Leura, Australia

Leura is a beautiful little town in Australia's Blue Mountians. I really miss it, it felt  like home, it was cold...sort of, and it reminded me of Jasper/Canmore. Of course the native trees in Australia are green all year round but the tree's on Leura's main street had no leaves at the time. So it was like Jasper in the fall/winter.

Soo pretty. If you are ever in Australia, make the trip up from Sydney to Leura. It's only a couple hours drive up. Plus they have the greatest old style candy shop, and loads of other cute little stores. And they have way better pop tart flavours than we do here!

YAY!!!

The show was awesome!! Tommy did soo well! I'm so proud of him!
We got clear in both the 2' and 2'6" but unfortunately didn't place in either. We were to slow in the first one and the second he refused the very last jump, the same very last jump he had a rail down on last time.
 It wasn't really a refusal, it was the last jump in a big bending line, we did great over the oxer, but he had to much speed so the turn was difficult and then my trainer yelled something and I got distracted and pulled to hard on the reins so he was going to slow to jump.
 But I couldn't possibly be mad at him! It was mostly my fault so I can't blame him for that. It was great that he was totally fine with moving up in height too, I was really surprised. I thought we'd be having rails down all over in the 2'6".

I have a couple stories about two dumb ass that were there, but I'm trying to go to bed early, because tomorrow is the first day of school. BLAHH! I've already lost my locker combination, so I'll have to go get that from the office. Its weird, because I saw it just the other day, thought "I better remember this" and now its lost. Nice.

Second Show Tomorrow.

And I'm not sure how we'll do. I can't remember if I mentioned this last time or not, but it seems like all the hard work me and Tommy have been doing since December (when he first moved to the barn and I started training with him) has just gone completely down hill. But only since I've gotten back from holidays. We were gone for 5 weeks and he did no jumping at all, instead some stupid bitch started leasing him too and has been using him for dressage.
That's not a bad thing, and I don't have a problem with dressage, but I do have a problem with the girl riding him. I really don't like her. Mostly 'cause she's riding my horse. Plus I've always done my free ride on Sundays for the past 5 years. Guess who has decided when to do her ride? Yay. I'm kind of annoyed  that my coach even agreed to that since its when I ride. However, I'm pleased to have messed up her schedule this week with my show being on Sunday.
So hopefully the show goes well. We are going in the 18"-2' division, which are really just warm up jumps for me and Tommy, and also in the 2'-2'6" division, which is where we normally are.

I want my own horse. What rider doesn't? But I can't get one right now. My stable is lovely and has some of the most affordable outdoor board rates, but then you have to add in the vet, dentist, farrier, transport, tack, show fees, etc etc. Not to mention the cost of the horse.
My trainer is forever talking about how people buy a cheap horse and just want to pay for extra training and how that doesn't usually work. The training cost end up being way more than they think, so they ought to have bought a more expensive and well trained horse.

Moving Up

So, me and Tommy are moving up this year! Into the Advanced Jumper class! This is very exciting, because I've been working towards this for the past 5+ years.
We also have our last, and second, show of the season. Hopefully we will do as well as last time in the first class and better than last time in the second class.

However, there's something I never mentioned before. Tommy is not my horse. He belongs to my trainer, and I lease him from her. I love Tom to bits, but I really want my own horse. The problem is that I'll be going to University next year, and the other problem is I don't have the money for one right now.

It's very depressing. But I still have Tommy for now. I don't know how people can give up things that they are so passoniate about when they go to school, if everything works out, I should have a crappy car next year so I can still ride at my current stable, otherwise I may have to start taking lessons at the show barn in the city, by my grandmas house, which is also pretty close to the university.

It's Been A While...

Been really busy studying and riding so I haven't had a lot of time to blog.

Anyway I passed all my classes fairly well, so next year should be decent now that I have my science diplomas out of the way, unless of course I need to up grade. But I really, really hope I won't have too.

