TFGIF

Worst week ever.

You've all heard my woes a million times but I will say that I had a legit mental breakdown last night and sobbed for approx. 3 hours and went bat-shit crazy. I probably should have been institutionalized.

Oh and Yankee might have wobblers...fml right?

I am just wondering WHAT ELSE can happen to me right now, I am almost laughing now because what else can I do?

Onwards and forthwards!

Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday. And Sunday comes afterwards. We so excited. Thank you Rebecca Black.

But seriously I am stoked.

End of my week(s) from hell, I have a jumper show tomorrow, and ALL of sunday off to do homework...yay?

I am excited for this show but the tiny part of my soul that tells me this is a bad idea because of money keeps cropping up. I tell it to STFU and get outta here. Money grows on trees right?

Yanks got shiny new shoes today, gets braided all pretty tonight and off to Saint Louis for the jumper show :)

Many pictures will be taken and we will NOT crash through fences!

Eventing Obsessed

So since I can't upload the vids from EA to my Mac and my PC died, its not looking good...ugh.

Its been busy in my life lately...so much shit to do before may 14th (end of finals week and beginning of Horse Trials)...I feel like I might explode with stress. I have ridden twice in about a week..and lunged twice. My house is a mess. My car is a wreck..I wear the same clothes two days in a row. There is paint on everything. I think I've gained back 5 lbs from eating out....ugh again.

However, I got two great rides in over the weekend. Saturday was Dressage day (pics on that later) and Sunday was Jump/Conditioning day. Saturday dressage was unbelieveable and Sunday was pretty good. e was a bit hyper for my taste but jumped really well. His gallops could use some relaxation but other than that we did 6 laps, 3 each direction. Each lap is about 1/3 mile I think so it was pretty good.

Pictures are out of order, but oh well, lol.

Look at that trot!! Talk about engaged :D

Practicing my 'galloping position'- Practical Horseman pg 34.

He was  waaay tense. The pic. above is about as 'out' as he got. Even full out gallop speed he was still uppity. He would NOT stay on the correct lead. Insisted on switching to the opposite  no matter which direction we were going. Weird counter-cantering ponyface.

Galloping=love

Speaking of galloping, if you all haven't read Practical Horseman's "5 XC Rider Positions", I would. Its excellent. 

Also there was another article by J. Wofford called "Magnificent Obsession" which was also excellent and inspiring. I love the quote,

 "....Dave Barry says there is a fine line between hobby and pbsession; he must have been talking about horse people. Obsession is a persistant disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly; compelling motivation..."

I also love how he says anyone who is a master of their work has to spend at least 10, ooo hours practicing. He says most humans live about 700, 800 hours, 1/70th of your life! It is awesome to think about it this way. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else with my life!

I can't really explain the article well in my must-do-homework mindset but I'd recommend reading it. Very motivating!

Baby trekahner

EW this is SO pixalated....gross. But, this was a drop fence and he handled it well for it being wet outside. My position is getting much stronger. No more leaning forward and MUCH stabler leg. I try to auto release but sometimes I forget.

Like I said, the pics are out of order. We jumped inside first then did some work in the jump field.  

Yankee felt really good over fences, but I can still feel myself sucking back before takeoff. Its something I really need to get over and I try so hard but by trying I just do worse. Its a retarded cycle and very frustrating because its ME and not Yankee for once. I am afraid he will run through the fence again like last summer and afraid he will refuse since he started doing  that after last summer but I cannot NOT think about it and ALWAYS stutter before the fences..its a pain :(

He was quite hyper and bucked after every fence and squealed and whatnot (in joy, not pain, trust me) but he was very smooth up to and over the fences. We practiced a bounce, two skinnies and a higher oxer.

H brought Pronto out to jump a bit. I think this is his 5th time and he is relaxing more and more. He doesnt like bounces much but he can jump!

Pronto and H. popping over the bounce. Lol, I still think he jumps a little funny.

H jumping Pronto. He is getting more and more relaxed!

The skinny!

2nd element of the bounce, I'm a little crouchy..ooops

BAD ponyface!

The skinnnnny! Which he jumped like a pro!

WEE!

I thought this fence looked wicked cool in a magazine and I wanted to try it. So I set it up :)

We then went outside to do some gallop sets. He was still really uptight so I thought popping over a few fences would help...not really. Overall he was ok though, it was wet out. Oh, he threw a shoe, of course. I should know better not to ride in ANY amount of mud b/c shoes will come off....

Lol, not really jumping the center am I? This was a massive spread btw.

I LOVE this picture!

Gallop sets!

Jumper show this weekend, dressage show maybe the next then our 1st HT of the season!!!

Don't forget all, Eventing/Dressage T-shirts...let me know if you want one! (refer to previous post/comments for design).

Still Can't Get Vids Up from EA

So I shall share some of my artwork...

We've been painting in class and this is my still life I am working on...

This is hour 4 of the project. The ribbon and the stuffed horse will be the most difficult but I am happy to paint them since it is subject matter I chose and love :D

I hope to hang this up in my house when I am done since it is near to m y heart. I am going to name it "XC" since it has my eventing watch, my grand champion PC ribbon, my water bottle after XC, an orange for me and an apple for Yankee.

Everyday the setup changes since its moved from a shelf to my area, but I just need the gist of what everything look slike to paint it. I will take the best of all the days and mesh it together.

I've ben feeling rather artsy lately but due to my schedule I haven't had much time to draw/paint. I have been sketching in class though.

So I drew this in class in about 10 min....little did I know what it had in store for me!

I turned it into this! I'm thinking T-shirt...

