Much German Training

A few days ago Yankee got the crackdown on his dressage fuckery.

Lately, he's been an asshole on the flat. Not in  a "I'm-being-a-bad-horse-because-I'm bad-and-I-hate-you" but more the "I'm-being-a-douche-because-I'm-lazy" and its been driving me bananas.

I realize he's been off for the greater part of 5 weeks, but that is no excuse to not brain and pretend you have the dumb. The newest evasive measure has been sideways dancing and head-tossing while running away. Classic OTTB.

It seems every movement, transition, or bend I ask of him is just too momentous for him.

 But instead of doing the simple task of say, a canter transition, he wastes more energy evading my aids and not doing what I ask. Horse logic.

I needed to enroll him in remedial dressage and fast. He no longer gets the benefit of me saying "oh he's just a babay and he used to race so its okay that his mind is a little wandering". He. Is. 12.

I just so happen to have the bestest riding buddies around, and my friend Jessie came to the rescue.

She is currently horseless and extremely badass at dressage (she's been in a few posts before, mostly helping me dressage), so I tend to beg her to come ride my bipolar beasty often. Especially when he's intent on convincing me he doesn't know anything.

She got on him & he immediately began with his shenanigans. I figured he would. I got it all on video. But am too ashamed to show you the crooked, head tossing, sidestepping, ewe-necked hot mess that is my stoopid horse.

While she worked his ass off (literally), I sat there mesmerized, watching the cogs in his brain turn over. Its SO COOL to SEE a horse think through the problem. He wanted to do what she asked, but he also DIDN'T want to. So conflicting. Being a horse is hard.

Exibit A, 20m circle. Simple enough right? WRONG.

Luckily Jessie has more patience than I do and worked him a solid 30 minutes just on being straight through a circle and PICKING UP those legs. She even whipped out the ole "stick as a crop" trick...

With a lot of patience and even more lateral work....

She got him to relaaaaax and step under himself like I've NEVER seen my thoroughbred step. Like...what are this. Is he a Warmblood disguised as a mediocre OTTB dressage horse?

I was like "Jessie, you can ride my horse better than me and I hate you. But. He looks amazing. That frame!! How do you do that/ LEARN ME". And her response was only "Much German training".

It made me laugh because its so true! The germans are very particular about their training but DAMN do they get results.

Ermahgherd jerhmps

For the first time in what seems like a 1000 years, I dusted (literally) off the jump standards and made my creaky bones set up a small, but fun, course in the indoor-since the outdoor was unfortunately still a hot mess.

Yankee has had about a month and half off, not consecutively, but overall quite a chunk of time. Since I've returned from my road trip I've ridden the beast almost everyday. We started off slowly with lunging and some hacks but rapidly moved right back into full training. I doubt I will do Texas Rose due to lack of funds, but I plan on riding in William Woods jumper show at the end of the month. Ver excite. 

Without T. R. I don't think our first USEA show will be until May- but that will give me some time to train, go XC schooling and save some dollhairs for showing expenses. Fingers crossed Yankee doesn't need injections or get random cancerous tumors again. 

I digress. 

My BFFFL, known as Jackie, came around, as she seems to do when we bust out the jump tack ;) Miss Isis has been off most of winter thanks to a sloppy outdoor at her barn so I happily let her hop on yanks and twerk whenever she wants. 

Our goal for the night was just to get the rust off all our jumping bones and see how he was handling it. 

Quite well it turns out. Almost too well. He was an asshole for the first 20 minutes of the ride and attempted some half hearted bucks and fence charges...

But dat tail doh 

Fast thoroughbred is fast. 

Luckily nothing fazes the Jackie and she straightened him right up with one halt in a corner, back up and canter from halt. And he was like "oh, she's serious. I guess I'll behave for human".

She put him through his paces with some nice rollbacks and kept him right on track to jumping like he's supposed to. Love her!

Rollbacks for days

Then I hopped on, uncharacteristically more nervous than usual. 

