Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Pony For Sale.

So yeah, Pony has been sold, or at least her owners found a buyer for her. Whether she's going back to her owners on Saturday or to her new place I don't know, but either way, she's leaving on Saturday.

They've already picked up her tack and stuff, so yesterday we were stuck in this awful synthetic saddle that's a bit to wide her for her and I just hate. So neither of us were to happy about that.

This is kind of what happened when I found out Tommy had been sold, when K would say to re do something we were having problems with all I could think was what the hell was the point? It's not going to do us any good since she's leaving. But oh well, eventually we got it.
It was a frustrating ride though, and Pony was being crazy but it might have been because the saddle wasn't hers and didn't fit 100%, but she stopped at a jump and I fell over her shoulder on to the jump. So as K said Pony was trying to make parting easy. I guess so too.

At least I won't be left without a horse when she's gone. There's a few options:
1. Rocky-my favorite he's so sweet. A smallish bay Morgan, he shows 2'6" but has jumped higher. He hasn't been ridden in about a year though, but K said he's usually pretty good to just hop on, even though he's out of shape. I've rode him once ages ago before Diesel and I quite liked him. He can't be used as a lesson horse because he sometimes bucks after jumping and he wasn't eve super well trained, but I really like him.

2. Zander- A big chestnut Arab? Arab cross? He's a decent jumper but used a lot in lessons so that's not a great thing I don't think other than him being in good shape. He's not my favorite horse at the barn but he's okay.

3. Roxy. She's less of a possibility I think. She's a quarter horse mare that's been out in a field a long time and is pretty much totally western. She's 15.3hh but only in the ass. K thinks she could be a good jumper but she might have to start at like cavallaties or something. Not that that's a problem, it could be fun and a very different experience. But I think she's there to be sold or to be retrained as a lesson horse I'm not totally sure.

So we just have to wait and see what happens next week.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bye Pony :(

Pony is being sold.
She leaves on Saturday.

My coach called to say so yesterday but I wasn't home so she told my mum, who couldn't be bothered to tell me.

I'll post R4R pictures when she email me them and about todays lesson tomorrow.

I'm going to go have a pity party with the Kings Of Leon, a pizza pop and possibly some Harry Potter fan fiction. Don't judge, it's not that lame...or maybe it is.

Random stuff

I copied this survey thing from Dom's blog because it looked like fun and I have nothing else to do at one in the morning!


10 Secrets
1.  I've thought about being a vegetarian again because I think it's great, but I love beef way to much
2.  I'm 18 and never kissed a boy (and it doesn't bother me!)
3.  I feel guilty when I use FrostWire, even though I'm only getting songs that aren't available on North     American itunes. If they were there I would pay for them.
4. I cry over the dumbest things
5. I hate when  people use the word "cuss"
6. I hate almost every piece of art I've created prior to grade 12
7. If I was "skinny" I would spend way to much money on clothes
8. I want to be as respected/successful in my career field as my dad is in his
9. I regret things that never happened, like not being able to do a year/semester of high school abroad, among others.
10. It took me almost and hour to think of all these secrets

9 Loves
1. Australia
2. Burgers
3. Storm (my dog)
4. Horses
5. Art
6. Running
7. Books
8. Pygmy Hippos
9. Dill Pickle Chips

8 Fears
1. Failure
2. A long and painful death
3. Becoming paralyzed
4. Death of a family or friend
5. House/wild fires
6. Being stuck in this town forever
7. Moving out (which is next week)
8. Public Speaking


7 Wants

1. To survive uni and becoming a psychologist
2. My own horse/pony
3. To travel the world
4. Learn to speak more than two languages
5. Go back to Australia
6. Be in better shape/lose weight
7. Have some crazy romantic fling in a foreign country



6 Places

1. Canada
2. Australia
3. Scotland
4. Sweden
5. The Netherlands
6. France



5 Foods

1. Burgers
2. Fries
3. Oranges
4. Pink Lady Apples
5. Tim Tams



4 Books
1. Wuthering Heights
2. Hush Hush
3. Out of the Broom Closet
4. Wicked



3 Movies
1. V for Vendetta
2. Milo and Otis
3. Harry Potter



2 Songs

1. "Disco Pogo" by Die Atzen (German version only, the English one is horrible)
2."Jump in to the Fog" by The Wombats


1 Picture of Yourself

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Yay Show!!

