The Repurposed Horse

I wasn't planning on riding in a jumping lesson this week.  I had dressage on Monday with Fancy Dressage Trainer L (fDTL), and Sherlock got adjusted by the chiropractor on Tuesday, so he was out for Tuesday and Wednesday as well, as it was his first adjustment ever and she likes them to have extra time off.  I have literally zero time for life on Thursdays, and I figured that if Friday was the only day that I could ride, we would benefit more from dressage practice than we would from jumping practice. Not quite a dressage pony just yet. Dressage, by the way, went really well.  fDTL says that if Sherlock would just accept the contact a little more, he'd be a nice little dressage horse.  Unfortunately, the lifestyle of the lesson horse for all age/experience levels tends to lead to lack of engagement with the bit.  But we ended up improving some over the course of the lesson, so that was good. Today I had planned  to do a 'free ride' - get on and dre...

Hello world!  I have been soooo busy.  I don't have a recap from my several weeks-ago show, but I do have one from the most recent show, so that is just going to be what this post is about.  Order isn't important, right? On Friday, I had a jumping lesson on Sherlock.  It was possibly our best lesson yet - I felt like we connected really, really well.  He was forward (for him) and took everything in stride (hehe).  Then it was bath time, although honestly the bathing of the flea bitten grey horse is kind of pointless as he is inevitably filthy by morning. gridwork from our lesson magical purple shampoo that kind of works? Saturday, I got off work at 5 am and headed straight to the barn.  Because show.  There was feeding and car-packing, and  Sherlock loaded no problem and we arrived at the show around 7 am.  His little girl was also showing him, so I didn't do a morning schooling session - I signed up for a warm-up class and s...

Still no show pictures, and a show tomorrow...I'm going to have a LOT of show recapping to catch up on next week.  Boyfriend is attending the show tomorrow and I am leaving him with my phone and explicit instructions to document EVERYTHING. So, today's post is going to feature one of my all-time new favorite activities: ponying the pony. everyone's favorite mini The upcoming Mini-Event is Chalupa Batman's eventing debut.  Unfortunately, the barn has a shortage of extremely tiny people available on a daily basis to condition the little dude so that he performs at an optimal level. Badass cross-country pony.  In order to help with his conditioning, a new system has been developed.  Take a real-sized horse, throw some western tack on it, throw a lunge line on the pony, and go for a ride.  My friend C's Appy mare has been the regular torture victim  candidate, but she had a lesson scheduled for today, so one of the old man horses stepped in. ...

Show recap will be here eventually!  Still waiting on photos!  So here's the saddle recap in the meantime! Last Thursday, I was casually perusing the Marketplace section of the Facebook, looking at all of the saddles that I can't afford, and sighing internally at my lack of thousands of dollars with which to purchase a super fancy jumping saddle.  I decided shortly after I bought my horse and discovered that my synthetic all-purpose saddle didn't fit that I would hold out on buying a saddle for him until I had saved up enough money to buy a higher-end one that I absolutely loved.  Which will probably take months.  Maybe a year.  Who knows.  Luckily, my barn has over 20 lesson saddles that are free to use at any time (provided, obviously, that someone else isn't already using whichever saddle you're looking for), and while none of them are 'super high-end,' many of them are quite nice. What my barn lacks, however, is spare dressage saddles.  An...

Pre-show bathing Success? !!!!!!!!! Probably way too big for his face. Real update coming soon. Also show pictures, hopefully!

In central Missouri, 95% of the population forgets how to drive during weather. The combined training show tomorrow has been canceled due to excessive amounts of rain. Sherlock is probs actually ok with this. The hunter/jumper show is still on for Sunday, as of now, though - I'm taking Griffin back for a rematch with the venue.  Last time was his first show ever, and it was a complete disaster - poor Griffy went into full-on emotional saddlebred meltdown mode and we didn't make it through the warm-up because EMOTIONS.  This is my trainer, schooling us through the warmup, at the show.  This is literally the most deceptive picture of all time. HE LOOKS AMAZING. So that should be interesting.  Part of the issue was that we entered him in 2'6 - which he is FULLY CAPABLE OF DOING except his brain exploded that day.  Hence our super speedy crossrails debut at Just Cruising last month, where we got 4th out of 4 in every OF class because...well...yo...