I concentrated reaaaalllly hard on not jumping ahead. Which was good for the most part..however, for the life of me, yanks usually jumps me out of the tack. Not sure if upset, or okay with it. 

Grrr! At least Yankee makes up for my fail with his boss moves. 

I don't think we jumped higher than maybe 3'6 maaaaaybe 3'9 but my dumb brain still forgot how to ride. My solution was to look at he rafters when approaching the jump. Something I DONT recommend  trying on a green horse, but Yankee knows his job and knows me and I trust him. I've jumped him many times with my eyes closed to help me with my jumping ahead issue and it's actually beneficial!

I think it helped a little, but in the long run I need to work on my muscle memory. 

I gave him the day off today to recover but tomorrow plan on either another small jump school or a flat session. 

Love being back riding! Hope everyone is thawing out :)

Facebook Official

I'm not quite sure if everyone who follows my blog knows that I art. Not only is it one of my 3 jobs (I teach painting and get people wasted), but I also art for fun! 

In college I got a minor in fine arts and specialized in drawing and paint media. I've never done anything with that (except it may or may not have made a difference in me getting hired at my place of employment) .....until now. 

...I have an announcement to make.

I am in the works of getting a business license to make and sell customized artwork. The process is halfway completed, with Etsy and Facebook pages made, but not activated. I'm still thinking on a name since I CAN and will do pieces that are not strictly equine. 

I'm hoping that this new adventure will pad my income level and thus allow me to show my damn beast. 

I know I've had requests for months building up among readers and I do apologize that I haven't finished anything. I work 70 hrs a week between 3 jobs, my horse is on self care and I have to sleep at some point. 

With this license I'm hoping it will give me time to ACTUALLY complete commissions, since my end goal is to only have two jobs, my business being one of them. 

So stay tuned!! 

Adventuretime, Homesickness and Horse Shows

I'm sure you've all noticed I've been gone for quite some time from the blogsphere. Mostly because  I've been having the adventure of a lifetime, but also because taxes and new job hunt and errands and life.

First, I wanted to thank you all for your notes on my last post. Grandma was a special person to me and it truly rocked my world in the worst way when she left us. I will always remember the impact she had on my horsey life...miss you Gma!

Secondly, where in the world have I been? technically just the USA...but ALL OVER IT!

My best friend from ohio called me about a month ago and was like "Hey. I'm moving to L.A. for an engineering job. They gave me $5k to relocate. Want to keep me company and pay no dollars?"

And I was like...

She continued, "We are going to take 9 days to drive 2500 miles. We can stop in Nashville, Memphis, Dallas, Amarillo, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, then stop in vegas for 3 days then end in L.A. hows that sound?"

And I was like...

So we did. And it was BANGIN.

 I have about a 100 more pics (all on my FB) from this amazing trip! My favorites had to be Nashville and the Grand Canyon. Vegas was...weird. But fun. Met some interesting people and saw some baller landscapes. The USA is so diverse! From a small town Midwestern town, the difference is crazy. I loved it!

I was SERIOUSLY homesick after the first 5 days though-it was nice to get away but I really did miss my boys. All of them. Dog, human, and horse. Horse especially.

As soon as I got home, despite the -15* windchill, I hopped on him and romped in the snow!

 He was squirrely, but soooo happy to be out and paid attention to again.

I have two short term goals we will be working on in February. One is to become the Thoroughbred ambassador for NVRA where I adopted Yankee from. Been working on the entry all month...now I just need the world to thaw so I can make my video. Two is to make it to the WWU Jumper Show at the end of the month. He's had over a month off so that may be too steep a goal, but hes a TB, he bounces back nicely.

We most likely won't make Texas Rose in March because I am flat broke. Though the tax return will be nice and my inheritance from Gma, but I want to save that AND we haven't ran XC in over a year. ACK!

Currently lining up the rest of the show season. STOKED!

