Comment Whoring and Updates

I will admit it.

I love comments.

I am a comment whore. I need them. I want to feel loved. Is that so bad? :P

OK now that I have admitted to you all my shameful lusting for comments I shall give an update.

I finally unburied myself from a massive pile of classwork I had...paper turned in, exams taken...today is a rest day. I slept till noon (GASP) and did pretty much nothing. Grocery shopping, and oil change was about it. I can't even muster the energy to ride. I feel like all the energy has been sucked outta me. Not to mention the deathstorm showed up in Columbia and about literally scared me to death. After calss I was taking a little nappy before work and it was glorious. However I was woken from my peaceful, regenerating slumber by death rain, death winds and the tornado siren blazing.

I am EXCEPTIONALLY terrified of thunderstorms. I mean, like full blown, sobbing hysterically, running-around-like-a-chicken-with-head-cut-off, panic.

I was so scared I could not think straight. All I could hear was "TAKE COVER NOW" via the TV and intercom around the city. So what did I do? Called the boyfriend at work, in mass hysteria, tried to explain that I was panicked and was heading over there immediately. Probably not the smartest thing to do in a tornado warning. Let's just say driving in hail and 60ish MPH winds is stupid and adding onto that, I drove about 60mph to get to the safety of the boyfriend and a solid building with a tornado shelter. Exhausting.

Back to horsey news.

I bought a new lunge line, yay. Sent in my USEA member feesu (zomg the prices went up AGAIN. Stupid economy!) for 2011 and plan to enter our 1st horse trial for the beginning of May, at the end of this month.

Yankee has been pretty good lately.

Our dressage schooling (see previous post for video, that NO ONE commented on. sad panda) has gone quite well. Flying changes becoming smoother and side passes coming more naturally and straighter. I tried shoulder fore/in and sidepassing at canter for the 1st time and he was brilliant for the 1st attempt ever :)

Jump school the other day was...interesting.

Yankee 'helping'

Both Pronto and Yanks were idiots and would not settle. I believe it was the unnaturally warm weather and the fact that Yankee/Pronto had never jumped in the outdoor. At one point he was so hyped, his canter became vertical. It took us like 40 seconds to cover 30 ft...so stupid! I could not let him jump with a canter that non-impulsive.


"ZOMG! JUMPS JUMPS JUMPS!!!! I MUST JUMP THEM ALL FAST and WEE LIKE!!"


Cute little warm up bouncey bounces

Worked on creating impulsion with a level head and went back to jumping. Stellar improvement! We jumped a 4ft oxer with a 4ft spread and MAN can that horse jump. He just gets better and better!! We practiced skinnies and bending lines as well.

Skinnies used to not be in our vocabulary.


The warm up oxer



The BA oxer he jumped like a pro

Video later.


This is Pronto. One of H's horses. He is massive. like 18 some hands almost 19. I shall add a comparison picture

yes, I am 5 ft 9. tall boy!

Yankee is the cutest ponyface :) He loves drinking water from the hose!

Sorry I chattered so much, enjoy your days and keep posting those posts. You guys keep me entertained :)

Tidbit from Yesterday

I am really freakin' tired so this is all you get. HW=death. Research papers=mega death. 3 exams in 1 week plus research paper and 4 paintings=super mega non resurrection death.

Enjoy.

And tell me what you think of our first attempt EVER at canter sidepassing and shoulder in/fore. Trotting he has done before.

Jumping!!

Yesterday was indeed, a great day. Thanks to you guys who encouraged me :) Horses do make life juicy :P

We had fun jump schooling yesterday! H jumped with us, and Brandon was there to take pictures. Mucho gusto!

I've discovered the higher the fences, the better he jumps. Nice.



Weeeeee!



I realized a while back that me trying to rate Yankee before jumps was counterproductive. He would just flat refuse if he was forced to canter like a nice pony. He jumps swimmingly if he can have a more active, but still balanced canter toward the fences and I rate/rebalance him afterwards. He is a much happier ponyface and jumps better this way which makes me a happy rider. He always comes back to me and does so willingly after fences, so that's nice. I think we are finding our rhythm. I was always told NEVER EVER to let horses rush fences, but he is not. I think he is a bit fast, but he is still balanced. If he rushed, he would not jump as well as he does. We are both getting happier :) Bigger and better here we come!

HA, funny thing is, out on XC, I DO have to rate him before every fence and he obliges just fine. In the ring though, nope, refuse. Funny.

