Post-show ponderings…

After our big show, I took a few days off from riding, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about shows! lol

Last week, I got some unfortunate news from my coach - she is retiring from coaching September 1^st.  She has been hinting at this for the past year, so I was somewhat prepared, but it is still upsetting. I’ve been working with her for the past 2 years and have progressed so much.  There isn’t really anyone like her in the region to coach western riding for the AQHA shows.   Luckily we have become friends, so I still will see her, but it won’t be for lessons.  She has said she might do some one day clinics next year, so I’ll still be able to get a bit of help here and there.

My friends and I are trying to decide what to do for next year. One lady has approached another trainer that shows at our QH shows and asked to get some help during the shows.  I may try that as well, but I still really need/enjoy weekly lessons at home to get us ready.  Maybe I don’t need that as much as I think, but it is too early to tell.

I’m trying not to worry about things too much – just let things sort themselves out.  I’m not sure how much I’ll show next year – maybe I will want to try something else?  Who knows? I am thinking about taking English lessons this winter, from my old instructor, who is just a few minutes away from me. English lessons will help keep my legs in shape over the winter, so starting in the spring won’t be as tough. I’d like to show Spencer in HUS classes next year as I think he will be better at that than the WP.

Moving up to a double hat can!

I like thinking about show logistics and prep and made a list of some extra stuff I will need/should bring to shows to be better prepared.  The more I show, the more I feel comfortable with how things go.  A quick glance at the list:

• electrical tape and white zip ties for putting in a fake tail
• wet wipes – for quick face/nose (of the horse) cleanups before going in the ring
• clear shine hoof spray – to touch up hooves at a multi-day show
• good sharp scissors – to cut out the damn zip ties!
• another set of magnets for show numbers and/or more safety pins (you can never have enough pins – bobby, safety, etc!)
• some sort of storage bag for shirt magnets, jewelry, hair stuff (like this one )
• small rubber mat for applying hoof black
• a nylon stable sheet to keep Spencer clean - that horse loves laying in manure!
• a double hat can - I now have a straw and felt hat to wear...the fashion of showing is tricky! lol

An old picture of all the stuff that
gets shoved in the car!

And, for “people stuff”, I relied a lot on my friend to bring all of the extra stuff for our trailer/shade set-up. The horses were in stalls, but she slept in her trailer on the grounds. I was close to home, so I went home every night. I kept all of my tack and clothing in my car (which was sort of good and sort of a mess!) I spent a lot of time during the day under the awning of her trailer in between riding and classes, which was awesome!  A few extra things I would take with me next time, to help contribute:

• big garbage bags
• paper towel
• paper plates and cutlery
• kleenex
• napkins
• hand sanitizer
• wash cloth/facial wipes/hand towel
• toothbrush/toothpaste – I did go home every night, but man, the sand ring had my teeth feeling like they were coated in dust!

Of course, all of this would be much easier if I had my own trailer, so I could stock it and organize it how I wanted, instead of loading and unloading my little SUV all the time! Maybe someday...  :-)

Am I missing any horse show essentials?

We survived our first AQHA show!

Last  week Spencer and I made it out to our first AQHA show. And sadly, I have not one picture to show for it!  It was just too hard to keep my phone handy while riding.

Technically Spencer has been shown AQHA a few times before; it is me that is the newbie!  I have spent the last two years taking lessons, watching shows, asking questions and even volunteering on the show board…all in preparation to try showing at this level myself. 

Now, this is a local branch of AQHA, not a big level show.  And, I’m showing in the Rookie division, so the competition wasn’t too fierce.   Most AQHA shows are multiple day, multiple judge affairs – and quite expensive if you go in for the whole deal.  This local show has a rookie/novice day in the middle of the show with one judge, so that was my target to get my feet wet.

My friends trailered Spencer over the day before – we got a deal on a stall, since I’m on the show board.  I rode Spencer that evening and he was a bit looky and a little wound up. He didn’t do anything wrong, but he was not relaxed at all. I was a bit discouraged as I took him back to his stall.  Several friends (some new) saw the look of disappointment on my face and told me to just go home and start over tomorrow.  One friend said he would be a different horse the next day, once he settled in.  I was skeptical, but took the advice.

