Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Henny!
Just in case anyone missed it, congratulations to Peter Atkins who after this whole long and tiring ordeal gets Henny back where he belongs. I fell in love with that pony when I first saw him at Rolex because of his ears. Pathetic reason to like a horse, I know. I'm just so happy he's with Peter now. I really shouldn't be blogging... there's a french film critique that ain't gonna write itself. Too bad though....
Monday, June 13, 2011
Cross Country and Lessons
Alright. My appologies for the length of time in between updates. I'm in my last week of classes, and next week's finals. Gotta love school. We also have the joys of ending a lot later than everybody else. Only a week left. Actually, that's a pretty terrifying thought... there's a lot of work to get done in that week.
Anyhow, on to the cross country/cc/xc/x-country. You get the point. When we got off of the trailer, Cadence was hilarious. She wouldn't go near anything. Like nowhere near anything. She'd go shooting sideways across the field, realize that we were approaching another fence from the other side and go back again. It was pretty funny. A little discouraging, but what can you do.
By following some of the other horses around (There was the 6y/o mare (Beans) that we trailered with, an awesome draft cross (Jake) looking to upgrade to prelim, and a cute little bay (Can't remember...) going pre-training/training) we managed to warm up relatively well. We sort of partnered off into pairs, me and the younger mare and the two old boys. The boys worked over a couple of warmup fences, and then it was our turn. I'd been attempting to get Cadence near one little 2'3 log and a tiny 2'3 pile of 3 telephone posts, to limited levels of success. They were pretty close to each other, maybe two strides in between, and we'd managed to make it in between the two but that was about as close as we'd gotten. Beans hopped over the pile and the log with a lead from Jake (She'd been xc once the previous year) and then popped over a couple of times all by herself. Then, Cadence and I snugged up to Bean's butt and we followed her up to the log pile. A couple of strides away, I felt her gretting that wiggly unsureness, and put a bit of preassure on. I don't think Cadence really realized what she was doing until she was half way over hte fence :P It sort of goes unsaid that she waaaay over jumped and cleared it by a mile and a half, but I'll add it in anyways.
We followed Beanie over it again, essentially repeating the previous attempt. That's when I think it all sort of clicked with her. Ohh! We go OVER them! Wow, this is sort of fun....
We went over the log then behind bean, and tried them both on our own. She was so funny. She didn't rush any of them, until we were over. Stopping her afterwards required some work, but she was never out of control. Just energetic. We then moved on to a cord of wood, one of the ones with like an entry (Beginner novice) fence on the right and a prelim on the left kind of thing. Apparently we ended up jumping the prelim one, but she was jumping high enough it didn't really make much of a difference. Man can that little mare fly! She's got one hell of a jump in her hind end. Cadence and Bean took a break then to let the big boys school over a pretty intimidating looking Irish bank. Jake was such a cool customer! He handled everything like such a pro, and was a real superstar.
On the way out of our first field and onto the next (this place was AMAZING! They had such a fantastic property and we barely touched the surface) we popped over a tiny ditch, just to try it. Cadence couldn't have cared less. I think she handled the ditch better than anything else... she was so relaxed with it. We also put together a 4 jump course of never before seen fences with some new styles of fences thrown in and she couldn't have cared less. She was like 'You're letting me canter up to jumps??' But she still didn't rush her fences. She'd adjust if she was a bit short, shorten if she was a little long, and respond if i asked her to woah up a bit. It was pretty fricken amazing.
After that came the water. We're going to have to work on this a little. She was pretty good aobut it, but not fantastic. She'd never seen water that deep, and Beans was freaking out. She went in once Bean did, but she's got to learn to go by herself. Our only real catch was wit the banks. She goes off of 'em pretty green! There was one little conbination (like pre beginner novice 2' little)that we worked with. It was a bank (meant to be ridden up) one stride to a little log, if my memory serves me correctly. We worked up and down the bank a couple of times before trying a real bank (Novice level). There were trees on either side of the bank. Keep that in mind. As per usual, we followed Beans off the bank. Cadence was getting pretty close to her, and knowing that we were probably going to launch off of it I pulled her off to the left a little, only to get taken out by the tree less than a half stride before the bank. Then she launched herself 24 feet off the bank, and I clung on for dear life. Thankfully my horse is awesome and didn't feel the need to buck, so in my stirrupless frenzy, I was able to pull her up and salvage the mess. We went and practiced the baby bank a couple more times. The day ended well with us rocking our first real (under 4 stride) combination. We cantered calmly to the base of the baby bank, popped up it, and rode smoothly over the second fence. Great way to end a day!
