What?? I Have A Grooming Box You Say??

Yes, yes I do. Finally! I've been meaning to make my own grooming/supply box for a while for Dollar as if I leave my stuff at my parents place, it get's commandeered by my little sister and I never get anything back. So I got my own. All it is is a clever-latch box with a lid that actually closes and secures shut and has lots of room to store stuff. As you can tell by the photos, I've got all my brushes/combs (all labeled), some of his drugs, his fly-mask, his splint boots, stuff for showing, and my copy of 101 Dressage Exercises. Yup, that little box fits a lot in there.

#33 on 101 list: Orgainze all grooming supplies, label

Spunky Horse

Headed out to the barn today around 2 because I have to go dress and shoe shopping with my sister and 2 other girls in the bridal party around 6 and wanted to make sure that I had enough time to ride SuperPony. Got there and talked with Sam for a bit before she had to leave for her doctor's appointment.

After she left, I grabbed some granola bars for Dollar and headed out back. Quickly let the dogs loose and then went to grab SuperPony. Of course, he nickered when he saw me coming for him and was waiting at the gate for me to let him out. Got him out and then brought him and Sue up to the barn. Tied up Dollar and put Sue in the barn so that he wouldn't be in my way while me and D were practising our Dressage. Got to grooming Dollar (luckily, he wasn't as muddy as previous times) and loved it that his winterized tail is still in! Yeah!

After quickly tacking him up, I grabbed my 101 Dressage Excersises book and decided to start right at the beginning. I know because of Dollar's previous history with shows, that we probably could start further into the exercises, but because I'm new at this (and so is he), I figured that the beginning would be a good place to start.

We started by warming up at the walk, jog and trot. Of course, while we were on the rail warming up, Mars was sticking hsi hed over to see what we were doing. And I noticed that his halter was over 1 ear and starting to come off. So I stopped Dollar, fixed Mars' halter and went back to business. Except a couple feet from where we stopped was hay on the ground from the manger in the holding pen. Well, as we started our warm-up again, Dollar decided to stretch down, stop and grab a good mouthful of hay. I asked him to keep walking, but he decided to ignore me. I gave him a good kick, and still...ignorant. So I had my crop in my hand. Guess what happened?? Yup. A good, loud smack right on the ass. And he jumped forward and realized that I meant business. Yes, he is stubborn and ignorant some days. Especially when there's food nearby.

Once we got our lazy butt moving (and I do mean MOVING) we did some more warm-up and then proceeded to start with the exercises. The first one was just doing a simple oval at an (somewhat) extended trot down the long sides and a regular trot on the short sides. Of course this ws very simple and easy for me and Dollar, but I figured "why not?" and did the exercise, but also added something in. As we were doing the short sides, I focused on getting his body to bend around my leg while we were doing the short sides. And it worked! Yeah! We went both ways for about 15 minutes and then moved onto exercise #2.

This one was doing a needlepoint. Basically you start out tracking right at a sitting trot, ride a teardrop (half volte) at B, returning to the track at M. Then proceed to a 15-meter circle at C. Ride another teardrop at E, returning to the track at H. Proceed to another 15-meter circle at C and repeat from step 1.

And it was easy-peasy!! He worked very nicely with me in what I was asking him to do, that it just felt so easy and light. Thankfully because of all our time training for Trail class, he moves off of my leg very nicely, which helped a lot for this exercise.

After we were done our exercises, I untacked him and then played around for a bit before putting him away. Hopefully I can get out soon again.

Oh No You Don't!!!!

Finally!! A day off of work so that I can ride!! And it's gorgeous outside!! And it's such a busy day today. Today marks the start of rifle hunting season, so I promptly kicked Keith out the door around 7 this morning to go do some hunting with his Dad. After he left, I played on my computer and then decided around 9:30 that it was time to go ride and play with my boys. So I grabbed all my stuff and some apples for the kids and headed out to my parents place.