I've had 4 people tell me they would  buy one if I made them so...would anyone else like them? I plan on actually turning them into T-shirts. I'm going to fix the "ing" part since its too squished and make it dark blue on medium grey t-shirts. I think it will look ballin'.

I drew this for my friend Matthew as practice for finishing up Klein and Stacey (for those who don't know, I am doing a picture for Stacey of her and Klein going XC, but I don't know if I will finish it in color paint or charcoal. I'm letting her decide). His mare is the same color as Klein, so I was working on dapples. DIFFICULT!

Anyways, getting back to studying...crosses fingers for exam tonight...

It'd Be Wicked Cool...

...If I had time to ride my horse...

...If it really doesn't rain for 7 days like they are predicting....

...If I get into the jumper show next weekend....

...If I pass my Math and Spanish exams this week...

...If paypal rules in my favor and doesn't make me refund the woman who is trying to rip me off (when will people learn how to read?)....

I hate Being Poor.

I wanna go to Rolex.

WAAAAAAAHHHHH :(

Everyone, shut up about going.

I hate you.

EA ADventure: Daniel Stewart

So after the whole tire fiasco, I ACTUALLY got to do what I intended to come there for. I was to ride with Daniel Stewart on Saturday morning at 930. I had braided Yankee the night before since I was in the breed demo later that day and I ALWAYS try to look my best. Espechially when representing myself, my horse or another organization.

It was actually blazing hot at 9 am that morning and i was dripping sweat. The arena was torturously hot and stifling, which sucked a bit.

This clinic was called "The Playground" intended to stress riders and make them think on their feet in order to help them overcome their showjumping fears. This was a perfect clinic for me since subconsciously (well,  not really) I am terrified of failing at a showjumping course. Ever since last summer and our major crash-through-the-course, I have been  a bit anxious about stadium.

I was excited and nervous all at the same time since Daniel is a big wig in the Eventing world. I rode with him once before when I was in POny Club a few years ago. He actually remembered me and Spirit!

So he introduced himself, as you can see in the video and the course and what we were to do. Yeah, I about shit my pants. To come up with a course while riding it in exact striding, combos and other specifications was extremely daunting.

He was not making it easy either!

The course was very tight, and I could not imagine doing some of the lines he had set up for us, the diagonal was extremely sharp, the rollback, tight and the bending line....double turns. 

The jumps were not very high since the courses were so difficult and we were jumping them SO randomly. IN the 1st video up there ^, Yankee was very tense. There were a lot of ppl and on the other side of the building were vendors, bright and shiny and distracting. Also I messed up from the get -go. I didn't know he wanted me to jump the diagonal line too, so I slowed down...nerves got to me!

What he wanted us to do was a course. He would tell us what we needed in the course, but the rest was up to us. He woudl say things like, start with diagonal line, 6 fences, 45 strides or 7 fences, 30 strides end with THAT fence (and point) or he would say 6 fences, diagonal, bottle. He would throw a water bottle halfway through our course next to a fence and we'd have to change course (keeping up with specifications, while looking for the bottle) and end with the fence he threw the bottle at. IT WAS HARD!

I only suceeded 4 times out of like, 20, but it was an awesome learning tool! near the end of the clinic (DRENCHED in sweat) I was no longer nervous, but I was hungry for success and a little agressive.

I have been having major issues with the videos from the clinic. They didn't show up on my laptop so I uploaded blindly and only got like 5 uploaded. No pictures since it was too far to take any. Now, since my laptop crashed, I cannot get them to upload on my mac!! UGH! so all I have is like 4 or 5 online. I have some really good stuff too, hopefully I can jack the boyfriends laptop and upload them form there.

Diagonal Line Intro

vid 1 ( This was the 1st one I got, my grandma is hilarious in this)

vid 2 4 fences, 10 strides

vid 3 Daniel S. Intro

vid 4 7 fences, 37 strides, rollback, bottle ( I actually got this but he forgot what he asked me to do!)

to be continued....

 In other news, got my USEA membership card today, 1st event MAy 14-16!!!

I rode yesterday in my new saddle for the second time and it was AWESOME! He had a week off to gain some weight back and rest up and he was feeling great. I only rode about 10 minutes but I just wanted some good work both directions. I wanted to jump today but I have a horrible stomach ache and I can barely move off the couch...tomorrow I think I will get up early and do some dressage or conditioning since i work PM. Studying for exam Wed. but I will do a quick Dressage ride, exam Thurs night so he will be off and I work Friday night so off again unless I get up hella early, which I may do. But I'm still recovering from 5am shifts, then school, then work for 7 days straight...Not what I want...but school is kicking my ass this close to finals.

OMG

Again another side note to EA adventures (still having major issues with the videos uploading on youtube)...

Did anyone see what fuglyblog posted today???????

OMFG!

I HATE western. HATE HATE HATE.

I have never seen one GOOD thing come out of western riding. Every single horse I have seen being ridden western is either, broken, sore in the mouth/back or way too f-ing hyper.

If there are some good western horses out there, please, do show me because I HATE seeing a horse SO broken that they cannot properly canter .

Those poor creaturs will never be the same, being trained with gimmicks and falsehoods. They never know what its like to be free in their gaits; forced to crawl along in a hop along canter and shuffling trot. They deaden their tail and tie their heads high so they cant hol dthem up by themselves anymore.

Barrel racers horses mouths are ripped to shreds...too f-ed up to be calm in any circumstance...

OMG I could go on and on, but the W. Pleasure/Hunter world is one that I would lOVE to see dissapear.

OK, rant, done.

Don't even get me started on other show horses...soring, heavy shoes, chains...god.