Jomping Saddle Woes

OK I tried like a bagillion freaking times to upload the dang video from a) my Droid (phone fail) b)Youtube (computer fail) and c) copying and pasting the damn URL (computer officially dumb dumb) and NONE of it is working.

So this means if you are dying to see the epic win that is me staying on my frisky TB bareback over a 3'3 oxer then please feel free to peruse my Facebook or click the "Yankee on Youtube" page up yonder.

Aight, to the meat of my tale. (teehee I'm blogging in my Finance class [taxes are depressing], I feel naughty).

Since his leg blow-up Sunday, I have been keeping him in his run/stall for about a week and it has sucked. He hates it, and I don't blame him! I tried turning him out with boots on last night but all the horses ganged up and attacked him, and cornered him and literally beat the shit out of his poor frightened self. I got a text from a girl at the barn saying she rescued him and I was quite thankful. Weird, since he' s been turned out with all of them for a month...PONYFACE JERKS!

Back to finding ample turnout inlimited space with many horse bodies.

Anyways, back to the subject.

Wednesday I attempted to ride him in dressage, but he was in a foul mood as well as stiff. He was not having it and I gave up after about 30 minutes. We all have bad days right?

Why yes that is a makeshift double bridle.

Win for pretty pictures though.

On to yesterday. I was thinking about doing a small funsies schooling jumper show saturday, or go foxhunting sunday, so I wanted to school him a bit over courses. My mom was visting so she came to the barn as well and I was hoping to show her our progress (she hasnt seen him in a year) and of course he was just a royal asshole.

I was so pissed. This was day two he was behaving abnormally horrendous.

I thought he'd work out of it, espechially since he ADORES jumping, but he just got worse and I was CONFUSED.

Never in my 6 years of ownership has he ever bucked so hard and high OR squealed so loud when I asked for transitions. It was so bad and just got progressively worse. Then he started refusing jumps, and not in his usual way. It was like, ears laid back, gnashing teeth, wiggly refusals. Usually he just drops a flithy shoulder like a punk, but this wasn't just him being annoyed, he was HURTING.

But where?

I ruled out lameness, since he rarely goes lame (funny since he was Sunday for some wack-ass reason) and is remarkably sound for a TB. I thought he might be stiff from his smaller confinement and no pasture turnout, and didnt rule that out immediately. And all his saddles should fit him just fine...plus he has a gel pad underneath his saddle as well. Silly me though, didn't take into consideration that after I gave him 2 months off (basically), he lost muscle and now his stadium saddle doesnt fit him as well.

Sure enough, I took it off and the improvement was instantaneous. No more angry pony!

That solved that right quick! I hadn't ridden bareback in about a year though and DAMN his withers suck...and he was slippery and sweaty. Delightful.

But we were productive in schooling courses, albeit the slight happiness and relief he felt that he transferred into "wildy" careening around corners and giddy squeals (different from his hateful ones) while I barely hung on...it was laughable.

So, now another decision to make. How to solve this issue.

Defiently more bareback rides when jumping (funsies) and a bit more free lunging/lunging sesh's with the training tools to help him gain muscle, and for sure some more hacks in a different saddle.

I REALLY cannot afford to buy a new saddle willy nilly and I DESPISE with the fire of a 1000 suns those stupid mattes pads everyone swears by and I refuse to buy into that sham.

For now I will stickwith bareback-ness.

Another Notch.

Hoh dang.

I am NOT having fun right now. I know there is a rainbow in sight somewhere...I know there is. or is it white light? Either way.

So I won't mention anything else about my life right now besides my silly pony since all of that is just one massive sob story that no one probably cares about anyways.

So, the horse.

I started taking lessons again after a 4 year break and its been SO AWESOME. I literally can't wait for the weeks to be over (crazy the semester is half over! I AM 25 SCHOOL WEEKS FROM GRADUATING!!!!!! And then I go to grad school. Wah.)...Fridays can never come soon enough!