Turns out this friend was right. Spencer was 100% better the next day.  I wasn’t showing trail until that evening, so we spent all day longing, riding and hand-walking in the different show pens on the grounds.  I decided to just do some walk/jog classes, since our lope just wasn’t as nice as it was at home.  I was fine with that – lots of time to move up to the lope/canter classes next year!

We showed trail in the evening and he was good. We ended up placing 3/6 and getting my first ribbon.  The next morning we were doing halter and showmanship.  I just do halter as a warm-up to get the horse used to the ring.  We ended up placing 3/6 again. I almost had a major wardrobe malfunction while trotting away from the judge. My pants almost fell down!  Yikes! Luckily I managed to keep everything in place and was laughing as I went to set Spencer up. My coach and friends nearby started laughing too when I told them what almost happened!

I had time to grab a belt before the showmanship class.  I was excited and nervous about showmanship -  I really like that class and it is my coach’s favourite too, so I wanted to do my best. There were 18 entries, so I tried not to let that get to me. My chances for a ribbon/placing weren’t as good. Spencer was being a little difficult as I was practicing too.  I went in to the ring and got through my pattern. Spencer was really good – he seems to get tired/annoyed when drilling/practicing too much, but performs really well when in the ring – which is a good thing!

When I heard my number called out for 2^nd place, I almost passed out!  J  That was my best result at any show to date and it couldn’t have happened at a better time.  Everyone around me cheered and I got congratulations and high fives from people all day.  I will even get my first AQHA points out of that class!  I even got some pointers from Spencer's old trainer, who is a very successful trainer and shows/trains horses and people for Congress.  I think I might even try and get a couple of lessons from her next year, if things work out.

I rode two w/j classes in the afternoon and Spencer was pretty good. We had a couple of minor miscommunication issues, but they were all my fault. We still managed to get two more shiny ribbons to add to my collection -  making my total haul 5 ribbons and 2 AQHA points! I still have lots to work on for next year, as always! 

Chipping away at chores

Owning your own small property – whether you have animals or not – is a fair bit of work.  Well, I suppose you could do as much or as little as you wanted, but most of us want to enjoy our property and keep it as neat as possible.  (Lots of people don’t, I know…!)

Maintaining fencing and in our case, keeping the electric fence working and free from weeds is a major chore.  It is one I quite enjoy, even though it is hard work.  Luckily I only have about 4-5 acres fenced, so it isn’t too bad.

Last year, I just had my small paddock (1/2 acre approx.) and about 1.5 acres of pasture for the boys.  This year I knew I needed to fix the fencing on my 2-3 acre front pasture, in order to give them enough grass to get through the summer.  The previous owners had taken out a section of fencing to put in a pool – not complaining about that – but the fence still needed to be fixed!

Early in the spring, I spent a nice sunny day out checking all of the doodads insulators that hold in the electric braid. A lot of them had come loose over the years.  I also cut by hand the few little trees and weeds that had grown into the fence over the past couple of years.

A few weeks later hubby helped me put in 9 t-posts and we re-routed the fence.  I find electric fencing kind of fun – maybe I should have been an electrician?  ;-)

The cats were funny – they weren’t the best helpers – but sure kept us amused by attacking the electric braid (before it was connected) and climbing ladders.  We probably would have been done a bit more quickly if we weren’t distracted by them!



Sleeping on the job!



Unfortunately I couldn’t get this field bush-hogged this spring, so the weeds grew up quickly on me.  Plants, grass, etc. all of a sudden grow like crazy around here. Some days it feels like we are living in a tropical rain forest! 

 As the horses graze this field, we have been going out with our Stihl brushcutter (awesome tool!) and cutting the grass/weeds under the fence line and taking out trying to take out the tall weeds before they go to seed.  It is a bit of a losing battle, but we are putting in a good effort!

One last thing I was able to have done this spring was remove the giant pile of old beams from my small paddock.  My coach’s hubby came over with his tractor to do some work on the riding ring and just happened to have a bucket on the tractor, so I asked if he could move the beams. We were going to tackle it by hand with a wheelbarrow, since the beams were rotted, but the tractor made short work of what would have taken us hours/days!  Sadly he doesn’t have a bushhog attachment for his tractor…or  I would have asked/begged/bribed him to quickly mow my pastures as well…

oh, what I wouldn't give for my own tractor!!!

