This morning there were four wee ones and Split Ear.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Are you feeling neglected?
Its been a busy couple of weeks. Let's go back in time:
A couple of weeks ago was a local show and OOTT was in town as well. Flat lesson Friday, show Saturday, jumping lesson Sunday. Good thing my horse is ridiculously fit.
The show was good. We jumped all the things! I did Pile of Poles and X-Rails at an absolutely glacial trot pace. Sure, I was in theory showing, but I could have given a crap about the judge's assessment. The whole time all I thought about was, "Look up, sit up, look up, sit up." So, when Naners was thinking about not jumping a scary jump with flowers I looked up and kicked on. And, she went over it. We placed decently: 2nd of two in Pile of Poles Hunter, 1st of one in Pile of Poles Eq, 5th of 7 in WTC Hunter Under Saddle, 3rd of five in WTC Eq on the flat, 4th of 5 in Cross Rails Hunter, 1st of four in Cross Rails Eq. As you can probably tell, we did much better in Eq than Hunters, so I guess my Eq isn't as bad as I thought it had become. The cool thing is I won every color ribbon but green. As the Keeper of the Ribbons I have to decide if I want the dark ones or the light ones:
(God I love ordering ribbons. It's one of my favorite perks of my volunteer job. And no one else wants to do it anyway. And since we're almost out of blue ribbons again I get to order more!)
With a looming due date as soon as the show was over I was in essay writing mode. This time I got to talk about some type of equine training device or technique. I went with head restraint devices and techniques. Long story short? It's a short cut, horses find bit pressure aversive, and they don't actually learn from them anyway (there has to be a release of pressure (reward) when the horse is doing it right. Most of them don't allow a release of pressure.) When I was about 48 hours out from due time I was really slogging, but for some reason I turned on itunes and my inappropriate songs playlist. Inappropriate for who you ask? Probably just small children and religious people. They were not in my going to an event playlist for awhile as a tween girl was with us, but now that she's in High School I figure she's hearing worse. Anyway...
Pam's Inappropriate Songs Playlist
The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang
I Touch Myself by the Divinyls
The Clap and Inside of You by Infant Sorrow
I Think I Farted by Taryn Southern
Big Bottom by Spinal Tap
If you want to really laugh, go watch the Taryn Southern Video. No, wait, I'll embed it.
I also highly recommend her song Where Is My Goat? as well.
Another fun thing from my paper was discovering that Horse and Rider magazine is full of advice that has nothing to do with equine learning theory. The more I learn about learning theory the more I think every horse person I know should take a class in it. Oh are so many people getting it so wrong. Because seriously, "pull up on your horse's mouth to bring up the shoulders to get him on the bit." So contrary to everything dressage teaches, though I'm also learning dressage doesn't have it quite right either. Equitation Science is pretty cool though. There may very well be a day that cameras will be scoring dressage tests. Imagine it: a camera that will be able to say, "oh hey, that horse is so many degrees behind the vertical, so it should get this score because of that." Anyway, more on Equitation Science at the ISES website
On top of all this, we got a new puppy. When she was surrendered the owners said she was a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix. there is no GSD in this dog. However, we think it's very likely she could be a Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever mix. She's almost 8 months old and was surrendered because she was "chewing on things." An activity that puppies like to do and if you don't give them appropriate chewing articles they'll find things. She's totally getting that toys and chewy bones are for chewing, shoes are not. She's mostly a pretty good girl and has been a nice addition to the family.
A couple of weeks ago was a local show and OOTT was in town as well. Flat lesson Friday, show Saturday, jumping lesson Sunday. Good thing my horse is ridiculously fit.
The show was good. We jumped all the things! I did Pile of Poles and X-Rails at an absolutely glacial trot pace. Sure, I was in theory showing, but I could have given a crap about the judge's assessment. The whole time all I thought about was, "Look up, sit up, look up, sit up." So, when Naners was thinking about not jumping a scary jump with flowers I looked up and kicked on. And, she went over it. We placed decently: 2nd of two in Pile of Poles Hunter, 1st of one in Pile of Poles Eq, 5th of 7 in WTC Hunter Under Saddle, 3rd of five in WTC Eq on the flat, 4th of 5 in Cross Rails Hunter, 1st of four in Cross Rails Eq. As you can probably tell, we did much better in Eq than Hunters, so I guess my Eq isn't as bad as I thought it had become. The cool thing is I won every color ribbon but green. As the Keeper of the Ribbons I have to decide if I want the dark ones or the light ones:
(God I love ordering ribbons. It's one of my favorite perks of my volunteer job. And no one else wants to do it anyway. And since we're almost out of blue ribbons again I get to order more!)
With a looming due date as soon as the show was over I was in essay writing mode. This time I got to talk about some type of equine training device or technique. I went with head restraint devices and techniques. Long story short? It's a short cut, horses find bit pressure aversive, and they don't actually learn from them anyway (there has to be a release of pressure (reward) when the horse is doing it right. Most of them don't allow a release of pressure.) When I was about 48 hours out from due time I was really slogging, but for some reason I turned on itunes and my inappropriate songs playlist. Inappropriate for who you ask? Probably just small children and religious people. They were not in my going to an event playlist for awhile as a tween girl was with us, but now that she's in High School I figure she's hearing worse. Anyway...
Pam's Inappropriate Songs Playlist
The Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang
I Touch Myself by the Divinyls
The Clap and Inside of You by Infant Sorrow
I Think I Farted by Taryn Southern
Big Bottom by Spinal Tap
If you want to really laugh, go watch the Taryn Southern Video. No, wait, I'll embed it.
I also highly recommend her song Where Is My Goat? as well.