We've been doing a ton of advanced movements but also working on a lot of the basics too that people always forget to school because fancy shit is the best, duh.

In addition to flying changes, counter canter, renver, traver and all kinds of fun lateral stuff we also have worked on rating, collection and ease oftransitions. Schooling basics ALWAYS can help more advanced things.

The lesson shave been going well and all, but Yankee is getting himself into mucho trouble out in the pasture.

The ponies run in a herd of about 5-7 depending on who goes out that day and they have I think 10 acres to prance about on. Its all very hilly and full of trees and of course, flesh destroying things.

Yankee comes in every time with bleeding wounds, bite marks and missing hair or tail...awesome dude, just make that another notch in the bedpost that is my failure.

His back legs are getting the brunt of the damage and after our lesson and turnout, on Saturday, his back legs were just absolutely wrecked. Shredded, massive and hot.

Just excellent.

Thinking the worst, I thought he blew a tendon or sheath or something outrageous and flipped.

Being the careful mom I am, cleaned, poulticed, bandaged and wrapped his pathetic looking back legs hoping he'd be fine in the morning.

He was.

BUT, I am going to have to turn him out in boots in the back from now on unless I WANT him to keep massacring his hind legs into a pulp.

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW T DO THIS...help?

I really have always thought people were stupid for booting since it makes the legs hot and things can get under them and irritate the skin, but honestly, he needs it.

Being the tack whore that I am, I have like 20 pairs of boots, I just dont know which ones would be best.

Anyone? Anyone?

Yankee, The Saint

My horse is awsome. But we all knew that already.

One of my friends from school has been bugging me to give him lessons and I was nervous at first because not many people ride Yankee and he can be a but if an ass sometimes, if you know what I mean.

I was skeptical and nervous, but I did it anyways.

The first day I taught Colin the basics,go, turn, stop, position, etc etc. and he BLEW MY MIND. This guy is a freakin freak of nature...he is extremely good at this. He was sitting and posting on the first day, and by the second lesson, he could do it perfectly and by the third lesson he could mix up sitting and posting, two point, leg yeilds and he cantered. I must be an excellent teacher :P

And Yankee...He is a SAINT. He just plods along in the westerny trot and is so relaxed with Colin. It slike he knows he has an inexperienced rider on his back. Everytime, the first day, he would lose his balance, yankee would slow down or stop. It was funny and frustrating actually.

Yankee seemed to have an instant connection with this guy and he already runs up to him in the field. He is just SO awesome for Colin, it blows my mind.

Pretty good two point for a noob huh?

In an english saddle, no less.

They CANTERED!

Aren't they adorable??

This is fun.

"Throws Hands Up"

Pretty much.

I give up at life...for now.

I'm sick, and I've stayed home and moped for a few days, overwhelmed with everything that is the CLUSTERF*** of my life, wondering when and where I will be when I actually hear some good news.

Then, when I think nothing else could happen to me to try and make me quit trying, the BF breaks things off with me. I was at the barn, thank God.

Cue ridiculous blubbering into nearest pony's face. Thank you old man GinGin.

Then I sauntered off to find my own pony. He galloped up to me when I called and just let me cry into his mane. He snuffled me and gave me horse hugs and told me not to be sad.

Horses are the frickn' best. 

LIFE AND DEATH DECISION PEOPLE

THIS IS URGENT!! 

Which blanket do I choose???????

The tack whore inside me wants both but I can only choose one..

The name brand Amigo stable sheet at a lower price but FUGLY color

OR the pretty Blue plaid off brand stable sheet thats JUST slightly more expensive.

Decisions.

Art Project Cont'd and Breeches Death

MY WHITE SHOW BREECHES DIED AND I AM SAD!

Its true. After 6 years, they have died a tragic death.

I ripped a giant (and by giant I meant= ass-baring, drafty cold large) hole in the seat. Not to mention they were a size 24....I wore that in like, sophomore year in HS. And ridiculously black from the saddle and my boots.

guess I will have to get new ones now. Drat. (TACK WHORE INSIDE ME GETS EXCITED!!!)