As for Tommy, we had our first show on Sunday and we did really well! The clear round 18" was a breeze, and the classic was too. Then in the 2' class we ran into problems. We had a rail down over the first clear round, but we bought another ticket and did it again, and went clear. But in the classic, we had a heart breaking rail down. The very last rail, and until then it was perfect, I can say with all honesty, we would have placed high if that rail had stayed up.

We ended up with two clear round ribbons and a very pretty and well earned 3rd place ribbon with a $42 cheque!

Our next show will be for sure on the 29th of August, I'm on holidays for the next 5 weeks so I'm not sure about anything before then, but that show is the same as the first so I'm hoping we'll do well in it too. If Tommy is in good enough shape and we are doing well enough I would hopefully be in the 18", 2' and the 2'6". At this show they go up by 6".

He is amazing  he was so calm and quiet at the show, it was amazing. In the past I've always had horses like Diesel, which are crazy! They are loud and don't listen and just crazy. It was lovely to have a change. My coach was talking to my dad and she said that she was happy I finally had a horse that was well behaved. Honestly I was so surprised because he's very energetic and in the outdoor ring at home he gets really ahead of himself so he's going to fast and then skids out at the jump

Oh! And on Saturday I got my drivers license, today's my 17th birthday, I'm going shopping with one of my best friends tomorrow and on Saturday I'm going to Australia!! Defiantly a very good week!

Tommy!

Awe Tommy!! I've started riding bareback again, which I haven't done since about this time last year with Diesel, because he totally freaked out so that was the end of that. And since Tango was always nuts it was better to just not try at all.

 But last Friday I decided to give it a shot with Tommy, we just walked a bit at first and then I put him on a circle and we did some trotting. He was super good. And as someone that must always push the envelope; I lowered all the jumps to just under a foot (better not try anything too crazy), and we trotted over those! He was soo good, its defiantly nice to have a horse to ride bareback with again.

 In our lesson this week we jumped a course with the highest jumps at about 2'9"! Higher than what I'd been doing with Diesel and he's a much bigger horse than Tommy!

 So this Friday all the jumps were still up so I again just lowered them all, and we did our warm up and then went bareback to do a bit more work and cool down. He did really well over almost all of them, which is saying a lot because he has little respect for small jumps. But after one, he got in a couple canter strides before I brought him down to a walk. And I was kind of like "oh...that was fun...and not insane". (his usual canter is really really quick). So I just had to push the envelope again and we went back over the jumps and this time I asked him for a bit of  a canter after we landed which he did!!! Such an awesome ride! Also another good thing he listened, all be it, reluctantly to come back to a trot and then a walk! So, so proud of him!

So much to say...

Tommy did really well towards the end of the lesson today. He loves to take of long to jumps and at 2'3" its not that much of a problem, but he's lazy and not using his back end so we're trying to get him to take off closer to the jump. And by then end he did super well over a course of six jumps so I'm proud of him.

My nose stud go ripped out of my face today. Yeah, we had a chem lab and the goggles slid down my nose and when I took them off, I just pulled them straight off my face and the edge caught under neath the stud and pulled it right out. Didn't hurt surprisingly and luck me (literally!) my chem partner who used to have hers done and a couple left over in her pencil case. Don't worry (as I'm sure you are =P) they were clean and sterile and what not, so I've got that in now. Going to the mall with my besty tomorrow so probably going to pick up a couple new packs then if they aren't to much.
 Also have to see how much some cheap extensions are so that I can get dyeing my hair! Well technically someone elses...well no, because its synthetic hair...whatever. So I'm still unsure about which colors I want to start with because its $25 for 2 tubs of dye and I still need some new permanent black stuff, but I think I'll what to do that until a week or some before I go on holidays. Only 39 sleeps left! Which means I need to get my ass in gear for working out! Everyday after school god damn it! and NO junk food!!

And last thing for tonight, my bio partner is insane...actually now that I think about that could be really long...so yeah, he's nuts and I'm going to bed =D