A/N: The only semi-bad thing that came out of xc is that she sprung a heel (not a biggy since she's having it fixed right now) and now needs a belly guard. I shouldn't complain, it's great that she tucks up so nice. However (there's always a but) that's another expense that I REALLY don't need at the moment considering I just sprung for a new bridle. Ah well, she really does need that belly guard.... there goes my bank account!
I'm off to write a math test. Cheers!
Anyhow, on to the cross country/cc/xc/x-country. You get the point. When we got off of the trailer, Cadence was hilarious. She wouldn't go near anything. Like nowhere near anything. She'd go shooting sideways across the field, realize that we were approaching another fence from the other side and go back again. It was pretty funny. A little discouraging, but what can you do.
By following some of the other horses around (There was the 6y/o mare (Beans) that we trailered with, an awesome draft cross (Jake) looking to upgrade to prelim, and a cute little bay (Can't remember...) going pre-training/training) we managed to warm up relatively well. We sort of partnered off into pairs, me and the younger mare and the two old boys. The boys worked over a couple of warmup fences, and then it was our turn. I'd been attempting to get Cadence near one little 2'3 log and a tiny 2'3 pile of 3 telephone posts, to limited levels of success. They were pretty close to each other, maybe two strides in between, and we'd managed to make it in between the two but that was about as close as we'd gotten. Beans hopped over the pile and the log with a lead from Jake (She'd been xc once the previous year) and then popped over a couple of times all by herself. Then, Cadence and I snugged up to Bean's butt and we followed her up to the log pile. A couple of strides away, I felt her gretting that wiggly unsureness, and put a bit of preassure on. I don't think Cadence really realized what she was doing until she was half way over hte fence :P It sort of goes unsaid that she waaaay over jumped and cleared it by a mile and a half, but I'll add it in anyways.
We followed Beanie over it again, essentially repeating the previous attempt. That's when I think it all sort of clicked with her. Ohh! We go OVER them! Wow, this is sort of fun....
We went over the log then behind bean, and tried them both on our own. She was so funny. She didn't rush any of them, until we were over. Stopping her afterwards required some work, but she was never out of control. Just energetic. We then moved on to a cord of wood, one of the ones with like an entry (Beginner novice) fence on the right and a prelim on the left kind of thing. Apparently we ended up jumping the prelim one, but she was jumping high enough it didn't really make much of a difference. Man can that little mare fly! She's got one hell of a jump in her hind end. Cadence and Bean took a break then to let the big boys school over a pretty intimidating looking Irish bank. Jake was such a cool customer! He handled everything like such a pro, and was a real superstar.
On the way out of our first field and onto the next (this place was AMAZING! They had such a fantastic property and we barely touched the surface) we popped over a tiny ditch, just to try it. Cadence couldn't have cared less. I think she handled the ditch better than anything else... she was so relaxed with it. We also put together a 4 jump course of never before seen fences with some new styles of fences thrown in and she couldn't have cared less. She was like 'You're letting me canter up to jumps??' But she still didn't rush her fences. She'd adjust if she was a bit short, shorten if she was a little long, and respond if i asked her to woah up a bit. It was pretty fricken amazing.
After that came the water. We're going to have to work on this a little. She was pretty good aobut it, but not fantastic. She'd never seen water that deep, and Beans was freaking out. She went in once Bean did, but she's got to learn to go by herself. Our only real catch was wit the banks. She goes off of 'em pretty green! There was one little conbination (like pre beginner novice 2' little)that we worked with. It was a bank (meant to be ridden up) one stride to a little log, if my memory serves me correctly. We worked up and down the bank a couple of times before trying a real bank (Novice level). There were trees on either side of the bank. Keep that in mind. As per usual, we followed Beans off the bank. Cadence was getting pretty close to her, and knowing that we were probably going to launch off of it I pulled her off to the left a little, only to get taken out by the tree less than a half stride before the bank. Then she launched herself 24 feet off the bank, and I clung on for dear life. Thankfully my horse is awesome and didn't feel the need to buck, so in my stirrupless frenzy, I was able to pull her up and salvage the mess. We went and practiced the baby bank a couple more times. The day ended well with us rocking our first real (under 4 stride) combination. We cantered calmly to the base of the baby bank, popped up it, and rode smoothly over the second fence. Great way to end a day!
A/N: The only semi-bad thing that came out of xc is that she sprung a heel (not a biggy since she's having it fixed right now) and now needs a belly guard. I shouldn't complain, it's great that she tucks up so nice. However (there's always a but) that's another expense that I REALLY don't need at the moment considering I just sprung for a new bridle. Ah well, she really does need that belly guard.... there goes my bank account!
