Halp.

I need assistance.

And I has news.

BIG news.

Its the coolest most bestest thing that has happened to me yet and I'm esplodies all over with all the excitement.

I'm moving to Florida.

FLORIDA.

Jacksonville, Florida

Where there are horses. and eventing. and beaches. and sun. and horses. and showing. and sun. and beaches.

The two best things about Jacksonville?

Voldosta is less than 2 hours (1.55) away. Stacey and Klein mare and le Moch live there and I WILL be trailering to ride with them and such. Often.

Ocala is just over 2 hours (2.13). OCALA bitches. OCALAAAA LA LA LA!!! The eventing epicenter of Florida. The O'Conners farm is close-ish. There are tons of trainers less than two hours away from where I will be living and OH EM GEE ALL THE EXCITES I CANT CONTAIN THYSELF

I've been holding in the news for a while because I wasn't quite sure what was happening until recently, but we just bought plane tickets to go visit apartments and barns for mid October.

Having a little bit if a hard time finding eventing barns in Jacksonville. Apparently everyone is a Hunter Jumper, but I've found 2 barns that cater to eventing and H/J and two barns that are exclusively H/J but am hoping they won't mind an eventer n the mix.

Not partial to associating myself with the hunter princesses since they can be catty and judgmental but I'd rather explore my options than write off a nice barn with good care simply because they are hunters.

I Loathe boarding in general but Jacksonville is not a farm community and I don' think we can afford to rent a farmette at the moment.

So. Preese, if anyone knows anyone that events in Jacksonville, I need assistance finding a barn.

Right now I am too excited and overwhelmed with planning to type much more, but that is the gist of the excitement.

GAH!

F*%$ing INTERWEBZ

No seriously my internet barely works for an hour a day. I HATE the internet monopoly in this town. No choice but to use them and the service sucks. Thus why I haven't blogged in 20 days. EEEEK.

I've also been working 60-70 hour weeks and barely have time for sleep. I also got sick. But more later on that.

Prepare yourselves for a shitload of pics. Like an insane amount. And news. Lots of news.

One of the things we've been up to is giving "lessons" to a few of my friends (some not pictured). Funny how when you turn 20 something everyone thinks its awesome you have a horse but when you're 11 you're a freak.

Anyways. People have been bugging me to give rides and Yanks is SO good with beginners. He is the most lazy. The girls do better than the guys and they were able to go off on their own and steer a little. Adorable.

I got a few more pics from SMSG and I've decided I ride liek a constipated sloth. Luckily Yankee always looks shiny and gorgeous. But his rider...gag.

We're attractive and take great pics

toe flicky

Amid my hell weeks I work, I try to get out to the barn. Sometimes we are awesome and jump 3'9 triple bars like nothing. I love this horse. And this picture.

The following pic was actually two days after the first and he still popped over it spring loaded. Hock injections=winning.

We did a few dressage schools and he was alright. Inconsistent ability to exercise the beast.

I made over a grand the week before I got sick but paid for it dearly.

 I got sick. Really sick. I could barely lift my arms up. I still went to work though, don't worry. No one could cover my shifts and apparently its acceptable to serve food to the general public with snot running down your face. Football and college kids are back so its been hella insane but with that comes great money. 

Sadly I couldn't work the pony for 9 days and for the first time yesterday I busted him out and lunged...

He. was. psycho.

 

No he really doesn't have any feet on the ground.

This is most impressive

 

 I haven't seen shenanigans like that since he was THREE fresh off the track. I really couldn't put a finger on it because its been hotter than satans balls lately so I can't blame cool weather. He goes out every night. Maybe too many calories. Either way. He was just a bit off his rocker yesterday.

After four mighty explosions he simmered down and gave me some nice forward work with good transitions. I called it a day.

This AM I wanted to ride but I was still a little sick so I lunged again with trot poles.

He seems good right?

Yeah well most of the time he exploded around like a rocket. He decided trot poles were canter poles.

The thoroughbred gods have deemed me unworthy of a calm ELEVEN year old.

The positive note is that his canter was pretty collected and very uphill. Bright sides, right?

When he was calm he was great. Impulsion, collection, forward. Good boy.

And now hopefully I'm on the mend, We are preparing for a jumper show on the 21st. HOPEFULLY we can go. I am sans trailer at the moment and its a bitch.

We also have some HUGE news. Stacey and Jackie should keep their mouths closed ;)

Wordless Wednesday

Oh I Like This Voodoo Magic Shit

Funny how the thing I was so against HAS really made a difference and made me feel guilty for ever hating it/not doing it sooner.

Yes. Voodoo magic.

AKA injections.

They have helped like uhhmazingly. Its a little mindblowing and concerning that I thought all my horses' problems stemmed just from being an OTTB (crooked, flat knees while jumping, slightly unbalanced canter etc etc)...not an OTTB with bad hocks.

Since the Games we've gotten back into jumping. I wanted to give it about 3 weeks before I did anything too strenuous after the voodoo was applied.

In the meantime since the letdown that was the Games, we attempted to school flying changes over 2'3 fences in a figure 8 pattern. It went...okay.

Yanks has a severe mental bock against flying changes and it irks me. AS SOON as we start trying he gets all in a tiff. NOTHING I've tried has worked. On the flat he has yet to get a change. He has spectacular simple changes...like really freaking fantastic. He has mastered the "not-even-taking-one-full-stride-of-trot-inbetween-leads" like a pro. He also can counter canter all day.

Over fences he can get R-L every single times but L-R is a bitch. He got it maaaaybe 80% of the time. I think. It wasn't great. Most of the time he was like "eh fuck you I'll just counter canter" with a swish of his tail.