Video still tiiiiiiime!~


This was 3'9







And look who schooled with us!

H and Pronto! What a cute lil ole man. He is 22 and still feisty!


Tell me he is not the cutest lil spotted thing you have ever seen?!


Also, Pronto made an appearance. He is just learning to jump, since he is Mr. Dressage, but he loves it!!

In other news, I got 5 days off this week! WIN. More riding and more HW time. I think I also nailed my Spanish composition exam today. Niiice. It stormed like a mofo yesterday night. It went from 65 to 40 in like an hour and the storm really whipped through here. I went back to the barn to blanket the horses heavier since it was wicked cold. It got down to 20 by this morning. CRAZY effing weather. Sunny and 30 today.

Happy Monday.

Mud Fairy

Warning: slight cursing.

I have had a terrible 2 days. The weather is definitely a huge problem. Snarky little ass decided to tempt me with 70 degree weather only to slap me in the face and dump a "wintery mix" whatever the eff that is, down on Missouri. The oh so competant weatherman did not see this coming either, so my poor pony and I suffered in this 'wintery mix'.

I shall elaborate.

First, my Spanish professor told me I have a small brain. Thanks a heap dickface, I am SO SORRY I am not fluent in a foreign language after 5 weeks. Maybe if you knew ENGLISH a bit better and translated instead of leaving us to try and figur eout what the hell you are talking about I would learn better.

Second, painting prof. assigned 4 more paintings due Tues. Making that a total of 6. I simply do not have time to paint that many! I have spent 9 hours alone on one. ONE.

Third, I got back 2 papers I worked seriously hard on....and got a B- and C+ on them both. Ohmigod! I pride myself on my writing skills. I can actually write a damn good paper. I got a perfect on the ACT 3 times in writing....and I wanted to shoot myself in the face after getting these papers back. I do not like college.

Fourth, I wore a sweater with a vest over it on a day that was predicted to be 42 and cloudy. Usually I run hot, since I carry a 40lb bookbag and walk miles and miles and miles inbetween every class (not really but over a day I do walk 2 miles. I checked it one day), so I thought I would be fine. Then it started raining. No big, just some sprinkles. Then it poured. Ok this is not awesome. Then after sitting in a classroom, soaked, I come out to find the temp dropped dramatically and it is now snowing. I am possibly hypothermic by now. Shoes soaked, pants soaked, sweater drenched. Awesome.

I was the 20 min. back to my car at end of the day. I get splashed by bus. Whatever, I'm already soaked. I will be home soon. I get to car, excited to turn heat on, excitedly put key in ignition. No start. WTF. Try again. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

I clamber back out. I am sure I look pathetic. I am sad, I want to go home, I am exhausted and freezing. I walk back to main campus snivelling and sobbing. Several people stop and ask if I am ok. I am not. I call my best friend and beg her to come get me and take me home.

Bad day.

Poor Yankee only had the sheet on and he was SO COLD. I felt awful :( It looked and felt exactly like I did.

Yesterday about did me in. I've been staying up late in hopes to get some of the crazy amounts of HW done, and getting up early at 6 to take Brandon to work since we only have one car (as we learned previously, mine is dead). I am extremely tired. I had class ALL DAY. 8 am to 3pm, straight then I happily * snort * made my way home to change to get to work. I somehow, fell asleep?? It was mysterious, I guess I was wicked tired. Late for work. Arrived and found it was a rapage. No shift change was done and I had to do it ALL. Thanks a heap it's not like we are busy or anything. PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING CUDDLY AND CUTE DO NOT GO ON THE NBC WEBSITE AND PRINT OFF THE BOGO OFFER FOR CHIPOTLE. I will love you. It was SO crazy busy I thought the sheer volumes of people would crush the soul out of my body. I have never seen it so busy and I was barely hanging onto life. GAH. I didn't get out of there till 12am.

Today I woke up AGAIN at 630 to feed and clean barn and then, I attempted to ride my horsey, who got 3 days off. I thought he would be all fresh faced and ready to go but I got about 5 swift kicks and a few vicious nips thrown my way. A-what-now? HE HAS NEEEEEEVER kicked at me before. I was too tired to deal with trying to ride so I groomed this beast instead.

The before before pictures...



This used to be the nice, clean brand new sheet I bought off ebay a day ago.....

The mud fairy visited us in the night.