I'm off to write a math test. Cheers!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
XC, Storms, and Dressage Pics
The pictures from Cadence and my first show are up at long last!
Monday night my coach emails and asks if I can go cross country on Wednesday. Well, I'm in my second last week of classes with waaaay too much work to do and exams that I haven't even begun to revise for... so of course, count me in! We checked the weather multiple times after our somewhat disastrous last cross country attempt, and every website had something different. Some said thunderstorms all day, some said clear and sunny all day. I chose to believe it was going to be sunny, but the one thing everyone seemed to agree on was that it was going to be hot.
I went to bed Tuesday night, full of excitement and anticipation for the next day. Now, in my bedroom, there's a window right behind my head. I generally leave this window open to let a breeze in. Back on topic. So at 1:28 am on Wednesday morning I was awoken to a loud crack. I look up and see a tree limb flying past my bedroom window, sheeting rain, hail, booming thunder, and... strobe lights? There were in fact no strobe lights (big surprise) but intense lightning that lit up the sky multiple times per second, illuminating the world in sharp detail. I ran down stairs and unplugged all electronics, and then stayed up for another hour just watching the storm. A part of me was too nervous to go back to sleep. I love storms, especially thunderstorms but there was something... menacing about this one. I sat there watching the huge old pine tree 15ft from my bedroom window swaying back and forth and thought 'If that falls, I'm dead' a tree that big just shouldn't move. At ALL. Eventually, I went back to sleep. When I woke up I was surprised to find the power still on. It did go off at some point during the day, but the storm didn't knock it out.
As I drove to the barn I saw trees toppled (one fall on our shed. Thankfully the chicken coop was spared) along with hydro poles, limbs all over, and several roads closed from storm damage. Apparently a tornado touched down somewhere near us. This is extremely odd, because if there was in fact a tornado, it would be the second in one week for an area that doesn't get tornadoes. Anyhow, the good thing about the storm was that it cleared the forecast! Cross country was still on.
The lady who was giving Cadence and I a lift was late because the power had gone off at her place and her horses had been out in the storm all night, so she was held up a bit. By the time she got her mare loaded and picked us up it was9:30. We were hoping to arrive early to avoid the heat, but with an 1 1/2 hour drive ahead of us it didn't look like we were going to make it.
To be continued...
Scary car down, scary photographer still to go.
(You can see me talking to her :P)
Not exactly on the bit, but at least she's in the arena!
Gahh, hunter position... and look at those elbows!
I knew my position was going to suck, I'd jsut hoped it wouldn't suck this much. I have this bad habit of concentrating solely on the horse, and then I end up riding like a hunter. Grrrr....Monday night my coach emails and asks if I can go cross country on Wednesday. Well, I'm in my second last week of classes with waaaay too much work to do and exams that I haven't even begun to revise for... so of course, count me in! We checked the weather multiple times after our somewhat disastrous last cross country attempt, and every website had something different. Some said thunderstorms all day, some said clear and sunny all day. I chose to believe it was going to be sunny, but the one thing everyone seemed to agree on was that it was going to be hot.
I went to bed Tuesday night, full of excitement and anticipation for the next day. Now, in my bedroom, there's a window right behind my head. I generally leave this window open to let a breeze in. Back on topic. So at 1:28 am on Wednesday morning I was awoken to a loud crack. I look up and see a tree limb flying past my bedroom window, sheeting rain, hail, booming thunder, and... strobe lights? There were in fact no strobe lights (big surprise) but intense lightning that lit up the sky multiple times per second, illuminating the world in sharp detail. I ran down stairs and unplugged all electronics, and then stayed up for another hour just watching the storm. A part of me was too nervous to go back to sleep. I love storms, especially thunderstorms but there was something... menacing about this one. I sat there watching the huge old pine tree 15ft from my bedroom window swaying back and forth and thought 'If that falls, I'm dead' a tree that big just shouldn't move. At ALL. Eventually, I went back to sleep. When I woke up I was surprised to find the power still on. It did go off at some point during the day, but the storm didn't knock it out.
As I drove to the barn I saw trees toppled (one fall on our shed. Thankfully the chicken coop was spared) along with hydro poles, limbs all over, and several roads closed from storm damage. Apparently a tornado touched down somewhere near us. This is extremely odd, because if there was in fact a tornado, it would be the second in one week for an area that doesn't get tornadoes. Anyhow, the good thing about the storm was that it cleared the forecast! Cross country was still on.