Now I just need Missouri to stop pretending its Antarctica so I can WORK MY HORSE

Cruel Irony

Yesterday, a few days after my last post discussing bad luck and loss, my dear grandma gained her wings in heaven.

I did not take the news well and shut down completely for a few hours.

I had just been thinking about calling her to tell her I miss her when my phone rang....

I am not very good at putting together words in times like these, so I will share my favorite picture of her and my first horse, Dolly.

13 long years ago, the day I got my first horse

Grandma played a huge part in my horsey life and always loved my horses just like I did. We shared something no one else came close to in my life-the love for horses. She grew up with belgians and told me so many stories about them. I made her tell me over and over because I loved them so much.

She was a fabulous seamstress and would fix anything my crazy ponies ripped. She defended my sassy pony to my parents when she tossed me and they threatened to sell her. She made costumes for 4H costume class at fair. She braved the heat to sit and cheer me on at shows. She came with me on my secret mission to acquire my mini horses (much to my parents dismay, later when they came home to minis in the field!). She bought my mini, Z, her first harness and cart. She cried with me when Spirit died. And when she started to lose her mobility, she still made her best effort to come to a few shows.

I will miss this woman more than I can even describe and I don't really know how else to end this but by saying I love you!

No Such Luck

Tragedy seems to strike horse people more than anyone else. 

I will never understand why horses are so heartbreaking. 

Not only did eventings' Santa's Helper AND Lionheart sadly pass away, but quite a few of my friends have lost horses recently as well. As I'm sure most of you on the blogosphere know,  Mr. Red Man left this world way too soon this past week. My thoughts are with Aimee and everyone else affected by Cuna's passing. I can't even imagine the heartbreak. 

RIP big red horse, we all loved you dearly. 

In other news, I have fallen ill YET AGAIN and haven't ridden all week. It is unfortunate as we have had 3 days of beautiful warmish weather. Of course later this week it's going to get frigid, just in time for me to get better. 

I've been hangin with my main man a lot on the couch. We've watched at least 4 movies. 

Happily though, my hay barn is stocked!! I filled my spots with 28 bales of grass and 13 alfalfa. I'm one happy girl. Nothing like having a full refrigerator for your horse haha!

I promise I will be more interesting when I get better! We have big plans for this year! Later this month I'm going on vaca to Las Vegas and LA but then we jump right into showing with a few jumper schooling shows in February and hopefully Texas Rose in March! 

Part III & Final Recap of 2013

September got hot again so I shaved the beast for the first time. I wanted to do a trace, but with flair....

So I did...

I jumped tackless....

..and fell off/bailed for the first time in almost two years when I couldn't stop him. Bonked my head pretty hard learned that jumping an OTTB tackless is a very dumb stupid idea. Cool pics though. Anything for the money shot :)

... we wrapped up Sept with my friend Jess jumping Yankee..

...and me, to practice for WWU schooling show in Oct..

The first thing we did in October was the WWU schooling jumper show. It was a shit show and I don't want to talk about it...but Yankee did very well, it was all mental issues and forgetting courses blah blah blah...

 ...and was alright with my spoils.

I then accidentally made my horse a nudist by messing up on freehanding more checkboard. But turned out being OK with it. MUCH easier to clean and maintain. I will probably always fully clip from now on. He just looks so sexy naked.

November we jumped quite a bit..

...we had an AMAZING jump school and I remembered how to eq....

...we semi-mastered flying changes...(FINALLY)

 Through boredom and creativity I got this bangin' reel...

 

And we ended with a Bipolar month. going from t shirt weather to freezing in less than a week. I ended the year with this notable ride....

BOUNCEY

 He then got thrush pretty bad in December and I got sick and all of a sudden here is January and a fresh, new year.

Overall looking back I can say we did A LOT in 2013, but didn't really accomplish much show wise, like I had planned to. HOWEVER I am more than proud of our training successes and will use our hard work to further and hopefully advance in 2014!

Get out da way, we have ARRIVED!