He says, "What, whatd I do mom? I am cute. Feed me treat foods."

A mud encruste dneck and mane....the mane looks pretty clean in this picture. I assure you, twas not.

A mud encrusted tail. I wish the picture did it justice, it looks positively clean compared to what it really looks like.

What is this? mud with substance!? Blasphemous!

So disgusted with this weather. I can't be mad at Yanks for rolling, the mud is just a reminder of how miserable the weather has been. Sometimes I really hate the thought of spring.

I knew he would get it filthy :P

You know what though, even though I didn't get to ride, he still made me feel better :) Getting him all clean made me feel like I finally did something right and he enjoyed that at least.

Tommorrow is a new day.

Too bad I work tonight.

Digging

I've done some digging lately. I always wondered why Yankee never made it as a racehorse and only made $4000 some in winnings.I wanted to look up his breeding to see if he had any stunna's in the mix, not really...some WAY farther down the line that I wasn't expecting (Northern Dancer, Bold Ruler). It has taken a LONG time but I finally found his pedigree and some photos of relatives. I wish I could find photos of Yankee racing. I am going to try and contact his breeder first, then trainer and so on. They have to have at least one....

Sadly, I could only find stuff on Yankee's sire side mostly. Not a lick about his dam, just pedigree.


Yankee's full pedigree, click for larger image if you wish. He has some stars in the mix there. He is also related to....


Yep, Barbaro! RIP



Northern Prospect, Fortunate Bid, Halo


Yep, look close. Northern Dancer is his great (6) grandsire. Nasrullah is there too as well as Bold Ruler

.
Northern Dancer, RIP, the most successful TB sire of all time.


Nasrullah, RIP, 5 time leading sire, great grandsire to Secretariat & Ruffian, sire to Bold Ruler


Bold Ruler, RIP, sire to the 1973 Triple Crown winner and two time Horse of the Year, Secretariat. He led the American Sire's List eight times, and seven of the ten Kentucky Derby winners of the 1970's traced directly to Bold Ruler in their tail male lines.


Yankee's sire, Yankee Victor. Yankee sure looks like him! Victor was USA's best miler in 2000 and is a sire of 9 stakes horses has 3 graded stakes horses from his first two crops. Yankee Victor, earner of $833,806, was never headed at any call in his last four starts, all at one mile, including the Metropolitan Handicap (G1), the Westchester Handicap (G3) and Arlington's Hanshin Handicap (G3). He earned a 115 Beyer in the Met and, in his prep for that race, ran a mile at Aqueduct in 1:33 2/5. Yankee Victor earned triple-digit Beyers in each of his last six starts and had a truly exceptional 89 Beyer when he broke his maiden at Saratoga at two.



Yanks sire, Yankee Victor, racing


Yankee's grandsire, Saint Ballado, RIP. Florida's leading sire in 2004 and 2006. Trained by Clint Goodrich, he won four of nine starts over two seasons, including the 1992 Arlington Classic (G2) and Sheridan Stakes (G3). Retired to Ocala Stud in 1993 for a fee of $2,500, Saint Ballado quickly made Kentucky breeders regret their initial disdain. His first crop of 31 foals included three stakes winners. Saint has sired 34 stakes winners since then and is ranked 55th on the 2002 leading sire list by progeny earnings. As a racehorse, he won the 1992 Arlington Classic (gr. II) and Sheridan Stakes (gr. III) and earned a career total of $302,820.


Great great grandsire, Halo.

Informative!
In other news, I haven't been able to make it to the barn since the weather has decided to freak out on us. WTF. MORE SNOW?? ON THE WAY? Say it aint freakin' so. So now that I wasted (well not really) 2 hours I really need to do some HW.

Schooling and Equine Affaire

'



So for those of you who watch the video I wanted to say that I know we are crooked, especially his head, but we are working on it. I am playing with rein pressure to see what helps him balance better. At least he crosses over, that used to be nonexistent. He also looses major impulsion to the R at times, so I know we need to work on that too. But this is why I post-to show our training!

Our flying changes are getting smoother too!! He used to buck all feisty like when I would ask and he only does it a little when switching from R to L.

I put some lunging in there to show how we warm up most days. Yankee was SOOO happy to get to be in the outside arena. Only drawback is that the horses turned out majorly distract him and it gets really annoying trying to keep ADD pony's attention.

As for the extensions, my God, he has improved. Actual engagement is happening and less running occurs. He is even starting to flick his little toes a bit.

