and BOOM! it's "let's get mary off" fest. mary's in the dirt, laughing...i'm peeing my pants her ride was so funny..so she gets back on...this time the ejector seat was quicker...oh lord...i wish i had my camera! lol.

I walked her home and she was fine..silly mare. Gidget was exceptional and loped on both leads..she was pretty un dramatic so nothing fun to report there.

Today we rode to the arena again, Ruger had one mishap at a scary palm tree, nevermind the flapping for sale sign by our head, that damn palm tree was going to kill us! :) She was really..and i stress the REALLY good about trotting and moving off my leg and backing through the "L". Trot poles, hah! i laugh at you!

We are going to do a half day tomarrow, riding and baths. we were going to haul out, but we are both sore and don't want an incident. lol.

Till then!

-Jenn

ok the old blog was boring me!

i spruced 'er up! whadya think?! lol.

I got so dang bored looking at the old blog so i did a little EMM of my own! lol.. ok so it's a EBM(Extreme Blog Makeover) but it looks nicer and makes me happy when I look at it. :)

Ruger's nose was exceptional today when I went to give her her meds. 10 SMZ pills, 5 cc's of bute and 5 cc's of a anti-inflamitory at 10 am and 10pm. yay! haha. Oh, and the scab broke yesterday and the infection began it's draining process...god thats nasty.

Trail riding again today for the girls...I'm waiting at work for Mary so we can go!

I'll post more soon.

-jenn

dr. williams is the best!

I called my trusty vet Dr. Williams out this morning to look at Ruger's nose and Gidget's foot. Gidget has an abcess, but he said it's so close to coming out on it's own that he couldn't do anything for her. Ruger has an infected cut over the top of her nose, and it got huge, so she's on antibiotics and he said it should be all better in 48 hours! Good news! :) Let's hope she doesn't have a giant nose and the swelling will go down so her nose is cute and little again.

Both of the girls are doing so good! We rode them to the public arena yesterday which is about a mile and a half of Norco's finest scary urban trails. The only thing we didn't like was a stark white pony coming at us(or course the kid flinging a rope around it didn't help at all) we passed in the street and all was well. Gidget launched and took off when a dog took her by surprise, she ran 30 feet then stopped when Mary pulled her up. Other than that, there weren't any mishaps!

Ruger gave me a little sliding stop yesterday when I set her up for one, and spins on a dime! I told my mom I should send her to Bob Avila for some reining training! lol.

Mary and I have decided to send in applications for the Fort Worth EMM! We have ever been to Texas so we thought we would give it a try with the 'stangs!! :) There are 100 trainers being picked for the September EMM, so lets hope we both get in!


More later,

-Jenn