I have a conundrum. This graceful, attractive beast has -possibly- the WORST registered name to have ever been a name.  It's been mentioned before. Are you ready? Doctor Jim Bob Allegedly, the name of the vet in KC when he was born was Doctor Jim Bob.  So that's what his owners named him when he was registered.  In the sale videos that I have found of him on YouTube, he went by the barn name "Blaze."  For, I think, relatively obvious reasons. dat blaze. When I bought him, he was going by "Splash." I think we technically qualify as a pinto with dat chrome.  And then Leo was chosen by random selection/popular opinion/I liked it the best/it suits him.  Barn name settled. BUT WHAT SHOULD HIS SHOW NAME BE???? Popular opinion at the barn is to keep "Doctor Jim Bob" as it is, and I do think that engraving it in fancy-ass script on things like a show halter would be hilarious.  But do I really want to show "Doct...

It's about that time again. I lassoed a friend into helping with the pictures - initially she held the monster and I shot, but when he proved to be particularly annoying, we switched places.  Thanks, K! I met Leo on June 19th, and he came home on the 23rd.  The first set of pictures I have are from that first day, almost 3 months ago.  It feels like it's been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer.  3 months is not a long time at all.  How has it only been 3 months?! Ahem. Yes, I know he is facing different directions.  I feel like the overall shape of him has begun to change in a leaner, more badass way.  He's always been on the scrawny narrow side, but I feel like when you see these two pictures side-by-side, he looks a bit...puffy in the original.  Although that could be how he is standing; I definitely need to remember the angles of the original pictures, and which direction he is facing in them.  And he needs to learn  I need to teach ...

My Sunday show hasome been canceled due to excessive rain earlier this week. Grumble. It was supposed to be my chance to practice in the jumper ring before the Combined Training show next week. Now, Sherlock and I will be debuting in both show jumping and dressage on the same day. Because that doesn't sound stressful or anything. We used to ride outside, before the rain... (pic is from last week) We had a really great lesson last night, and my mom was there to take video (!!!), but that post won't be up for a day or so, probably.  Trainer K rode Leo yesterday and said he did really well, which is good. I am sad to have missed it. 

Desensitization to the farrier shed is fun. I mean, doesn't that eye just look thrilled? Our pasture-boarded ponies all eat out of feed bags, so I borrowed one and forced  allowed Leo to eat his dinner in the farrier shed the other night. Mom. Mom. Moooom. LOOK. He was hyper-focused on this corner for some reason.  The forge is over there (the silver box), which is a main source of burnt smell during shoeing, so that may have been part of his apprehension.  Also the door being open, maybe? OMG MOM!!!! He would then turn back to stare at me with his crazy  totally chill giant bug eyes. Out..outside? We then ventured back outside, very carefully... Antelope much? And headed back to the barn to finish dinner.  Maybe not the most successful of ventures - he never really seemed to relax, and was too anxious to eat in a time-effective manner, but it definitely led to some fantastic photos of my pony's exceptionally expressive face. ...

Most important things first - LILY HAS COME HOME!!! I found her this morning - my neighbor's cat actually led me to her.  She was gone for two days, and they have been a very stressful two days.  The main focus of life for the last two days has been trying to find my cat.   However, I was able to pull it together for my second ever and Sherlock's first ever DRESSAGE LESSON on Monday afternoon!  I don't have any pictures, but word on the street is he was starting to look (almost) fancy by the end.  We did a lot of directional transitions and a lot of work on corners - he has a tendency to cut them.  And a LOT (x132984093750487) of turning straight down the centerline. The biggest challenge I expected to have was actually making my circles correctly - at my last (and only) dressage lesson, most of it was spent with Dressage Trainer L sternly reminding me not to turn my head to the center whilst circling, a concept that is basically unheard of in ...