 And one last thing I haven't been doing enough of: taking pictures.  I managed to catch this rainbow by chance one night. I was grumbling that it was raining again and couldn't ride.  A few minutes later this amazing double rainbow appeared and I actually had my phone with me to snap this shot!

a pot of gold could come in handy...

Shows 1 and 2

Roxie is ready for the rain!

I've had my first two shows of the season with Spencer.  We are just going to a series of club (schooling) shows for now.  We may hit a AQHA show at the end of July and a couple of fall fairs, if things go well.

I actually have no pictures from either show. Weird, I know!  I just don't find I have time to snap many shots with my phone as I have been there alone both days, for the most part.

My friend helped me band for the first show and then trailered me over.  She is great to help get us both ready for the halter classes, then she heads home.  We did ok at this show - lots to work on:

• showmanship (SMS)- most parts were good but there were a few things to tighten up:
•  turns (pivots) - Spencer was stepping out on the turns on me. 
• quarters - I need to be a bit sharper and work on thinking more in case the judge was tricky!
 
• riding in general - just need to slow him down and keep him focussed - he likes to look off in the distance when he hears/sees something.  
• downward transitions 
• halting without popping his head up on me.
• fidgeting - he was really fidgety when we halted in the command class, which got us eliminated fairly early on
 
• trail - again with keeping his attention on me.  We had to lope over some poles and we were loping on the left lead and his head was cranked around to the right.  We botched the poles pretty good. 

So, with that experience in hand, I had a lot to work on at home.  We loped and loped over poles, working on rhythm at the canter so we had a shot at getting over the poles. There was a big improvement there.    I also need to ask more of him when schooling at home. I am really focussing on asking him to pay attention and work when we are riding. When he is turned out, he can watch for deer in the field and watch the neighbours kids.  ;-)

I also worked on fine tuning what I was doing with my body when asking for downward transitions and halts.  In three weeks, I was able to get a decent improvement - not pefect, but definitely on the right track.  I really need to remember to not even touch the reins when asking him to halt, as he seems to overflex or something, causing him to hit the bit and pop his head up.

And for showmanship, my coach and I drilled that like crazy. I then practiced almost every day for the next three weeks.  I had the quarters down and I was getting 180 degree pivots with no problem and was getting a 360 most of the time.  I was feeling good about our progress.

That leads us to show 2 yesterday. Rain was forecast and since the weather people are usually a bit wrong, I decided to go anyway.  Spencer is terrible if it rains. He will not stand still at all, unless his bum is to the rain.  He just refuses - even if it is a light rain.  What a princess! This is a horse that will stand outside in all kinds of weather normally!

We got through the halter class and SMS was up next.  Two people got to go before the downpour hit. It sort of came out of nowhere - all of the horses were upset. And my horse? My horse was rearing.  Not a full on black stallion rear, but front feet off the ground repeatedly. *sigh*  I knew I had no chance of getting him to stand at a cone with the wind and rain blowing.  We made a lame attempt to do the pattern, but it was a mess.  The only thing I got were my quarters during the judge's inspection.  The weather was totally out of my hands, but it was frustrating since I had been practicing so much.

It continued to rain throughtout the morning and the winds were high. I decided not to ride, since I would be penalized in horsemanship and pleasure if Spencer spooked in the wind or was acting goofy because of the rain. 

All in all, show 2 was a total bust.  That happens, but man is it frustrating when you are ready to go.  I should have maybe showed anyway, but didn't want it to be a big mess with a goofy horse.  Show 3 is in two weeks, so we will keep practising and hope for better weather!

Hallloooo there!!!

Sooo, it has been several months since my last post. I have been waffling about whether to continue blogging or not.  Every time I decide that I’m done, I think of things I could have posted and I just can’t seem to delete the blog.   I’ve been toying with renaming and redesigning but I can’t decide on a new name.  I work on web stuff at work, so doing more web stuff at home isn’t always appealing. So, I find myself mired in a pool of indecision.  I miss the blog and the people I got to know, but as things change, people come and go.  I want to connect with new bloggers, but I’m a bit shy, even online, so I hesitate there as well.

I’ve decided that I’m just going to try posting a few things and see how that goes.  I may try a redesign later in the summer if I’m feeling like continuing.

I’m going to do a quick summary of what I’ve been up to and then come back and do more detailed posts as I get around to it.