All in time :)

If you don't want to watch all 5 min of the vid, here are some pics.
Ahh, side pass :)

Weensy bit crooked face


Awwwww SNAP! Looky there.

In other GREAT news, we got chosen to represent eventing Thoroughbreds at Equine Affaire in the breed demo. We are also representing New Vocations at the breed demo since that is who contacted me to see if I was interested, and I adopted Yanks from there. In an off note, they have another 'Yankee' up for adoption. Funny.

I hope this will be an amazing opp. to show what OTTBs are capable of and I am super proud of my Yankee and that we got chosen!! I hope he behaves like a good boy and maybe sheds out a little? haha. That's a funny joke, since he never sheds all the way out till JUNE. Yes, June.

I also hope I get selected to participate in the jumping clinics since I get 50% off on the clinic for being in the breed demos. I worked mega hard on the videos and letter application so we shall see...

In other news, college is raping me and I want to quit. I gained 2lbs but I feel like it is muscle since I feel slimmer. I've been complaining the past 3 days since I want to go participate at William Woods University jumper show Mar. 4 but no one is going/can take me. I don't get my trailer till end of March :( Also, it is cold again and I hates its!!!

Happy hump day.

Eventing Stands for Cross Country

Yeah for those of you who know your alphabet you are prolly thinking I am high off something. Well I am actually...

CROSS COUNTRY FEVER!!!! WOOOOOO! YEAH!

All thanks to Eventing Nation and the awesome vid link of the advanced XC rides at Rocking Horse.

Not only am I insanely jealous of those going advanced, but I am seriously jealous of those who actually are getting to event right now. Stacey. Grr face.

I would like to wish her a happy congrats though on her 5th place at Novice this weekend! Yay Klein mare :)

In all seriousness though, I am taking this season verrrry seriously. I have weekly calendars made out for Yankee's workouts, notes I take, goals written down and prospective shows. I didn't steal the idea fro Andrea over at Eventing A Gogo, but it is neat to know other people do it too. Do any of you?


Example from March/April last year


January of this year

I have at least 2 hack/conditioning days set, 1 jump day, and 1 dressage day, maybe 2 and if we are both feeling it, a lunge session to work out stiffness and work on suppling.
I am hoping this year neither of us will feel tired at minute 3:30 out on XC and we can finish barely blowing. Usually, I loose it after 3 minutes and can barely hold myself up in the saddle and thus Yankee gets away with WAY too much. Running off, barely jumping properly, no balance, and shying at random things like leaves on the ground.
Nah, not this year pal.

I am ITCHING like mad to get out and jump some big shit. We are sick of schooling in the arena, we wanna go hog wild (well, controlled, balanced, collected hog wild) out in the open. I was Extremely worried that moving to MO, I would have no XC fences to school. I left an AMAZING XC/dressage park called Twin Towers in Yellow Springs, OH that was only 20 min, from my house. It had fences from starter to Prlim and MILES of galloping paths. Plus 2 dressage rings and a barn. It was heaven and I went twice a week or so. Thankfully, New Spring Farm has some high class facilities since the lovely stallion, Windfall, schools there along with all his offspring in training. WIN!

But we need the weather to clear up and let the ground be nice enough. Sadly, MO springs are awfully soaking wet and I doubt it'll be till April till we can really school. Hopefully within the next few weeks we can get out and school some lower level stuffies.

NNNNNWAAAAHHHHHHARRRG!

That was my cry of frustration with mother nature.


ALSO, I bought this sweet pad off ebay. My last XC pad was massive and swallowed Yankee up whole. Plus it was white with blue piping and you couldn't even tell it was blue. Also, the ventilation on this pad is better than my last. ((I only use the half pad for now since his back changed yet again. This is his other jumping saddle I had to switch to about a month ago. His other saddle is a close contact with dressage billets. I love, but it doesn't fit him and this one is only acceptable to him with the half pad. I HATE them and think most ppl only use them b/c they are trendy. I also think it is retarded to spend $200 on a half pad that most horses don't even need.)) I LOVE blue & blue/white are my XC/barn colors. DON'T ASK. I am a nut for color coordination. My vest is blue and his XC boots are blue and white. All (most) his blankets are blue and his shipping boots are blue and his lead rope and his standing wraps....I love blue. I'm a freak.

Anyways

As EN would say, Go Eventing.