The lady who was giving Cadence and I a lift was late because the power had gone off at her place and her horses had been out in the storm all night, so she was held up a bit. By the time she got her mare loaded and picked us up it was9:30. We were hoping to arrive early to avoid the heat, but with an 1 1/2 hour drive ahead of us it didn't look like we were going to make it.
To be continued...
Monday, June 6, 2011
Put one foot infront of the other
And you just may make it through the day... but probably not. Knowing me, I'll trip.
It's 7:30am, and I'm sitting in the deserted hallway of my school painting my toenails and writing this blog post. Why is that important? Well, it isn't really... but the events leading up to it sort of are. I've had one of those crazy insane weekends after which you're not 100% sure what you thought of it, because your head still hasn't stopped spinning.
Friday I went out to the barn (big surprise) only to find out that my lesson had been cancelled. My coach had been trying to get a hold of me, but to no avail so she'd left word with our BO. Disappointing, but not a big deal. We worked on all the fun stuff necessary for our XC outing the next day, and then went for a nice hack. Short, but sweet.
Saturday dawned dark and cloudy. Cadence's ride arrived 15 minutes early, and thank god because it tool 1/2 hour to load her. They had a 2 horse slant, and whenever she got up the ramp we'd try to move her bum over and she'd go right back down again. In the end, we unloaded the other horse and popped her into the first stall. This worked fine, and the other horse hopped right back on. The place we were headed was 1-1/2 hours away. About 45 minutes into it, it started to drizzle. Then it started to rain, and then it started to storm. Thunder, lightning, torrential downpour, the whole nine yards. I never totally understood that expression... but I digress. When we got off the highway, we went to turn down the road to the barn only to find that it was closed, because a bridge had washed out. Fun fun fun. The lady who was trailering called our coach, and she said that we'd have to turn back. Even if it did stop, they didn't want us on the course. Makes sense, so we turned and headed home. When we returned home, Cadence got a short break before I tacked her up and we had a short jump school ourselves. She was quite good for the jumps, but we tried cantering some poles, and she bounced the one stride. More than once. She doesn't like poles....
The rest of my day was spent driving. I drove up to the family farm to visit with my uncle who'd flown in from Alberta. After arriving at 10pm, I spent the next 2 1/2 hours attempting to explain the thoroughbred industry to my 12 year old cousin who now wants to become a jockey and win the triple crown . I love her dearly, but at midnight, the only discussion I want to be having is with my pillow.
Sunday involved more driving. Driving home from the farm, showering, spending 1 hour on schoolwork (not nearly enough time), and then getting picked up by one of my friends to go to a concert in Toronto for a band that I don't even really know. I think I'd listened to 3 of their songs before, and had never heard of the opening band. I didn't mind them, so I would have been excited to go to the concert, except I had a splitting headache and had been feeling sick all day. Just my luck ;) The concert itself wasn't bad. I made us NOT get stuck in the middle of the crowd, so we ended up in (what I considered to be) a pretty good spot. Near the front, great view, but not beung pressed up against from all sides. Too claustrophobic for that! I had a wall on my back, and we were close enough to the edge of the crowd that it was easy to escape if necessary. The first band wasn't my favourite. The keyboardist repeatedly stood on, stomped on, and banged on his instrument, which made me repeatedly cringe. Their only redeeming feature was their back up vocalist/trumpet player. Interesting touch, and not what you'd expect. The second band was called fun. and I loved them. Good music, and good on stage. The main attraction was Panic! at the Disco. They were also really great. Engaging and entertaining, combined with good music. What more could you ask for?
The plan was for me to spend the night with my friend, and have her bring me in to school in the morning. We got home at around 12:30, and we woke up at 6 because she had to be into school for an early morning band practice, which is why I'm sitting here at 7:30 (now 8am) writing a blog post and painting my toes, while thoroughly avoiding any and all homework... for now.
It's 7:30am, and I'm sitting in the deserted hallway of my school painting my toenails and writing this blog post. Why is that important? Well, it isn't really... but the events leading up to it sort of are. I've had one of those crazy insane weekends after which you're not 100% sure what you thought of it, because your head still hasn't stopped spinning.
Friday I went out to the barn (big surprise) only to find out that my lesson had been cancelled. My coach had been trying to get a hold of me, but to no avail so she'd left word with our BO. Disappointing, but not a big deal. We worked on all the fun stuff necessary for our XC outing the next day, and then went for a nice hack. Short, but sweet.