So we had our show today and Pony was brilliant!!


I was worried she'd do what she sometimes does at home and just take off or buck, stuff like that. But she was amazing, no bucking, no real big freak outs or getting frightened by sand hitting the jumps. During the coarse she would sometimes get a bit quick but she always came back when I asked.


In the 2' clear round we went clear, even over the trucks, which she doesn't like. Then we placed 4th in the Classic. Take that full sized horses. She can do all the super tight turns and she's super quick, not like a horse with longer legs, but whatever. Loads of people were telling her how cute she was.


In the 2'6" clear round we had to do it twice because the first time she stopped at the grey box jump and then the tudor tack plank jump, but she hasn't seen either of those two at home so that was part of it, but she worked so hard! Then the second time we did the course she didn't stop at the boxes but did at the plank, well actually we didn't really stop and when we came back we didn't cross our tracks so we still got a clear round ribbon. But since she was so good and it was boiling hot, I didn't take her in the classic, so we only got one ribbon.

Which is great because I wasn't expecting us to get anything at all. So I'm very happy with her and how we did.


Once all the pictures are uploaded I'll put a few up :)
Ahhhh, so I start my first year of University in less than two weeks and I'm kind of freaking out. I got an email from my English professor saying we needed to sign up for some website thing and then it talks about what we can expect from the class and, god damn it, we have write. Not a big surprise since it's uni but there's also "peer revision" and other equally horrifying things such as group work. So I'm really, really not at all excited about this class, but I'm sure the other classes will be like that too. It makes me miss high school when we didn't have to do that crap. At least the classes are only what 40 or 50 minutes? Then I can run away to math class. Hopefully I can find some decent people in that class, and all the others, haha I'm actually hoping that I have at least one of my friends is also in that class.



Everyone I know that's graduated from uni have always told me how much they loved it and that it was the best time of their lives and stuff like that. But they're also all super outgoing friendly people, which I think makes it easier. But this is starting to sound like a diary or something so, yay horse show was good and that's all that really matters!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Show Tomorrow

As long as it doesn't rain like it has for every other show this year.

Sadly because of the rain we aren't even at the height we were in June, for SM we were supposed to be a 2'9" to 3'. This time we're at 2'.
Oh well, I don't mind to much since 2' is still a good height for Pony but it gives us a bit of a break to make more mistakes and she won't have to be exactly perpendicular to the jump like she likes to a the bigger heights. I have no idea how high we'll get to, but I don't think it will be more than 2'9".
If I remember right, the 2' class is actually 2'-2'3" and then 2'6"-2'9".

It's supposed to be a pretty small show, there's about 28 people entered. But the 2' class is usually the most popular so the warm up ring sucks ass. It's always packed and everyone is in everyone elses way (and there's less of a chance of getting a ribbon). Plus since I've never had Pony in a jumper warm up ring, I have no idea what she's going to be like when the other horses are that close to her. K has only ever taken her in dressage shows and she's said Pony is not exactly spooky, but things catch her attention a bit more than they do at home.
We're also bringing one of her stronger bits, since her owner has told us she needs it at jumping shows. That's great, makes me so much more confident going into this [sarcasm :)]. Hopefully she'll be good and we can ride in the normal bit. She has a few different bits and one of them is insanely harsh looking. I can't remember what it's called, but it's two separate skinny bars, each twisted and when it bends it looks like a W. We aren't taking that one and I would never want to use it, but even a normal snaffle can be harsh in the wrong hands.

A few things to remember for this show:
She doesn't like sand hitting the jumps, so be ready on the land after a box or plank
She looks around more at shows than at home
Think of her as a spring and remember to collect her but not lose speed/compulsion so she can extend again if she has too
Try and get her as straight to every jump as possible
Speed doesn't count in the first round, just go clear

I think that's all the advice she gave and all that I can remember. And my child slave has abandoned me!
My sister, she's got a big babysitting job so she won't be at the show to help out. Once I wrote a social presentation on the advantages of child labour. It was a joke of coarse, but my sisters friend presented it in her class and got 75%. Good stuff.