Another fun thing from my paper was discovering that Horse and Rider magazine is full of advice that has nothing to do with equine learning theory. The more I learn about learning theory the more I think every horse person I know should take a class in it. Oh are so many people getting it so wrong. Because seriously, "pull up on your horse's mouth to bring up the shoulders to get him on the bit." So contrary to everything dressage teaches, though I'm also learning dressage doesn't have it quite right either. Equitation Science is pretty cool though. There may very well be a day that cameras will be scoring dressage tests. Imagine it: a camera that will be able to say, "oh hey, that horse is so many degrees behind the vertical, so it should get this score because of that." Anyway, more on Equitation Science at the ISES website
On top of all this, we got a new puppy. When she was surrendered the owners said she was a Golden Retriever/German Shepherd mix. there is no GSD in this dog. However, we think it's very likely she could be a Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever mix. She's almost 8 months old and was surrendered because she was "chewing on things." An activity that puppies like to do and if you don't give them appropriate chewing articles they'll find things. She's totally getting that toys and chewy bones are for chewing, shoes are not. She's mostly a pretty good girl and has been a nice addition to the family.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Foxies are back!
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Sunday, May 4, 2014
watermelon part 2
I believe I mentioned yesterday that OOTT has me figured out? This morning she gave me the option to not go out at my time and just go straight to schooling. Upon thought, it made more sense to just school, knowing there was no way I was going to come out of it badly, when things might go badly otherwise.
Schooling was good. We had two refusals, both jumps we've been over before, because I freaking looked at them. That is the problem. I look. If I stop looking down she'll go over the darn jump. You would think it would be an easy thing to fix, alas, as all of you that ride know, it's not so easy sometimes. We schooled the water and I did it a bunch more times than I needed to, but it was so fun and Naners was being fabulous and we finished off cantering through it.
All in all, a good weekend. Disappointed I finished with a letter, not a number, but Naners was so fabulous other than that. She's also almost shed out and as you can see from the following pictures, she's really freaking shiny. She's got good shiny genetics, but this is what you get when you've taken a master's level nutrition course :D
Schooling was good. We had two refusals, both jumps we've been over before, because I freaking looked at them. That is the problem. I look. If I stop looking down she'll go over the darn jump. You would think it would be an easy thing to fix, alas, as all of you that ride know, it's not so easy sometimes. We schooled the water and I did it a bunch more times than I needed to, but it was so fun and Naners was being fabulous and we finished off cantering through it.
All in all, a good weekend. Disappointed I finished with a letter, not a number, but Naners was so fabulous other than that. She's also almost shed out and as you can see from the following pictures, she's really freaking shiny. She's got good shiny genetics, but this is what you get when you've taken a master's level nutrition course :D
 |
| I think she looks like an akhal teke here (and no, her ribs aren't really that visible. Something about the pose) |
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Watermelon... another letter finish
Getting OOTT (out of town trainer) to help me this weekend was probably the smartest decision I've made in a long while. One of the reasons I'd been hesitant is she can be extremely demanding and I just can't take that sometimes. Fortunately, turns out she is one of those people that can change her coaching technique depending on who she's coaching. So, for me it's a lot of, "take a breath, pat your horse, take a breath, slow down half a mile an hour, take a breath..." you get the picture. I was pleasantly surprised that she had me figured out and treated me just how I needed to be. As a result Naners and I were able to get straightened out before our stadium schooling round on Friday and it was an absolutely lovely round. We were slowish, I'd half halt ten strides out, again at fourish and then she was quiet enough I could let her do her job. OOTT has us figured out.
We had a nice dressage session Friday afternoon where we got us put back together and it translated into a lovely dressage test Sat afternoon. It was calm. No rockets. Not our best test at a 38.2, which put us in 2nd, but I was very pleased.
By the time stadium came around it was Hot out. 85. It snowed at our house just a week ago. Fortunately, jackets were waived. Not a ton of warming up, because we didn't need to. She jumped everything in warm-up like she had the day before. We get into the arena and she jumped big over fence #1, fence #2 went nice, fence #3... stop. It was a scary bumblebee lattice. Stop. Stop. We're out. They let us try it again, no go, so we trotted an x-rail on our way out. Then of course I cried a bit. OOTT asked me what I did wrong and I knew I was totally looking down. She reminded me it wasn't the end of the world and I went to ask about going out on XC and they said yes, though the TD was a bit concerned, but I'm not. Arenas aren't something we're in a lot. An XC course is just a fast trail ride and we've schooled most of the jumps, even if they have moved them around. If it does not go well OOTT is going to school us before we head back home.
We had a nice dressage session Friday afternoon where we got us put back together and it translated into a lovely dressage test Sat afternoon. It was calm. No rockets. Not our best test at a 38.2, which put us in 2nd, but I was very pleased.
By the time stadium came around it was Hot out. 85. It snowed at our house just a week ago. Fortunately, jackets were waived. Not a ton of warming up, because we didn't need to. She jumped everything in warm-up like she had the day before. We get into the arena and she jumped big over fence #1, fence #2 went nice, fence #3... stop. It was a scary bumblebee lattice. Stop. Stop. We're out. They let us try it again, no go, so we trotted an x-rail on our way out. Then of course I cried a bit. OOTT asked me what I did wrong and I knew I was totally looking down. She reminded me it wasn't the end of the world and I went to ask about going out on XC and they said yes, though the TD was a bit concerned, but I'm not. Arenas aren't something we're in a lot. An XC course is just a fast trail ride and we've schooled most of the jumps, even if they have moved them around. If it does not go well OOTT is going to school us before we head back home.
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