Got there and visited with Mom for a bit and then headed out to go see my boys. They've been in the holding pen lately because it seems as though they've eaten all the grass that was in the pastures (that explains Dollar's fat belly. Lol). Grabbed both Dollar and Reno out of there and got them into the coral where Sue was. Sue actually stays in the barn during the night because the other horses chase him away from all the food and he doesn't know how to defend himself. So during the day, he gets turned out in the holding pen.

Once I got my boys out, I grabbed all of them, including Sue and brought them up to the barn. I was thinking of riding Reno in the pen, but then thought of just taking him on the road for a nice hack just so that he doesn't get ring sour like always. So I tied up Reno outside and brought Dollar and Sue in the barn. Fed Dollar some grain with his drugs and then got to getting Reno ready to ride. Luckily he wasn't that dirty, so I gave him a quick brush down and got to tacking him up (in Western unfortunately :-( ).

Ready for our ride

Once he was all tacked up, I got him out of the ring and hopped on and started our journey. I decided that we'd do a 2-mile hack today seeing as I didn't have a lot of time and I still wanted to play with Dollar yet. Our ride started out good, and he was fresh! Wait a minute...he is all the time. Never mind.... Anyways, we started out with his marching walk just going down the road. Of course, everything had to catch his attention, so all his attention wasn't on me, but I was fine with that. As long as he was comfortable, so was I.

As we continued down the road, I asked him for a jog to see how he would respond. And he went into a nice bouncy jog. And before any remarks, yes, he's always bouncy. Has been since we got him. For a QH, he has a lot of knee action.

On our hack

When we round the corner for the completion of the 1st mile, I let him stretch his legs out a bit and let him do his extended trot. Dad really hates it when I let him do that, but he feels so good and lets quite a bit of energy out of his system. So extended trot it was. And he felt GOOD!!! After a little bit of that, I brought him back down to a walk and then continued alternating between the walk and jog for the rest of the hack.

Except we had a little bit of a temper tantrum. While we were walking, I had said whoa asking him to stop and back up. Well he was having none of that. He didn't want to stop or back up. And seeing as I had quite a soft bit on him, he knew that I didn't have the leverage on him. Nor did I have spurs on him. So he put up a little bit of a fight. Once he back up like I asked him to. I made him walk forward a couple steps and repeat the whole thing again, just to get it into that thick skull of his. And he put up a fight again. Gees Reno, it's not rocket science!! Once we did this a couple times, he finally got it, did what I asked him to do, and then we went on our way. Thanks Reno!

Once we got home, I untacked him, put him away and got to grooming Dollar, who again, was full of mud. I didn't really have to ride him, so I winterized his tail instead. I got the idea from my friend Kelly who does this every winter to try to help the tails grow some more. You can find it here on how to do it. Once I got his tail all winterized, I had to take a picture of course....

Love the expression on his face. "Mom, what's dis???"

Yup, he looks cute. And I'll be able to find him in the dark. Lol. After I was done with his tail, I gave him more treats for being so good, and then turned him and Sue out. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there this coming weekend. With hunting season, we could be doing cut-up, but hopefully.

What A Wonderful Day for a Hack

Finally, a day off of work! I actually really love it that I don't have to work Sunday's much. Gives me a day during the weekend to spend with the hubby. And seeing as I haven't been out to the barn lately, I decided to go see my boys and ride.

Left the house around 11:30 and quickly got out to my parents place. Didn't see anyone around, so I went to the back to grab Dollar from the holding pen. And man, was he MUDDY!!!!! I almost thought I had a black horse instead of a chestnut. Sheesh Dollar. Just because there is mud around, doesn't mean that you have to roll in it ALL THE TIME!!

So I got him out, tied him up to the fence and got to scrubbing all that mud off. Luckily, it wasn't caked on too bad. Once he was all cleaned up, I threw my English saddle on him, got him out of the arena and off we went!