Fingers crossed all goes well tomorrow.

My all time favourite advice from a pro rider about showing (sadly I can't remember his name, so lame) "if you stop getting nervous you should go find a new sport". Maybe it's just me, but it's nice to know even the pros get nervous before a show.

Stupid Blogger.. and riding of corse

Stupid blogger will not let me comment on my own blog even though my email is a google account.
Right, so terrible news first: Gross, bad rider girl is now riding Pony too. Turns out Pony doesn't test her dressage riders the same way she does the jumping ones, which kind of sucks because apperantly this girl really likes her. Damn.
If it was someone who wasn't horrible, I'd be sooo happy that someone was doing lots of dressage work with her, it would get her back in shape faster and would be so helpful for jumping. But no such luck. Fingers crossed the other horse gets better quick.

Last Thursday we had a decent lesson, we were inside because it rained again. It was a pretty simple coarse that was designed with her some what lower fitness level in mind and she did quite well once we go going.
We have a reoccuring problem when coming to jumps off the rail, she knows they're coming and will cut of the end of the arena and start to turn to soon and no matter what you change she will keep doing it! It's super frustrating and there's only so much you can do to get her back to the wall and turn straight before you get to the jump, so I'll have to find a way to deal with that on free rides.
We had a couple run outs and then I fell off on one, Pony still ran away, but this time she just walked instead of doing the whole canter and buck around the arena. Once we got on real coarse pace she did great, as she usaully does.  I don't get why it's taken so long for this "think sports car" to properly sink in. But I think it finally has.

On Tuesday we were back outside and doing a longer coarse and it was really hot, thank god for the wind or I might have passed out.
It's a bit lame but the jumps we  are doing now are about 2'6"-2'9" and that's what we were warming up over in June and July but we haven't done 2'9" in a while so they seem so much scarier, pathetic. This coarse had two oxers; one was the red fan jump and the other was a yellow plank/yellow pole parallel oxer. I thought we would have more trouble with the oxer but that's just me, Pony didn't care at all.
The one she did care about was the lattice jump, she was fine going to the left but when we were on coarse going to the right, she just freaked out and wasn't pleased to go near it. Again we had the same problem with her turning on her own and to soon, even though we came at it off a circle but she knew she was jumping.
She did run out at the brown and white jump we had problems with last week but the second time we came at it, she felt a bit backed off and was looking at it, so I "yelled" at her and she jumped it, if a bit close.
She was good on the lines, didn't care about the oxers, she did run out at the fan, but we didn't have a distance so it wasn't her fault.
But she's starting to use her back end a bit more so thats really helping.
The green verticle she ran out on in the second coarse, we just didn't have a good approach I think was the reason, but we came back to it, stopped again. Came a third time and she was so determinded to get over it that she caught me a bit of guard and we missed the short turn to the next jump and had to take the long way. But she jumped it fine.
The last line was seven pony stirdes and she took off so far from the lattice jump, my friend said her horse could have fit into the extra distance and her horse is HUGE! It was kind of like hitting a turbo button, she had this nice canter heading into the jump and then wham! she took off super long and then was off like a shot to the second jump. It was actually kind of funny, but my friend was like "aren't you terrified?". No, she has done scarier things than that, and Tommy liked his longs so I'm a bit used to them. Did not catcher her in the mouth which is great!
My usual release is grab mane 1/4 up her neck and then full realese with the left hand, which has got us into to trouble before, but now that I'm actually aware of it, I've been able to work on it and now most of the time I can give her the full realese (grab mane with both hands!) and not catcher her and that's also helped a lot.
We have a show on Saturday, just a tiny one but hopefully it won't get rained out like every other show this season.

On Thursday, we had a pretty good lesson, the jumps were pretty small and she did well even over the scary looking ones so hopefully she'll have some confidence going into the show on Saturday.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

It Was A Good Lesson....

Until the very very end.

But to start with:
We did ride outside, it wasn't overly hot, the jumps were about 2'6" (possibly a 2'9" oxer but it wasn't marked so I'm not sure).
The course was fairly difficult and K said it was designed to be exhausting, and it was.