In other news, I am working on a rather large, difficult project for my advanced color drawing class. We had to take 5 artists and compile a composition based off those artists work.

I am a HUGE fan of Kim McElroy as well as Marcia Baldwin, Jana Fox and the 1700s artist, George Stubbs, so that is what I tried to base my drawing off of. I also referenced cave drawings and other random artists I found on Amazon.

This was the first step in my drawing. I did several prelim sketches and color combos as seen on a previous post here but this is what I came up with. I was going for a fight persay, of good vs. evil. Top, good, bottom, evil. Its NOT supposed to be proportionate or very life-like.

Adding some color to the "good" horse

So this is all I have 3 hours into it. I hope to get more of the red/purple swirls in, but I don't know if it will ruin the picture or not. The manes and tails of both horses will be intertwined too, which I think will look super neat! The bottom horse will be black, red and orange and have red eyes.

 I wish I could have done just the heads because I adore drawing equine faces and then I could have made the distinction between good and evil better, but then the composition wouldn't be as good as it is. Since its for a grade, I have to do it the way it was assigned, and that is compostion and fillling up the page, along with some other junk like color relations and using techniques from the artists I chose.

I will hopefully be finishing it up in class tomorrow and will be able to show you guys the finished product!

And for a few gigs (thanks to EN for sparking this beautiful idea), this is the story of my everyday life.

Fantastic Fail At Life.

Right meow my life is an epic failure. And yes I have been preaching this for a while now. And I know you all are sick of hearing it, but I'm just going to add on the shitpile by saying that everything sucks and I want to die right now.

 I just cannot handle stress. Or this much stress. I won't go into detail because as much as I love bitching, its just too much to think about. 

Why do I have the worst luck in the world...WHY. What did I do to deserve this??

Yankee decided it would be super funsies to rip himself to shreds...repeatedly. I already dealt with a torn out tail, busted up hips (that still haven't healed almost 2 months later), swollen, busted hock, multiple bite wounds, scraped ankle, and now a shoulder laceration. I call it a laceration lightly because it not as gnarly as some I've seen, but I def flipped my shit though because he is my baby and it was pouring blood. ACK!

I flipped out. And it got all over me. Ew.

So I went to class all worried and thinking about the half-million things I need to do and I wondered...life doesn't get much easier and I need to deal. But how? I feel like I'm drowning right now and I'm not even in grad school....

So I made the decision to try and turn a new leaf. I put my 2 weeks in at the place that sucks my soul, studied for like 8 hours over the past 2 days and I put color in my hair. Its helping a bit. I still feel like a train running off the tracks, but new RR are starting to appear.

Before....

After! And this totally looks like I'm an alien or something! Isn't this weird??

Anyways...

So now he is lame. 

Not like we were gonna do much of anything, show wise, but it happened at a completely bad time. You know? I will be free from work, and I will actually be able to enjoy my  horse and have time to ride, and not rush-rush lets get this done so I can work/go to class/study.

Le sigh.

MMM yeah delicious. Wish it was still bloody cuz it looked so gross and nasty, and you could see it better. And yes, that is pus, Gross.

So, poor ponyface is not fairing well out in the pasture. Its  so sad...its been a year since he's had a pasture and now he's getting beat to a pulp out there. 

Remember Pronto though? He moved to the barn 2 days ago and he protects Yankee out in the field. SO. EFFING. ADORABLE. Besties! Its so hilarious to see two grown ass horses sticking together like lovers out in a field with 6 other horses. But adorable nonetheless.

Just a few of the "war wounds" yankee got in the field after only like 3 days.

He loves this pony! Her name is Molly :) She is super adorable!

Playin' with him since he is now laaaaaaaame.

Alrighty folks...hopefully I can quit my sob stories and get all productive like and get up off my ass and do work and maybe stop being all boring for you guys.

At least I can live vicariously through fellow bloggers with riding in London, new horsey jobs and new horses. Congrats to you all, you know who you are!! :)