Decided for today that we were going to do a 4-mile hack with basically just walking and trotting to build him back up and build up his feet. So out on the road we went. Started out casually at a walk and then progressed to a trot to let him stretch out. He seemed to be moving out OK and had energy, even though he's FAT! Oh Dollar. Actually it doens't bug me that much because he'll be staying outside during winter (and it gets frigid up here in Winterpeg, Manisnowba), but on the other hand, it doesn't help his heaves. What to do, what to do. I guess we'll stick with doing hacks right now, just to keep him moving until spring comes and then we can get to working really good. I don't have an indoor arena, so that means we'll be doing a lot of work in the snow. See what happens.

Anyways...back to the hack. Once he got trotting, Dollar had figured out that we were going in the direction of another place that's just down the road from us and used to go there all the time when he was younger. Well, we weren't going there today. He was moving pretty fast and tried to get me to go there, but once we past the driveway, he knew that we weren't going, although he was still trying. Once we got past there, he slowed down and was a bit hard to get back into the trot again. Old Man, why do you have to do this to me??

We continued alternating between walking and trotting for the next mile and half. And we did get some walk work on pavement done! There's a stretch of paved road about 1 mile from my parents place, so when we got to said stretch, I let him walk it (which was about 1/2 mile), turned the corner and back into a trot.

Now, about this 3rd mile. He actually did really good. He managed to stay trotting almost all of the first half and then when we got to the 2nd half, I decided to ask him for a canter. This part of the 3rd mile is really packed down and hardly any cars go on it at all. It's actually situated between 2 fields of cows, so it's basically a farm road that's really packed. So Dollar picked up his canter right away and then decided that he wanted to stretch his legs. And of course, I agreed. He started gathering speed faster and faster until I realized that he was doing a medium-fast gallop. And he did that for almost the entire half mile! Once we started getting closer to the intersection, I just lightly pulled and asked him to slow down. Which he obliged like the gentleman that he is. He was huffing and puffing and wheezing a bit, but he felt so good!!

We walked/trotted the next mile home (he knows that he's not allowed to run home at all) and once we got home, I untacked him, checked him over and put him back into the holding pen. Lovely ride!!

October 2010 Goals Assessed and November 2010 Goals

Wow, fall is going by really fast. And I'm not liking it. This means that the inevitable winter is coming and will freeze my @$$ off if I go outside. Brr....  Nothing much has happened this month. Work has decided to give me more hours (which helps the bills a lot), but it's a lot of evenings, which start at either 2 or 3 and go until 10 or 11. So it really cuts into my riding time. Which really sucks. But I do manage to get out there when I can and take either one of my boys for a ride.

October 2010 Goals:
1) Start Dollar on more lunge line work - PASS
Been working on this as you can tell from this post (put link here). Just trying to get down there more often to do more work with him.
2) Start Reno on lunge line work (please pray that he doesn't kill me) - PASS
And I lived to tell the tale!!! Actually he was pretty good and you can read about it here.
3) Do 3 things on my 101 list
Umm....only got 1 thing done. Shucks. I did manage to do #56 on the list, which was to find/make a list of all the stuff needed for a show and put in grooming kit. I found a list of Dressage Winnipeg's website and absolutely loved it. So I printed one out and put it in my grooming box so that I have it for future use. Yeah!! Now I can quit forgetting things!!
4) Try to find more Dex for Dollar's Heaves - PASS
Boo Yeah!! Found!! And duh....at the Vet's. Pretty cheap too. Just have to go pick it up now.
5) Do conformation photos of both Dollar and Reno - PASS
Yup - did for both. And they both turned out really well too. Except for the evil grass that was distracting them. Oh well. Dollar's photos are found here and Reno's are found here.

November 2010 Goals:
1) Go for a minimum 2-mile hack at least once a week with Dollar and Reno
2) Winterize tails again and do PROPERLY!
3) Start working on more dressage-y stuff
4) Do 3 things on my 101 list

Lunging Lessons...Again...