For the most part the crazy was kept to a minimum, she started out really well but was really into looking at what was going on around her and then spooking at a few things..like jump poles on the ground. Her trot was much like last day but she was really good when it came to the canter, she wasn't fighting picking up the lead and she didn't get rushy like she sometimes does when we jump outside.
However she did have a few small moments where it felt like she would bolt, she did start a few times but came back really well when I asked. After one jump she did try to buck a bit, I'm not really sure what the problem was. She dropped her head and got in a couple small ones while I was trying to pull her head up, we missed the turn to the jump.
So K said if she ever tries that again (hopefully not) to turn her head to the side and keep looking at where I wanted Pony to go and turning her head, she won't be able to buck and it may remind her what we are supposed to be doing. Luckily she didn't try bucking again.
There was one jump that she really hated while going away from home. It was a brown plank ground line with white writing and a plain brown pole, but the paint kind of reflected the sun which I don't think she liked, so we had problems with that.
There was another jump that was so weird, it was only 2'6" but coming up to it, it looked much bigger. And it's not even a jump meant for illusion, the standards are quite tall so it should look smaller, even with the arenas slight grade it shouldn't have looked like that. Maybe it was the heat.
She jumped beautifully though, so I'm really happy with her and now I know what may be coming on Thursday, unless it rains, then we'll be back inside.

So, the horrible part: I've mentioned this chick before, she's a huuuuuuuge bitch and god awful rider, but her lease horse is lame, which is of coarse horrible, the mare is (usually) a very sweet horse, at least when you're on the ground. She was riding one of my friends horses, but my friend also can't stand her and is really pissed this girl is riding him even though she understands why.
There are no other horses for this girl right now except possibly Pony. It was hard to over hear exactly what they were saying because my friend was trying to wipe some weird medicated horse cream on my arm and we were being a bit loud, but it did sound something like "you may not like her but..." and "the only other option may be Pony." Fuuuuuck. I'll be so pissed if that chick starts riding her, she'll probably ruin her, I still blame her for Tommy becoming so girthy (it started after she started riding him so it's not a big leap to blame her). Did I mention she sucks at riding? I hope Pony doesn't like her, she likes to test her new riders and provided the girl isn't hurt, I kind of hope she fails the test. Or that T (her horse) gets better ASAP. I know I sound like a bitch, but I don't like sharing horses, a pit fall of leasing. And I'll be pissed as hell if this effects my riding schedule. I ride three times a week on set days, and this girl needs to work around it. I don't care she rides on Tuesdays as well, it's my lesson day and she can go away.

Went to gym, 2km run in 13min
                     5 min rowing (859meters)
                     30 sec plank
                     20 sit ups (2 reps)
                     no stretching
                  =lazy workout

Tomorrow is another run and weights and plank.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Finaly Back

And I have lots of blogs to catch up on.

I did my free ride on Sunday and was excepting Pony to be out of her mind crazy because she hasn't been ridden in two weeks. K was going to start riding her in the second week but life gets in the way, so Pony had some extra time off.

Surprisingly enough, she was not insane. At all.
Her trot felt slower than usual even when asking for more, but I suppose she's lost some cardio after her time off too. So we did lots of trotting and circling etc. It's finally nice here and we can ride outside, but because I was worried about her being crazy (even under normal circumstances she's crazier outside), and I forgot sunscreen so we stayed inside.
At the canter she had more speed but was not up to course pace at all. So I'm kind of worried about the jumping lesson tomorrow because we are both out of shape, it's really hot out and we'll be riding outside. So I'm kind of hoping that K won't have us do anything to high or difficult this week, just so we can see how it goes. Not to mention the last few times we rode outside they didn't exactly go well.

At the canter she was okayish. She really had a bit of trouble picking up the leads, but I'm assuming it's because she's out of shape and not wanting to work very hard.
We did a lot of circles, but at first they were more like ovals because she was refusing to bend her neck and turn her nose in even a bit. Even to the right which is usually where she has more than enough bend, but she was not having it. She did not want to respond to "give-and-take" or anything. Which is why I'm a bit worried about tomorrow.

Fingers crossed for smallish jumps, an easy course, for it not to be to hot and for Pony not to be insane.