After 25 minutes I was happy with a little progress and called it a day.

"Changes? No thanks"

We may never get changes...so thats cool. Just in case you forgot Yankee, you're 11 now.

A day of rest inbetween and then we went for a hack/gallop. I love this new route we found! To the gallop field its about a mile and a half, which I use to warm up. The gallop field is 180 acres and it goes straight back with a nice, hole free, flat path. I guesstimated we went about 1/2 down, so when we did down and back twice, that equaled 2 miles. Probably. Either way, Yankee and Levi had a blast! I worked on rating him- letting him go full out, then bringing him back.

Tired boys

It always blows my mind that dog can and does keep up with us for the whole 5 mile loop. Love him.


Oh and just in case you guys were wondering, my drunken Ebay purchase is beautiful. And fits. Try not to stare at my guns, theyre pretty huge.

No moar pictures mom

Yesterday we had a LOVELY jump school. I set up a windy course and wanted to test the magic a bit.

A few of the oxers were 3'9, the rest were about 3'3. I had a few airy verticals, a one stride and a lots of rollbacks.

Levi insisted on staying by my side and it actually was very adorable. Normally he warms up with us and then lays down while I do courses, but I guess he was feeling extra clingy. He knows to stay out of the way and he runs by us as we jump. Pretty freaking cute.

So. Adorable.

Yankee jumped like a dream and was attacking the courses with precise energy. He tucked, he was round, he was light and he was perfect.

Gosh he's just the best.

Don't make fun of his tail sock, he's super embarrassed about it.

USDF Reg 4 Champs/ SMSG Team Competition

 I was goign to wait till we got our professional pictures back (we conned a barn mate to come with her fancy schmancy camera) to blog but I'm getting ancy.

The day of competition dawned early. I was excited and hopeful. Injections were working their voodoo magic, Yanks had been going brilliantly and I was prepared. I ACTUALLY had my first test memorized. Our WHOLE barn was coming to support us and it was amazing to feel the love.

We all look just ridiculous

 Our strategy was to immediately separate the beasts to opposite sides of trailer because Demi has separation anxiety and it gets bad at shows. Yankee rarely gives a flip at shows and I've never had an issue with him being badly behaved at the trailer/calling for other horses.

All was good until Demi was in warm up and started blaring away for someone and Yankee heard her. That was the end of that. They called and called and called and I was SO embarrassed because K was reluctant to even take me because she knew her horse would start that. I assured her Yankee was fine at shows and wouldn't be an issue.

Insert foot into mouth and hang head.

Luckily Demi, per usual floated like an angel and despite calling, won her classes with a 77% and 75% in training level.

So I didn't feel very bad.

8 hours (horse shows...hurry up and wait) after we arrived I tacked up and got shiny pants looking spiffy.

Best braids I've ever done.

Our warm up was...bad. He was verrrrry excited and not really listening to my aids at all. I was frustrated so after 15 min I stopped and watched a few tests. Right before my test I did a quick warm up and magically, he was phenom. Okay. Neat.

First test went well despite the stretchwork (pretty much nonexistent) and he was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Our canter departures were jumpy, our trots, forward, 10m circles, bendy, extended canter, full of energy and all  movements hella accurate. Small flaws were out stretches and extend trots. They were just okay. Overall though he was quiet, responsive and bendy. Pretty much a dream.

My ENTIRE barn congratulated me and told me he looked great and we had that in the bag.

Then we got the scores. Out of 5 people I was third with a 61%...uh? What. Okay. Fine I guess 6's are better than 4-5s/.  I don't want to speak ill of anyone but there were some SERIOUS flaws in all of their tests and I was appalled that I didn't get a better score/place better. Our head trainer and my teammate who beat me couldn't believe it. T deserved to win, her horse floats like a goddamn angel but I was still seriously upset.

Our second test was right after so I tried to shake it off. We rode a clean test, Almost the exact same as the first but with leg yields and one loops canters. He was perfect. So perfect. I can't even.

Again. 61%. Are you fucking with me judge? Like, are you serious? Last tiem I showed first level we got a 68% and a 65%, First level is EASY. Our simple change and stretch circle were bad. Okay, I get that. I think we got 5s on both. Leg yield right 6, no surprise there. Leg yeild left 7, happy with this, he was very good for that one. Extensions were both lackluster but he was behaved & engaged. We did get one 8, on our right lead one loop canter. And I got a 7 on rider both tests which has never happened since I moved to MO. Overall though pretty shitty scores and I was still upset. I got second behind my teammate in that class. Again, T deserved to win, per usual because her horse is fucking perfect and I love him.

Never once was I upset with the beast. He was round, engaged, responsive and light. Disappointing that the judge couldn't look past his TBness and score him like she did all the WBs but whatever we can't all love OTTBs I guess. 

The link to my second test video is HERE I don't start my test till 1:20 so FF to there if you want

Gah. Love him.

I just can't get over him. He's the best.

So bendy

The most bendy down centerline

Beginning of extended trot

Our "extensions"

I'm okay with this extension. Very active.

15m circle

Down centerline

Extension...sort of

15m circle

End of extension

Overall I got silver for individual and our team out of 5 teams (? I think) got the silver. My good friend (and reader) from OH got gold indiv and team with her new OTTB (OTTB love) and I'm super proud of her! They deserved it with some really great rides.

Our team and the BO (top) and my pit crew/team (bottom)

Moar cookiez plz

Very happy with my boy. Not so happy with the judge. But hey you win some you lose some.