Had the day off today, and seeing as I had the car, I decided to head over to see my kids. And a little sad. I talked to Dad a little while ago and he said that he was talking to a lady about trading Reno for a Reining mare that she has. But he hasn't gotten anything back from her yet. So I guess my time with him is limited :(. I'm not sure how I feel about that because I know he has a lot of potential, but for all I know, she could do the trade with Dad, end up hating Reno and ship him off to auction. I've grown kinda fond of him, but don't have the money to own both. I'm just hoping that everything works out OK.

Got down to my parents place and went out into pasture to grab them. Started calling them as soon as I started heding out there and of course, Dollar lead the pack right to the fence. Love him ;-). Grabbed both him and Reno and managed (again) to get them out of the fence without Mars getting out. That's a challenge every single time. Brought them up to the barn and started getting Dollar ready to do some lunging.

And I decided to try something new today. I've been wanting to get a surgincale, but don't have the money to get one. So I improvised. I grabbed 2 lead ropes, tied one to either side of his halter and ran them between his legs and up over his back and then adjusted them, not tight, but not overly snug. I  wanted him to know that he has to work and not just play around. And seeing as I was trying this out, Dollar was my guinea pig. Lol.

Once I got everything adjusted, we went out into the coral and proceeded to do some working. Or at least I tried to get him to work. He decided to be snarky today. He behaved very well at the walk and trot both ways on the lunge, but once I asked him to canter, he was REALLY snarky. He started pinning his ears, swishing his tail a lot and doing small bunny hops. Of course, I had to laugh at him and then he settled down.

Once we went both ways working at all 3 gaits (walk, trot and canter), I called it a day with him and called into me. I brought him into the barn and put him in his stall with some supplements for him to chew on and then I got Reno-boy. This would be interesting for sure. I adjusted the ropes loosely and headed outside.

Reno wasn't sure what to make of it at first, so we started with going to the left. Then I noticed that the ropes were way to long because he could still put is head up nice and high. So I re-adjusted them and went on our way. And it worked way better! He was listening fairly well and not pulling too much, so I was pretty happy with him. I didn't ask him to do any loping because he's still fairly new to the lunging and I didn't want him freaking out as he likes to do and then we have hell on our hands. So we stayed with walking and trotting, although he just wanted to stay trotting and show me that he could really extend. Man, I wish that Dad would let me show him in Dressage. Sigh.

After we went left for a while, I turned him around and tried going to the right. As if. Nope, he balked and just eyed me as if I was crazy amd asking him to do something stupid. Sigh. Why do you have to test my patience Reno?? So I grabbed him from the right and just started walking around in a circle to make sure that he understood that he was supposed to go to the right. I let the rope out after a little bit and pushed him out into the circle. Nope, still didn't work. Then he started throwing little shit fits and I raelized that he didn't really like the ropes that I had on him. So I went up to him and loosened them up a little. That seemed to do the trick and then he was no problem at all. He went willingly to the right, so I 'm guessing that he just didn't like the ropes too much because the right side is his weak side.

Once I had put him through walking and trotting to the right, I called it a day with him and went to grab Dollar out of the barn so that I could kick them both out. At least Reno seems to be getting calmer. That's always a good thing.

1st Reply!!

Woo!! Got a reply already!!

Jen I can answer a few of your questions on the finals

Yes we did pull the reining saddles back after meeting with all the reiners.

The barrel saddles where set up as a jackpot where the monies split by the two winners to go towards a saddle
The entry fees where the same as last year which was 138 this in included everything under one price entry stall and added lunch and t shirt.

And your very wrong Swynar's did not put up anything more to the finals as promised.

It was the final committee did not get the sponsor money they needed to make up all the prizes. The committee dug into their own pockets to help make up some of the short comes.

Swynar did not get anything more then the rest of the people that paid monies toward the finals