• I had to have my old cat euthanized over the Easter weekend. It was hard, but it was time. I sure miss the old boy.  Good thing I still have the 2 young cats to keep me company
• We are on a waiting list for a yellow lab puppy from a local breeder. About time we had a dog around our place!
• I fixed the fence in my front pasture in April, so now the boys have more room to graze and get fat! Lol
• I started lessons again in April and we pretty much picked up where we left off in the fall, so that was good
• In early June, Spencer had a weird reaction to something and broke out in full body hives for about 2 weeks.  Will do a post on that later on. He is totally fine now
• We did our first show in June. It went ok, but I was nervous and not quite as sharp as I should have been. We still got some ribbons, but could have done better
• we have another show coming up this Sunday and one two weeks after that
• I’ve been riding Spencer in English tack a bit and it is going better than expected (for me, he is fine)
• I’m on the board of directors for our local QH club and worked as a whipper-in for 2 shows, got to meet lots of people.  Turns out I don’t like the whipper-in part, but I’m an excellent trail class scribe.  My coach was proud as she loves that too!  J
• I’m going to be showing my friend’s gelding with her at a fair in August. My coach is also a judge and she will be judging that fair.  We are going to surprise her with my entries.
• I may also use my friend’s halter gelding to try showing at the Novice day at the next QH show.  He will be my ringer and should get me a ribbon or two.  J
• I got to ride one of my coach’s other client’s horses – a neat little QH mare that you ride with no leg at all. It was very different from Spencer who needs lots of leg. 
• I now own 3 cowboy hats – I think I’m turning western for real! Hahaha – I only have two pairs of cowboy boots, so I have some catching up to do!
• I went to watch an extreme cowboy trail show last weekend. It was a blast and looks like a lot of fun to try.  I may enter Spencer in a novice class here and there if I can get trailering. 
• I’m going to try and audit a western dressage clinic later this month (waiting for the lady to get back to me).  I also think this is something ole’ Spence would be good at, as it doesn’t require the low and slow of western pleasure!

Ok – that has been the last few months, in a nutshell.  (Austin Powers reference, lol).  Suffice it to say that I have been busy and getting in lots of horse and outdoor time. 

Slowly coming out of hibernation...

I think I'm ready to start writing again.  It has been a long, dark, cold winter and it isn't over yet.  I have been getting the urge to blog a bit, so now is as good a time as any to start back with this old blog.

I'm toying with the idea of creating a new blog and starting fresh with a new title, but I'm having a hard time coming up with anything good.  Stay tuned for more updates on that exciting topic! LOL

Let's see if I can sum things up in a few sentences and a few pictures:

My winter involved lots of work and lots of relaxing on the weekends.  Usually cuddled up with a cat or three on my lap.

Mr P. (who just turned 17) and I trying to stay warm

My hubby surprised me with a trip to Cuba in February and that was a welcome break from the terrible winter.

Sunset on our last day - why can't I work remotely from a place like this?

 I've been slowly working on cleaning and oiling all of my tack... I'm trying to darken a pair of western reins, but it is slow going. Anyone have any tips? I'm going to try ordering some Hydrophane darkening oil and see if that works.

L-R: a jumble of tack to clean/oil, the reins that won't darken and my new show headstall!

I tried lunging Spencer a couple of times, but the snow was alternately too deep, too crusty (with layers of ice) or too inconsistent to get much done.  After once lungeing session, his back legs were stocked up for a few days, so I decided to wait until the snow melts to do much. I'm sure Spencer is happy to have more time off!

Spencer and Bailey have started shedding, so that is a sure sign that spring will be here, eventually!  It took advantage of one warm-ish day to comb out Spencer's mane and tail.

I also took lots of pictures of my cat jumping for a paper ball. You know you have cabin fever when...  lol

That about sums up winter.  Not too exciting and not much horse stuff, but I was just in survival mode! I hope the coming weeks bring us some warmer weather so I can get out and start riding!

Taking a break...

I'm going to be taking a break for a few weeks.  It is freezing cold here and I pretty much live in the dark, so not much is happening on the horse front.  I'm hoping by early Feb. things will start looking up and I'll start posting again.

I hope everyone (anyone who still reads this...lol) has a Merry Christmas and a nice holiday season.  Maybe even some time off work? I've got a few days off over the holidays and I'm sure looking forward to it.

Until next time!