Saturday dawned dark and cloudy. Cadence's ride arrived 15 minutes early, and thank god because it tool 1/2 hour to load her. They had a 2 horse slant, and whenever she got up the ramp we'd try to move her bum over and she'd go right back down again. In the end, we unloaded the other horse and popped her into the first stall. This worked fine, and the other horse hopped right back on. The place we were headed was 1-1/2 hours away. About 45 minutes into it, it started to drizzle. Then it started to rain, and then it started to storm. Thunder, lightning, torrential downpour, the whole nine yards. I never totally understood that expression... but I digress. When we got off the highway, we went to turn down the road to the barn only to find that it was closed, because a bridge had washed out. Fun fun fun. The lady who was trailering called our coach, and she said that we'd have to turn back. Even if it did stop, they didn't want us on the course. Makes sense, so we turned and headed home. When we returned home, Cadence got a short break before I tacked her up and we had a short jump school ourselves. She was quite good for the jumps, but we tried cantering some poles, and she bounced the one stride. More than once. She doesn't like poles....
The rest of my day was spent driving. I drove up to the family farm to visit with my uncle who'd flown in from Alberta. After arriving at 10pm, I spent the next 2 1/2 hours attempting to explain the thoroughbred industry to my 12 year old cousin who now wants to become a jockey and win the triple crown . I love her dearly, but at midnight, the only discussion I want to be having is with my pillow.
Sunday involved more driving. Driving home from the farm, showering, spending 1 hour on schoolwork (not nearly enough time), and then getting picked up by one of my friends to go to a concert in Toronto for a band that I don't even really know. I think I'd listened to 3 of their songs before, and had never heard of the opening band. I didn't mind them, so I would have been excited to go to the concert, except I had a splitting headache and had been feeling sick all day. Just my luck ;) The concert itself wasn't bad. I made us NOT get stuck in the middle of the crowd, so we ended up in (what I considered to be) a pretty good spot. Near the front, great view, but not beung pressed up against from all sides. Too claustrophobic for that! I had a wall on my back, and we were close enough to the edge of the crowd that it was easy to escape if necessary. The first band wasn't my favourite. The keyboardist repeatedly stood on, stomped on, and banged on his instrument, which made me repeatedly cringe. Their only redeeming feature was their back up vocalist/trumpet player. Interesting touch, and not what you'd expect. The second band was called fun. and I loved them. Good music, and good on stage. The main attraction was Panic! at the Disco. They were also really great. Engaging and entertaining, combined with good music. What more could you ask for?
The plan was for me to spend the night with my friend, and have her bring me in to school in the morning. We got home at around 12:30, and we woke up at 6 because she had to be into school for an early morning band practice, which is why I'm sitting here at 7:30 (now 8am) writing a blog post and painting my toes, while thoroughly avoiding any and all homework... for now.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Another XC Attempt... And a Pony Gardening Session
Why oh why is it that whenever you plan on doing something that requires clear skies it ALWAYS gets rained out? There is (a somewhat tentative XC school planned for Saturday, which I may/may not be attending depending on whether I can get a ride, and the weather. Naturally, as we're hoping to go XC, there's a 70% chance of showers. -_-
Yesterday Cadence was great. She looked fantastic while our BO was lunging her. She's such a pretty girlie. No bias here... ;) However, since she was nice and sweaty after her lunge session, I took her and we walked up and down the drive a couple of times. On the way back into the barn, we stopped while I opened the door. I looked over at Cadence, and she had the long leafed plant (think the leaves of an iris... but without the flower) from the urn near the door dangling from her mouth. I freaked (firstly because I didn't know if it was poisonous) and managed to pry her mouth open and rescue the plant, still fully intact (though slightly worse for wear) and re-plant it. I took her back into the barn, and put on my best puppy dog face as I went to tell our BO. She laughed... apparently another horse did the same thing last year. At least my mare isn't the only psycho one!
Yesterday Cadence was great. She looked fantastic while our BO was lunging her. She's such a pretty girlie. No bias here... ;) However, since she was nice and sweaty after her lunge session, I took her and we walked up and down the drive a couple of times. On the way back into the barn, we stopped while I opened the door. I looked over at Cadence, and she had the long leafed plant (think the leaves of an iris... but without the flower) from the urn near the door dangling from her mouth. I freaked (firstly because I didn't know if it was poisonous) and managed to pry her mouth open and rescue the plant, still fully intact (though slightly worse for wear) and re-plant it. I took her back into the barn, and put on my best puppy dog face as I went to tell our BO. She laughed... apparently another horse did the same thing last year. At least my mare isn't the only psycho one!
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