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